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 peoplerose 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."
