Huda noticed my expression.
“You don’t have to feel happy tonight,” she said. “You have been carrying too much for too long.”
I leaned back and closed my eyes.
“What happens now?”
“Now we keep you and Lina safe. We let the professionals handle the evidence. And we take things one step at a time.”
I nodded.
For months, I had imagined freedom as a single moment: a door closing behind me, a suitcase in my hand, and the certainty that I would never be afraid again.
I was beginning to understand that freedom was not one moment.
It was a process.
It was making decisions without asking permission from the person who frightened you. It was being able to tell the truth without immediately apologizing. It was learning that a difficult future could still be better than a familiar fear.
And it was accepting that the consequences of someone else’s violence were not my fault to repair.
