Money is the tool those women need, and we provide it, because financial dependence is the chain that keeps so many of them where they are.

But the thing I actually want to give them is the thing no one could give me until I fought my way to it alone: the knowledge, deep enough to stand on, that their worth was never the wronged party’s to assess.

Damon did not have the authority to declare me broken.

Priscilla did not have the standing to measure me and find me short.

I gave them that authority, for five years, by accepting their verdict as fact — and the single most important thing I did in this whole story was not filing the fraud complaint or reclaiming the trust.