In Chap­ter 55, we see Millie’s jour­ney evolve as she reflects deeply on her com­plex rela­tion­ship with Nina and the shift­ing per­cep­tions that arise from it. Ini­tial­ly, Mil­lie per­ceived Nina as errat­ic and unsta­ble, which pushed her to dis­tance her­self emo­tion­al­ly from Nina’s actions and behav­iors. How­ev­er, as the sto­ry unfolds, Mil­lie begins to recon­sid­er her stance. She starts to sus­pect that Nina’s seem­ing­ly unpre­dictable behav­ior may have been an effort to pro­tect her from a much deep­er threat, par­tic­u­lar­ly from a man they both know. This rev­e­la­tion forces Mil­lie to con­front the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Nina’s behav­ior was a form of cau­tion and fore­sight, aimed at warn­ing her about a dan­ger that Mil­lie had been blind to. As Mil­lie reeval­u­ates her past judg­ments and actions, she begins to unrav­el a dis­turb­ing pat­tern of abuse and manipulation—both from her own life and pos­si­bly Nina’s as well. These real­iza­tions only serve to deep­en Millie’s aware­ness of the trau­ma that has shaped both their lives, sug­gest­ing a shared expe­ri­ence of pow­er­less­ness and betray­al.

As Mil­lie reflects on her tumul­tuous past, she is remind­ed of the many times she was mis­treat­ed, ignored, or mis­un­der­stood. Grow­ing up, she was often dis­be­lieved by those in posi­tions of author­i­ty, and her expe­ri­ences with fig­ures of pow­er only exac­er­bat­ed her feel­ings of iso­la­tion. Her time in prison was a stark reminder of how lit­tle her voice was val­ued, how the sys­tems around her per­pet­u­at­ed her suf­fer­ing with­out offer­ing any real oppor­tu­ni­ty for escape or redemp­tion. This aban­don­ment by soci­ety left Mil­lie with lit­tle trust in any­one but her­self. She learned to sur­vive in a world that was indif­fer­ent to her strug­gles, hon­ing emo­tion­al resilience and prac­ti­cal sur­vival skills. For Mil­lie, sur­vival wasn’t just about avoid­ing phys­i­cal harm—it was about build­ing emo­tion­al for­ti­fi­ca­tions against the harsh world around her. This self-reliance was born out of neces­si­ty, and it often led to vio­lent con­fronta­tions as she learned to defend her­self, both emo­tion­al­ly and phys­i­cal­ly, against those who sought to exploit her vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. These mem­o­ries reveal how her past has shaped her view of rela­tion­ships, often see­ing them as trans­ac­tion­al and dan­ger­ous rather than sup­port­ive and nur­tur­ing.

In the lat­ter part of the chap­ter, the ten­sion esca­lates between Mil­lie and Andrew, with their con­fronta­tion becom­ing a stark dis­play of pow­er dynam­ics. Mil­lie, hav­ing endured so much abuse and manip­u­la­tion her­self, now takes con­trol of the sit­u­a­tion, sub­ject­ing Andrew to the kind of emo­tion­al cru­el­ty that she has long expe­ri­enced at the hands of oth­ers. Her calm, almost detached man­ner as she forces him into a posi­tion of sub­mis­sion speaks vol­umes about her character’s evo­lu­tion. She extends his pun­ish­ment, not out of pet­ty revenge but as a delib­er­ate and cal­cu­lat­ed act of reclaim­ing con­trol over her life. Andrew’s pleas for mer­cy fall on deaf ears as Millie’s abil­i­ty to manip­u­late and con­trol the sit­u­a­tion becomes evi­dent. This scene high­lights Millie’s trans­for­ma­tion from vic­tim to sur­vivor, demon­strat­ing her abil­i­ty to use her trau­ma as a tool to nav­i­gate her rela­tion­ships and sit­u­a­tions with a new­found strength. She rec­og­nizes her pow­er in the moment and uses it to take back con­trol from those who have caused her harm. The com­plex lay­ers of Millie’s char­ac­ter begin to emerge more clear­ly here: a woman forged by hard­ship, capa­ble of both great ten­der­ness and cold ruth­less­ness. As the chap­ter con­cludes, Mil­lie stands on the precipice of a new chap­ter in her life. She has learned the hard way that sur­vival requires more than resilience—it requires the abil­i­ty to take con­trol, not just of sit­u­a­tions, but of one’s own nar­ra­tive. The path ahead is still uncer­tain, but Millie’s grow­ing sense of self is unmis­tak­able, set­ting the stage for her jour­ney of trans­for­ma­tion.