Almost without thinking, I picked up my phone and opened Instagram.
I wrote everything. I wrote about the cesarean. About being told to leave. About Evan needing my room for his live streams. About the mattress on the floor. About being told to stop exaggerating.
I hesitated before uploading a photo of my swollen abdomen, the hospital gown pulled slightly aside so the outline of the staples was visible. Then I remembered Evan’s voice during his broadcasts, mocking women who complained, laughing at mothers who struggled, telling his audience to stop whining.
I pressed publish.
That night I slept in fragments, waking repeatedly to feed Aaron and to the constant vibration of my phone against the mattress. By morning, the screen was flooded.
Thousands of messages. Thousands of reactions.
Women I had never met wrote to me from across the country. Mothers. Daughters. Nurses. Social workers. Some offered diapers and formula. Others offered legal help. One woman, Karen Miles, messaged me to say she worked at a support center for postpartum women and asked if I was safe.
An influencer shared my story. Then another. Then another.