Everyone who had once spat at me or looked at me with contempt lowered their heads in silence.
Leon's wife sat among them, her expression tense and uneasy. She had been the first to rush forward and attack me, and the one who had hurled the cruelest insults.
After the director finished reading the statement, members of the Commission called her forward.
She stood there for a long time before finally forcing out the words through clenched teeth.
"I'm sorry."
I looked straight at her.
"Do you remember how hard you hit me that day?"
Her face turned pale.
"I was deceived by my husband. I truly believed you... I thought you had really done those things..."
"Does believing a rumor give you the right to hurt someone without ever seeking the truth?"
She had no answer.
I did not slap her
