Rebuilding doesn’t announce itself.
There’s no moment where I wake up and feel healed. No clear line where broken ends and whole begins. It doesn’t come with certainty or celebration. It happens quietly, in choices that feel small at the time. Showing up when it would be easier not to. Sitting through discomfort without trying to outrun it. Letting the day pass without bracing for impact.
I start therapy again three weeks after Ellis is taken away.
This time, I don’t go because I’m unraveling.
I go because I don’t want to.
That feels important. It feels like a choice instead of a reaction. Like something I am doing for myself rather than something I am surviving.
Damian drives me the first few times, even though I tell him I can manage. He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t insist. He just co
