My father smirked across the courtroom and said, “You don’t even have the money to hire a lawyer,” loud enough for strangers to laugh, and I stood there alone in uniform with no counsel beside me while his expensive attorney flipped through his folder like the case was already over, but the second the judge looked at me, paused, and said, “For the record, she won’t be needing one,” the entire room changed

“We don’t do that,” he said.

“Do what?” I asked.

“Run off and join something that puts you in the spotlight for the wrong reasons,” he replied. “People will talk.”

He wasn’t worried that I might get hurt; he was only worried that he would have to explain my choices to his friends.

“I’m not doing this for other people,” I said.

“That,” he replied, “is exactly the problem with you.”

We didn’t yell because Garrison arguments were always quieter and more precise, like small cuts instead of heavy blows. He told me I was choosing a reckless life for attention, and that belief stayed with me for years because it was how he translated everything I did.

The day I left for training, he didn’t show up at the airport.

My mother stood in the terminal wearing a green jacket with deep pockets where she could hide her shaking hands.

“You can still change your mind, Samantha,” she whispered.

“I won’t,” I said, smiling so she wouldn’t cry before I boarded.

Training was physically exhausting, but the hardest part was the quiet moments between drills when the mind was left alone. I wrote letters to him that I never sent, telling him I made it through and wishing he had asked me why I left.