The call showed who they still were.

Chapter 14 — Six Months

My recovery took six months.

The scars tightened as they healed — across my cheek, my neck, my shoulder, my arm, my left side — and there were days the tightening felt like being burned all over again, slowly.

But I had good therapists, and they taught me something my body needed even more than it needed to heal, which was to lift my chin instead of lowering it.

To stop hiding.