So she filed me, early and permanently, under harmless. What she never understood is that there is a completely different kind of strength, one that her whole worldview had no category for, and it is the strength of the person who does not need you to know how strong they are.

The investigator’s strength.

The strength that does not announce itself, because announcing itself would be tactically foolish — because the entire advantage lies in the other person’s continuing to believe you are weak.

Every year Wendy spent telling her friends I was too soft to survive without her was a year I was, without lifting a finger, holding onto the single most valuable asset I had against her: her total, confident underestimation of me.

She believed she was describing my weakness.

She was describing the trap she was standing in.