In “If These Wings Could Fly,” Chap­ter Sev­en­ty-One, the nar­ra­tive unfolds in a tense atmos­phere where the pro­tag­o­nist, Leighton Barnes, con­fronts the haunt­ing real­i­ties of her envi­ron­ment. The chap­ter explores the fragili­ty of life and sur­vival, as she reflects on a fate­ful night that could have marked the end of her exis­tence. The inten­si­ty of her emo­tions is pal­pa­ble, stem­ming from a near-fatal encounter where a bul­let nar­row­ly miss­es her, instead embed­ding itself in the wall of her home—a stark sym­bol of the vio­lence that lurks beneath the sur­face of her life.

The imagery through­out the chap­ter is pow­er­ful and evoca­tive. Leighton per­ceives her home not as a sanc­tu­ary, but as a prison laced with the rem­nants of anger and tur­moil. She recalls the moments of fear that have haunt­ed her with­in these walls, ref­er­enc­ing bro­ken glass in her win­dow and the scars left by phys­i­cal alter­ca­tions. This house, con­struct­ed from rage, embod­ies a dark­er essence, like a liv­ing enti­ty that traps the ghosts of its vio­lent his­to­ry. The metaphor extends to the struc­tur­al elements—the con­crete and wood­en beams—representing the very foun­da­tion of her trou­bled real­i­ty.

As the bul­let falls from the wall, Leighton wit­ness­es how even the phys­i­cal con­fines of her home attempt to mend the dam­age caused by her aggres­sor’s wrath. It under­scores a chill­ing rev­e­la­tion: safe­ty remains elu­sive, both from the exter­nal threat of vio­lence and the inter­nal chaos of her own mind. The chap­ter con­cludes with an omi­nous reminder that the strug­gle is far from over, leav­ing read­ers with a sense of fore­bod­ing about the chal­lenges that lie ahead for Leighton and the impos­si­bly tan­gled web of her life in this house.