Chapter 7 - The Architecture of Joy
True healing doesn't happen when the bad people are punished; it happens when you realize you haven't thought about them in weeks.
By the third year in Savannah, the names Deborah and Jessica Monroe felt like characters from a book I had read a long time ago. They were locked away in a prison in Ohio, still trapped in their own bitter cycles of blame, while I was hosting an exhibition opening at the Savannah Contemporary Art Museum.
The gallery was packed with people. The walls were lined with my latest series, titled The Geography of Fresh Air. The centerpiece was a massive, three-panel digital canvas depicting a brilliant, explosive sunrise breaking through a fractured, dark silhouette. It was powerful, triumphant, and entirely devoid of victimhood.
"It’s breathtaking," a voice said behind me.
I turned to see an older woman with kind eyes staring up at the canvas. She turned to me and smiled. "You can feel the freedom in the brushstrokes. It feels like someone finally catching their breath."
"Thank you," I said, smiling warmly. "That’s exactly what it is."
Later that night, after the crowds had cleared and the gallery lights were dimmed, Maya and I walked down to the riverfront. The moon was a bright silver crescent reflecting over the dark water of the Savannah River, casting long, peaceful ripples across the surface.
We walked in silence for a while, the warm southern breeze rustling the Spanish moss above us.
"Look at you," Maya said, nudging my shoulder with hers. "The quiet girl from the advanced art class who ruined photos by not smiling hard enough."
"I was just saving up my smiles for when they actually meant something," I joked, looking out over the water.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small, heavy object. It was the old, melted plastic casing of the Walmart burner phone I had kept in my studio drawer for years as a reminder of the night I chose to live.
I looked at it for a long moment, feeling the weight of the girl I used to be—the girl who hid in pieces, the girl who swallowed pills to be less exhausting, the girl who screamed against a locked door. She had done her job. She had kept me alive. But I didn't need to carry her survival tools anymore.
May you like
With a swift, fluid motion, I tossed the melted phone out into the dark river. It cut through the water with a clean, quiet plop, sinking down into the mud below, gone forever.
I turned back to Maya, wrapping my arm through hers as we started the walk back toward my brightly lit cottage, where the windows were always open, the doors were always safe, and the air was completely, beautifully clear.
