Page 70 of Logan
But then I lift my head. I meet their eyes, one by one, every gaze steady and strong. And I don’t see pity. I don’tsee judgment. I see fire. I see power reflected back at me like mirrors, reminding me that broken does not mean beaten.
I take a breath, slow and deep, and speak.
“What happened to me could’ve killed me,” I begin, my voice clear, steadier than I expected. “It almost did. Not just my body, but my trust. My spirit. My sense of safety. My sense of self.”
The room stays silent. Listening. Holding space. Even the air seems to pause, waiting.
“A man tried to take something from me. Not just control. Not just my body. He tried to take my voice.”
I stop, letting the weight of that truth settle. It lands in the silence like a stone in water, sending ripples I can almost feel across the circle.
“And for a while, he did. I stopped talking. I stopped looking people in the eye. I stopped riding. I stopped living.”
The words scrape my throat raw, but I let them out. I swallow the lump pressing high and tight and push through it.
“But that ends tonight.”
Shaina steps closer, behind me now. I don’t look back, but I feel her presence, solid and unyielding. Hands crossed, chin up like a warrior. Like a sister. Like a shield.
“I’m not here to tell you how to heal. I don’t have all the answers. But I am here to say this…what was done to me doesn’t define me. My choice to keep standing does.”
A murmur of agreement ripples through the circle. Not loud, not wild, but reverent, like the rumble of thunder rolling low across the horizon.
“I’m Logan’s old lady, yeah. But before that, I was Mac. I fought for everything I have. And no man, no trauma, no fear gets to take that from me.”
Someone claps. Then another. Then all of them.
Not wild cheers. Not drunken hoots. But the kind of applause that carries weight. The kind that means something. That says: We see you. We believe you. You are one of us.
I feel it like fire in my chest, spreading warmth through the cracks I thought would never close.
When it quiets, another woman steps forward. Wren, a quiet widow from another chapter, her eyes lined with both sorrow and strength. She clears her throat, and her voice shakes but holds. “What you said… it gives the rest of us permission. To stop hiding. To start healing.”
The words strike me deeper than I expect. Permission. That’s what I have been fighting for without realizing it. Not just for me, but for every woman who carries a scar in silence.
I nod, my heart so full it aches. “I’m not healed,” I admit, voice rough. “Not completely. But I’m healing. And I’m not doing it alone.”
I look around the room, at these women who have stood through wars, who have buried husbands, who have raised children while carrying their own bruises. Fighters. Lovers. Survivors. Queens.
“No one else gets to write our stories.”
And tonight, in this room, surrounded by fire-forged sisters, I finally feel whole again.
Not because I went back to who I was before. That version of me is gone.
But because I chose to become who I am now.
Stronger. Louder.
Free.
Chapter Thirty
Logan
Out of the darkness and into the sun
But I won't forget all the ones that I love
