But I told him I still love him.”
“Both of those are honest answers,” Gretchen said.
At the end of summer, she found the old screenshot on her phone — Has she signed everything yet? — and it no longer sent any chill through her.
She felt only a quiet sadness for the woman she used to be, the one who kept mistaking blind trust for duty and made herself small to keep the peace.
She looked at it once more and deleted it — not because Joshua deserved to be forgotten, but because keeping proof of the damage was just another way of living her life around him.
Months earlier, she’d believed her victory would be watching him lose his money, his standing, his mistress.
She knew better now.
That wasn’t justice.
Justice was eating breakfast without fear.
It was hearing her daughter laugh in the next room.