“I learned how to make scrambled eggs without burning the pan,” he laughed, a bitter, hollow sound. “When you had my face pinned to those floorboards, I thought my life was over.

But it wasn’t until I was completely alone, without my mother pulling my strings, that I understood what I was. I blew it, Alex.”

I looked out at the blizzard raging over Lake Michigan.

“I don’t hate you, Tom.” My voice was steady and unburdened. “Hate is a chain that ties you to the past. Just be better. That’s all I have for you.”

I hung up and deleted his number forever.

I walked out onto the empty tatami. The setting winter sun caught the edge of a massive white cinderblock wall near the entrance. Every woman who finished our six-week survival course got to sign it.

There were hundreds of names. Survivors of stalking. Survivors of abuse. Teenagers learning to walk home without fear. Right in the center, in bold black sharpie, was Jake’s signature — he’d won silver at Nationals and flown out just to sign my wall.

I touched the braided paracord bracelet on my wrist and glanced down at my bare left ring finger.

The silence of the gym wasn’t lonely. It was the sound of absolute, unassailable peace.

I had taken the broken pieces of my past and forged them into a fortress. And nobody was ever going to breach my walls again.

THE END.