I did not lack the power to destroy my family’s lie.

I had held that power, in a locked box, since I was eighteen years old, scarred and terrified and fresh out of the hospital.

I chose, over and over, not to use it, because I believed that exposing the truth would destroy my sister’s future, and I would not bring myself to do that to her, no matter what she had done to me.

For twelve years I extended my sister a mercy she never knew she was receiving.