The Walk Toward My Own Life
When the hearing adjourned, sunlight filtered through the courthouse windows with a kind of quiet grace I hadn’t felt in years. I stepped outside with my attorney trailing behind me, her voice offering congratulations, but my mind was somewhere else entirely.
I had walked through fire, and somehow come out stronger.
“Grace—wait!”
Daniel.
I turned just enough to look at him. His confidence was gone, replaced by the frantic stiffness of a man who realized he had gambled everything and lost more than he expected.
“Maybe we should settle things privately,” he pleaded. “This… spectacle wasn’t necessary.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You lied under oath. You hid money. You built a new life behind my back while pretending our marriage still mattered. And you think this was just a spectacle?”
He swallowed hard. “I don’t want my reputation destroyed.”
“That isn’t my concern,” I said.
Lana stood a few steps behind him, mascara streaked down her cheeks. She looked at me as though I had stolen something from her, when in truth, Daniel had undone his own plans long before we ever stepped into court.
I gave her a small, steady smile. “Your family name tore itself down.”
And then I walked away, letting the sunlight settle over me like a warm reminder that life—real life—was waiting outside the shadow of everything they had tried to take from me.
