Chapter 4
Here is the part that makes people uncomfortable when I tell it.
I do not regret the six weeks.
I do not regret letting them believe they still had a chance, while I quietly built something they could not talk their way out of. I know what that looks like from the outside — a woman who had every justification to leave immediately, choosing instead to stay inside a dangerous situation for six additional weeks in pursuit of something closer to total victory than to immediate safety. I know the standard advice, the advice I would give someone else in my position, is to leave the first night, document later, prioritize safety over strategy.
I did not take that advice.
I am a former national champion. I had assessed, accurately, that I could control the physical risk in that room for six more weeks, the way I had controlled it in the ring for a decade before I ever met Derek. I made a calculated decision that most people are not equipped to make safely, and I am aware that the version of this story where someone without my training tries the same approach does not end the way mine did.
I do not offer this as a model.
I offer it as the truth, because the truth is what actually happened, and I have grown tired of telling a softer version of it for an audience that wants the clean ending where the wronged woman calls the police the same night and walks away untouched and entirely innocent of strategy.
May you like
I was not untouched. I was strategic, and patient, and willing to sit inside something dangerous for six weeks because I wanted to win completely rather than escape quickly.
I think about that decision often. I am not entirely certain it was the right one, even now, even with the outcome I got. I know it worked. I do not know if working is the same thing as being right.
