I Survived Long Enough to Speak

Sigrid has twice asked permission to contact me; I have twice declined.

The house was never really what they wanted most.

What they wanted was proof that enough pain could make me surrender it — surrender myself.

Walking out of that courthouse, with the sun touching every scar I had once hidden, I understood the thing they would spend their years inside learning: that surviving me was never going to be their victory.

It was only ever going to be mine.

THE END.