Some wounds take longer because they are not singular. They accumulate in small repetitions — a quiet sigh, a water glass lifted at the wrong moment, a sentence that translates to: your pain is inconvenient for me right now. Forgiving a single injury was different from forgiving a pattern. The pattern required time and evidence.
“What happens now?” Leah asked.
Denise let out a long, unsteady breath. “I don’t know yet. But I left his house this morning.”
That surprised Leah more than anything.
In the weeks that followed, the ending arrived quietly, which was what made it feel real rather than constructed.