I didn’t know you could feel your life tilt in a single moment, but that’s what happened when I read her words. All those years I’d spent thinking I was alone, thinking she’d left me with a man who barely tolerated me, cracked open. My mom had seen him clearly. She’d planned for the day I might need proof that my fear wasn’t imagined, that his charm was a mask, that my memories were real.
Nadine and Corbin never tried to rewrite what happened. They let me say it out loud—how the house felt like walking on glass, how my clothes, my music, even my voice became “problems” to be fixed or hidden. The officer’s question kept echoing in my head: “Do you want to leave that house today?” I hadn’t realized how powerful wanting something could be. My mom’s letter didn’t just expose Dale. It handed me permission to choose a different ending—and to believe I deserved one.
