Victory, Amara realized, didn’t feel the way people imagined.

It wasn’t loud.

It didn’t arrive wrapped in celebration.

It didn’t erase the exhaustion in your bones.

It was quiet.

Almost anticlimactic.

The headlines had shifted by evening.

Where accusations had once lived, corrections now stood.

Not all of them.

Not perfectly.

But enough.

Enough to stop the bleeding.

Not enough to erase the wound.

Amara stood by her window as dusk settled over the city, phone resting untouched on the table behind her.

She hadn’t watched the news again.

Hadn’t reread the updates.

Hadn’t allowed herself to fall into the spiral of public validation.

Because something inside her knew a...