All those years of post-violence recovery came rushing to her rescue now, all those times that he’d left her a battered mess on the floor had taught her how to get right up and get back to normal. Or whatever she’d convinced herself that ‘normal’ was while living with a deranged, gaslighting animal who had a human form.
Numb, knowing that feeling anything was a huge and tragic mistake, Jo got to her knees, then to her feet. She swayed, grabbed the desk for balance. She blinked, then slowly started to put herself back together, murmuring in a reassuring tone as she did:
“It’s OK, you’re OK, you’ve got this. You’ve done this a thousand times before, and you remember what to do now, right? Sure you do. First, get dressed again. You can do that, you do it every morning, so just do it again.
