She almost didn’t go. Crowds. Triggers. What ifs.

Her daughter tugged. “Please, Mommy? Just for the fireworks?”

She hesitated on the grass, heart racing. A year since the divorce. A lifetime of fear. Never enough. Never free.

The first boom cracked the sky. She flinched. Her daughter laughed.

And something shifted. Not in the sky. In her.

A memory from her last energy healing session: Her father screaming, “You’ll ruin everything.”

But now? She was still standing.

Tears cascaded across her smile. 

The brilliant white light of hope, flickering like a sparkler, had finally outshone the darkness of fear.