For almost eight months, I’d thought winning meant keeping the house. Or getting the right number on the settlement. Or making the judge see who Brian really was.
I’d lie awake at night running numbers in my head. Making lists. Planning what I’d say if he said this, or if his lawyer did that. Every hearing felt like a war, and every war felt like it would decide whether I was going to be okay.
I was wrong.
I got the house. I got the number. The judge saw exactly who Brian was.
And none of that was the part that mattered.
Brian had broken something I loved because he wanted to hurt me one last time. He’d thought about it. He’d planned it. He’d tried to use my own father to do it, and when that didn’t work, he’d done it with his own hands.
