Completely, fundamentally wrong.

Because I understood now, sitting in the spring sun in the home I had reclaimed, that true strength had never been about enduring mistreatment for the sake of preserving an image.

That was not strength at all; that was only fear, dressed up as loyalty.

Real strength, I had learned, in a single weekend, was something entirely different.

It was the courage to see a structure clearly, to recognize that it was built on lies, and to tear the whole thing down, without apology and without hesitation, the very moment the truth of it became undeniable.

I had spent two years being strong in the wrong way, the way that kept me small.