Eventually, I stopped reading them.
For years, I had believed that being a good person meant giving everyone another chance.
Now I understood that compassion did not require me to reopen a door I had closed for my own safety.
I didn’t need Patricia’s approval.
And I didn’t need Derek’s apology to move forward.
But the most important change in my life came several months later.
I was sitting with Lily and Grace in a small café when Grace mentioned a woman she had recently met through a community organization.
The woman had escaped a financially controlling relationship.
Her former partner had taken her identity documents, restricted her access to savings, and threatened her whenever she tried to leave.
She had two young children.
And nowhere safe to go.
As Grace told us the story, I felt a familiar heaviness in my chest.
I kept thinking about the morning I’d escaped my apartment.
