Go home.
Drive until sunset.
For the first time in nearly a decade, the uncertainty ahead of her did not feel terrifying.
It felt like possibility.
Joan lowered the window.
Cold morning air rushed through the vehicle.
She smiled.
Not because the past was gone.
It never would be.
Nine years had happened.
Greg had taken them.
No courtroom could return them.
No inspirational phrase could make them meaningless.
But Greg had made one mistake.
He had believed that because he controlled nine years of Joan’s life, he owned the rest of it too.
He didn’t.
That morning, Joan drove with no destination entered into the navigation system.
Eventually a mechanical voice asked her to select a route.
Joan reached over.
Turned it off.
Then she kept driving toward the bright horizon with both hands steady on the wheel.
For nine years, someone else had decided where Joan was allowed to go.
Now the road belonged to her again. ❤️
