The court declined to end it there. Just a refusal to dismiss the case outright.
Proceed.
That single word did more than pages of argument ever could.
It meant the attempt to erase it had failed. Not proven wrong—just not accepted as finished.
The case remained.
I didn’t feel triumphant. What I felt was steadiness. Like something that had been pushed down had stopped sinking.
Nothing was resolved. But something important shifted: the story was allowed to exist.
They tried to end it early. The court said no.
And that was enough—for now.
