Sam’s Journal of Survival

Saturday Morning

013126. This journal is fiction. The voice you’re reading is a character, not the author.

Saturday Morning

It is Saturday now.

Two nights have passed since the alarm went off.

I did not write about it right away because I needed time to feel what it actually meant, not just what happened.

Thursday night could have undone me once. A year ago, it would have. I would have panicked. I would have frozen or spiraled or tried to run. I would not have trusted myself.

But I didn’t panic.

I followed the plan. Step by step. No hesitation.

I knew where to go. I knew what to take with me. I knew how to stay in place and wait. I stayed on the phone. I listened. I breathed. I held.

What matters most to me now is this: I knew that if it had been him, I was prepared.

That thought does not scare me. It steadies me.

I was defended. I was not helpless. I was not waiting for someone else to save me.

I was relying on myself.

That is new.

It does not mean I want violence. It does not mean I am looking for confrontation. It means that the balance has shifted. The fear is no longer the only thing in the room.

I trusted my body that night. And my body trusted me back.

I cannot overstate what that feels like.

Afterward, when everything was quiet again, my hands shook. That was normal. I let it pass. I did not judge it. I did not unravel.

I slept.

That matters too.

Thursday night did not take anything from me.

It gave something back.

A sense that I am capable. That I can act. That I am not frozen in the past.

I am still careful. I am still alert.

But now I know this: if I ever have to protect myself, I can.

And tonight that feels like enough.