“They used to wave at me in the market. Now they won’t sell us bread. This morning, Katherine called the window replacement company. He laughed and hung up. We wrapped the windows in towels. The draft comes in like a thief. Eli’s hands are cold.

Petra came home early. Fired. Without so much as a word to her face. Just a letter slipped into her desk like she was contagious. And maybe she is—maybe we all are. Infected with the truth.

There’s a word spray-painted on our front door now. “TRAITOR.”

I suppose I can’t argue with it. I did betray them.

I betrayed their fantasy. Their profit margins. Their comfortable illusions that their children were safe while sipping poison through a straw made of civic pride. I tore down the theater curtain, and they saw the rot underneath. And for that—yes—they hate me.

I will never forget their faces. Not now. Not ever.

Grown men I once toasted with, who held my children when they were born—baring their teeth like a pack of dogs. Their eyes wild. Their fists clenched. And the men who claimed to stand with me? Liberals. Radicals. “Progressives.” All vanished like smoke the moment the crowd barked.

Hovstad came by today. Said he could make me a hero. Print a redemption arc. If only I paid him for the privilege. “Help us survive,” he said. “Let us clean your name. Let you fix the water in secret, while we tell the people it’s safe.” Safe.

What does that word mean anymore?
A safe investment? A safe lie? A safe silence?

No. I won’t pay for my dignity. I won’t barter the truth for popularity. Let them shout. Let them sue. Let them exile us from our own skin.

I am not moving. We are not leaving.

I thought about it, of course. Some place with a bigger sky, where the spirit hasn’t been beaten into fear. But no. We stay.

Because someone has to. Someone has to stand here and say:

The water is poisoned.

No matter how much it costs. No matter how many windows are broken. No matter how many doors slam in our faces.

You—you chose to stand with us. And now you see the price. You gave the truth its voice. But truth doesn’t come with applause. It doesn’t come with warm dinners and thanks.
It comes with consequences. That is the real investment. Not money. Not land. Not timeshares.

It’s the willingness to be hated… and to speak anyway.

They think they’ve made us small. But we are stronger than they know.

Because the strong? The strong must learn to be lonely.

And tonight… we are the strongest people in the world.”