He did not account for the fact that the woman he left standing alone on that street had already, somewhere beneath all the exhaustion and the fear and the careful quiet survival, decided that she was worth more than this. Had decided it before she could fully act on it. Had been deciding it slowly for a long time.
He left. And I stayed on that sidewalk. And then I walked toward what was coming next, one step at a time, with a stranger’s hand holding mine until help arrived.
That turned out to be enough to begin with. And beginning was all I needed.
