“When everything was said to be over, I could only see a chance to start afresh.”

Other people decide when your situation is over, and they are working from the outside. What looked finished to them was the point where Innocent stopped defending a version of his life that had already gone, and started asking what he actually wanted instead. Nothing about the circumstances improved that day. What changed is that comfort had been holding a veil over choices he could not see while things were still working, and once it lifted, the choices were sitting there.