Lahat ng Kabanata ng Shattered promises: Kabanata 11 - Kabanata 14

The city looked different when you weren’t afraid of it.That was the first thing Alina noticed.The same skyline that once felt cold and unreachable now shimmered with something she hadn’t felt in years — possibility.It had been six months since the verdict. Nathan Clarke’s name had vanished from the news, replaced by new scandals, new stories. But for Alina, the silence he left behind was louder than any headline.She rented a small apartment above a bookstore near the water. The floors creaked, the pipes rattled, and the windows fogged in the morning — but it was hers. Her space. Her air.Some nights she still woke up expecting footsteps outside the door. Old instincts, Elise called them — the body remembering what the mind had already let go of. But those nights were fewer now.And when the fear came, Alina had something she never used to: people who understood.The support group met every Thursday in the basement of a community center. The first time she walked in, she almost tu

Fame was never what Alina wanted.But it came quietly, like a tide — steady, unstoppable.Her book, What Remains After, had grown beyond anything she imagined. It was being read in universities, passed around in book clubs, quoted in podcasts and classrooms. Her inbox overflowed with invitations to speak, collaborate, consult.Some nights, when she opened her laptop, she’d see her own words shared by strangers online, wrapped in praise she didn’t know how to accept.Elise had warned her.“Recognition feels good,” she’d said. “But it can also feel heavy. Don’t let it pull you away from what grounded you.”At the time, Alina had nodded. Now, months later, she understood exactly what she’d meant.The morning began like most — coffee, sunlight, a stack of unread emails. But this one was different.A message from a women’s advocacy foundation blinked at the top of her inbox:We’d like to invite you to lead our new mentorship program for survivors across the country.Alina stared at the scr