Chapter 6: The Apex Protector
I stood in my glass-walled office overlooking the bustling gym floor, holding the cheap, lined paper visible through the thin, heavily inspected envelope.
The return address belonged to a federal women’s penitentiary in Aliceville, Alabama. The handwriting, jagged and frantic, was unmistakably Evelyn’s.
I stared at it resting on my pristine mahogany desk. It was undoubtedly a sprawling, desperate manifesto. It was a pathetic attempt to invoke the memory of a daughter-in-law who no longer existed, likely begging for a financial bailout to pay for frivolous legal appeals, or perhaps groveling for commissary funds to make her concrete cell slightly more bearable for her and her son.
A year ago, the mere sight of her name might have elicited a sharp spike of anger, a phantom echo of the betrayal, or a desire to read her words just to revel in her misery.
Today, looking at it, I felt absolutely nothing. It was just a minor administrative annoyance, a piece of trash cluttering my clean workspace.
I didn’t open the flap. I didn’t read a single word she had written. To read her words would be to acknowledge her existence, to grant her a sliver of the power she so desperately craved.
I picked up the envelope, walked over to the heavy-duty industrial cross-cut shredder beside my desk, and dropped it into the slot. I listened to the satisfying, mechanical whine of the steel blades as her words, her excuses, her apologies, and her entire existence were sliced into thousands of meaningless pieces of confetti.
The trauma bond was permanently, unequivocally severed.
Three years later, I stood in the center ring of my flagship academy. The bleachers were packed with strong, confident women cheering. The walls surrounding us were lined with my national championship belts, alongside corporate awards for philanthropic excellence.