CHAPTER 38
Silence used to scare me. Now, I wear it like armor.
After everything I’ve learned—after Ebube, after the messages, after all the lies cracked open like rotting fruit—I understand now. They were never protecting me. They were preserving their stories. Their image. Their illusion of power over me.
But I’ve changed.
And the quiet? It no longer means surrender. It means control.
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It had been days since I confronted Steph and Daniel. Since I found out about the group chat. Since I saw Chen and Tina together, again, and didn’t say a word. I hadn’t spoken to any of them since then. Not one message. Not a call answered. Not a single word wasted.
I was done explaining myself to people who had already decided who I was allowed to be.
I woke up that morning with a sense of clarit
