CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
BLAIRE
"You ready for this?" Bennet asks, holding my hand in his.
Last night, in a room with Rosalie, Jenn, Cammy, and Bennet, I released years of footage of Colt abusing me to every news station contact I have.
That first weekend with Bennet three weeks ago was unlike anything I ever thought I’d have. To know it was just the beginning of our life together fills my heart in a way that I’m still trying to convince myself that I deserve.
We decided to wait until the divorce was finalized before we moved forward with releasing anything.
That happened Friday last week, and we spent yesterday with my team making a game plan to get ahead of the storm the footage would cause when it dropped.
They arrived in the morning, and the entire day had passed by the time we were done.
Bennet stayed by my side the entire time. So did Rosalie.
Once I realized who Rosalie was, I kicked myself for not recognizing her sooner.
In my defense, she wasn't home a lot during that period, and I'd only spent a handful of evenings at their place.
She looked at me differently once she understood what I'd been carrying, and I think I looked at her differently too.
I braced myself for pity when I explained why I'd brought everyone together: that it was my image that needed managing now.
What I got instead stopped me completely.
Twenty people rose to their feet and applauded.
They called me brave. There wasn't a drop of pity in the room — just awe, directed at me, and I didn't know what to do with it.
When I looked over at Bennet, he just winked and mouthed, told you so.
I tried not to cry. It was completely pointless.
Bennet took me back to his place afterward.
Even though he'll always be Michael to the part of me that loved him first, I like calling him Bennet.
I loved Michael Bennett for a time, and I'll love Bennet Sullivan for the rest of my life.
This is it for me. I don't care how irrational that sounds after everything — I will never let that man go again.
He cooked dinner. Invited everyone over. And then they all gathered around me while I sat at his kitchen island and sent out the emails one by one, Bennet's hand on my back the entire time.
My phone started going off almost immediately.
I didn't answer a single call.
I drank wine with the love of my life and the people who had become my people in the span of a few weeks, and I laughed until my sides hurt as Rosalie told increasingly embarrassing stories about Bennet's college years that he disputed with diminishing credibility.
Jenn added commentary. Camille took notes, which I think was a joke, but I'm not entirely sure.
At some point Gerald relocated to my lap and stayed there for the rest of the evening like he'd always planned to.
My heart had never once, in my entire existence, felt so content.
So, to answer Bennet's question.
"Yeah." I squeeze his hand before I let go. "I think I am."
He squeezes back. I open the doors and step outside the Sullivan & Associates building into the morning air and walk to the podium.
I take a breath and look out at the field of reporters and cameras and the particular organized chaos of a press conference that people have been waiting for since the footage dropped last night.
And then my breath hitches.
My parents are in the crowd. Standing toward the back with tears running down both their faces, my mother's hand pressed to her mouth, my father looking at me the way he used to when I was small, and he was proud of something I'd done.
I haven't spoken to them since I had Cammy change my number.
I look back at Bennet. He reads my face in the way he always reads my face now, completely, and nods. "You got this, baby. Do you need me?"
I shake my head.
He gives me a nod that means everything.
I turn back to the podium and resettle my nerves and lean into the microphone.
"Thank you all for being here. I imagine you have a great number of questions, and I'll start taking interviews in the coming weeks. I'll also release a full written statement this evening." I pause. "But today, I'll just speak."
I had a speech prepared. I look down at it and then I set it aside and look out at the crowd instead.
I expected noise — people talking over each other, questions before I've said a word, the aggressive energy of a press conference on a story this size.
What I get instead is silence. Complete, held, deliberate silence. A field of people giving me the floor.
It speaks louder than anything they could say.
"My name is Blaire Alexander." The name lands differently out loud than it has in years — mine again, fully mine, no Monroe attached to it.
"I am a survivor of domestic abuse. The footage released last night encompasses the last five years of my life, but the abuse began much earlier than that.
It has taken me a long time to stop feeling like a victim.
To stop believing that staying quiet was the same thing as surviving.
" I look out at the crowd. At my parents in the back.
At Bennet in the doorway behind me. "I'm making this decision today because if my story saves one woman's life — if it gives one person the permission they've been waiting for to walk away — then every hard thing I've carried to get here was worth it. "
The silence holds, and I let it hold for one more breath before I continue.
"I want to be clear about something, because I know the narrative that's been running.
You've seen the interviews. You've read the headlines.
You've watched a man perform grief for a city that believed him, and I understand why they did — because I spent ten years helping him craft that performance.
I was very good at my job." A small, sad smile. "Too good, as it turns out."
A few cameras shift. Nobody speaks.
"Colt Monroe is a charming man. He has always been a charming man.
That charm is not incompatible with what you saw in that footage — in fact, it depends on it.
Abuse doesn't announce itself. It doesn't come with warning labels or obvious signs.
It comes disguised as love and protection, and I only do this because I care about you and you made me do this and who would believe you, anyway.
" I pause. "He was right about that last one… for a very long time."
I look at my parents in the back of the crowd. My mother has both hands over her mouth now. My father is very still.
"I'm not here today to ask anyone to feel sorry for me.
I'm here because I made a choice over and over again for ten years to stay silent, and that silence cost me more than I can quantify.
It cost me my health. It cost me my pregnancy and my future as a mother.
It cost me my sense of self. It cost me things I will never get back.
" I try to keep my voice even. I've practiced this part.
"And if I stay silent now, it costs someone else theirs. I'm not willing to do that anymore."
I take a breath.
"To every woman watching this who recognized something in that footage — something familiar, something you've been telling yourself isn't that bad, isn't bad enough, isn't worth the disruption of leaving — I want you to hear this directly.
" I look into the nearest camera. "It is that bad.
You are worth the disruption. And there is life on the other side of it that you cannot imagine yet because you're still inside it. I couldn't imagine it either."
I straighten.
"Effective immediately, the Alexander Sullivan Protection House is available across the United States and soon, globally.
If you or someone you love needs to be removed from a domestic violence situation, get somewhere safe and dial or text 811.
There are teams that will come to you within hours and ensure you are safely relocated to one of dozens of protection houses across your city.
" I glance back at Bennet for just a moment.
"I'd like to personally thank Sullivan and Associates for their participation in this effort and the properties they've donated to make it possible.
Due to their generosity, we were able to move quickly. Thank you."
The silence breaks.
The applause starts somewhere in the middle of the crowd and spreads outward in a wave, and I stand at the podium and let it wash over me and breathe and think about everything it took to get to this exact moment.
I look back at Bennet.
He's not nodding anymore.
He's crying.
And I think that might be the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.