Because screaming would’ve given him what he wanted:
A story where I was emotional, irrational, dramatic.
Instead, I gave him something worse:
A story where I was calm.
Prepared.
And finished.
The real punishment wasn’t the court.
It wasn’t the lost career.
It wasn’t the money.
It was realizing too late that the woman he underestimated was the only person who could’ve saved him.
And she chose not to.
Because that night didn’t break my heart.
It gave me my eyes back.
And that was the beginning of everything.
I didn’t go back to the bedroom after Javier and the attorney left.
I didn’t need to.
The image was already burned into me, and I refused to give it more space in my life than it had already stolen.
That night, I checked into a hotel five minutes away—close enough to handle what needed handling, far enough to breathe without hearing Adrian’s voice in the walls.
I stared at the ceiling for a long time, waiting for the tears to come.
They didn’t.
Not because I wasn’t hurt.