Chapter 10 - The Road Home
By 3:30 p.m. that afternoon, Ethan and I walked out of the heavy glass doors of the Franklin County courthouse and down the limestone steps into the bright autumn afternoon.
The air was crisp, smelling of fallen leaves and the distant promise of winter.
Marilyn was nowhere in sight. Her high-priced lawyer had rushed her out through a side exit, avoiding the media and escaping the humiliation of walking past us on the front steps. She had been processed, booked, and released on probation terms, her pristine reputation in Dublin shattered beyond repair.
Ethan stopped at the bottom of the steps, turned to me, and wrapped both arms around my waist, pulling me close against his chest.
“It’s over,” he whispered, resting his chin on top of my head.
“It’s over,” I agreed, closing my eyes and breathing in the cool air.
As we walked toward our car parked three blocks away, I reached up with one hand and lightly touched the short, sharp inverted bob framing my face. It felt light. It felt clean. It felt entirely mine.
We had lost a lot over the past month—family illusions, holiday dinners, and twenty-five years of braided hair that could never truly be glued back together. But as Ethan opened the passenger door for me and smiled—a real, unburdened smile that reached all the way to his eyes—I knew something essential had taken its place.
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We hadn't just survived Marilyn’s attempt to break us. We had built something stronger out of the wreckage.
And as we drove away from downtown Columbus, heading back to our apartment where the water ran clean and the locks only opened from the inside, I knew that whatever came next, nobody would ever trap me in a room again.
