Copyright © 2025 by Allie Samberts

ISBN (ebook): 979-8-9878241-9-1

ISBN (paperback): 979-8-9878241-8-4

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review, and except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

This work is human-created. Any use of this work involving AI is prohibited. Do not use this book to train AI, and do not run any portion of this work through any AI program.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Editing by Mandi Andrejka at Inky Pen Editorial Services

Cover and Title Page Design by Lorissa Padilla Designs

Chapter headers and scene breaks created with Canva with elements from Billion Photos and WDnet Studio

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Contents

Dedication

For Olivia.
Five years is so long and yet no time at all.

And for me.
Because I’m strong enough.

Author's Note

It’s interesting how stories come to life, isn’t it? Some languish for years—decades, even. They sit in a writer’s brain, slow-cooking to perfection. Some seem ready, only for the writer to feel like each word is torturously being extracted, slowly and painfully. Some come on like lightning, flashing bright and falling onto the page like the subsequent rain.

Not a Strong Enough Word was a little bit of lightning, a little bit of torture, and a little bit of rain.

I’m not going to tell you this book was fun to write; writing about healing rarely is. But it was necessary. Scarlett’s story, especially, was one I needed to tell. When her storyline came to me, I turned it around, looking at it from all angles, trying to find any other way besides the one that struck me like lightning to tell this the way I wanted to. Reader, when I say I sat on her story for weeks, I’m not kidding. I even quit writing it because I didn’t think I could go through with describing her pain and heartbreak—it hits close to home, after all, and I didn’t think I was ready.

But I was ready. I needed to write it. The only way out was through.

And in the process of giving Scarlett and Ryan their strength, I realized that I, too, am strong enough to tell Scarlett’s story (which, in so many ways, is also my own), to give her the healing I needed, to see it through until the end, to bear witness to her messy life and the unbreakable love she and Ryan share, both because of and despite her trauma.