When I said nothing after my father dismissed my evidence, and simply saved every file instead, that was not weakness; that was strategy.

When I carried my pregnancy in silence, telling no one who Noah’s father was, that was not weakness; that was protection.

My whole life, they had mistaken my quiet for the absence of strength, when in fact my quiet was where all my strength lived, gathering, waiting, biding its time.

My silence had never been weakness at all.

It had simply been the calm before the storm.

And the storm had, at last, arrived.