I could name no such thing.

I was not enduring toward anything.

I was simply giving in, morning after morning, and calling it a virtue so I would not have to call it what it was.

The day I finally saw the difference was the day I stopped being able to do it, because you cannot go on mistaking your surrender for strength once you have seen, clearly, that it was only ever fear.

Chapter 12 — The Contract He Signed

The legal foundation of everything that followed had been laid four years earlier, before we were even married, and Trevor had laid it himself.