We sat through appointments.
We learned that safety is not one big moment.
It is a hundred small ones repeated until your body believes them.
The first time Emily laughed without checking the doorway, I turned away so she would not see me cry.
The first time she left her phone charging in another room, I stood in the kitchen and stared at it like it was a miracle.
The first time someone knocked on the front door and she did not flinch, I knew we were not healed, but we were moving.
I still think about that ER hallway.
The doctor’s arm across the doorway.
Michael’s face when he realized the room was no longer his.
The nurse holding the cracked phone.
Emily’s voice tearing through all those years of silence.
Don’t let him in.
He knows why it hurts.
She was talking about her body that morning.
