Epilogue: The Night She Stood Tall
What I remember is my daughter.
Standing in the center of that gym.
Tears running down her face.
Her orthodontic frame gleaming beneath the lights.
Her back straight.
Her voice steady.
Her truth impossible to ignore.
That was not the prom either of us wanted.
But it was the night Elsie stopped being the girl people felt sorry for.
She stopped hiding behind her hand.
She stopped shrinking under other people’s cruelty.
She stopped letting shame speak louder than her own voice.
And somehow, in the middle of the most humiliating night of her young life, my daughter became the young woman nobody would ever underestimate again.
