It was despair, converted into method.

I did not hide that phone because I was brave enough to fight back; I hid it because I had concluded, coldly and correctly, that I had no other move.

I had understood that my word would never be believed — that Roland had spent three years making sure of it — and so the ordinary avenues of rescue that we tell children to use, tell a teacher, tell a trusted adult, call for help, were all closed to me, poisoned in advance.

When every door that is supposed to be open has been quietly locked, a person does not become brave.