Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
When he sensed I was finding too much joy in a job, suddenly, we would have to move apartments, and I would have to get a new one.
It took a couple of years to get me trained enough, submissive enough, that he knew I wouldn’t run when he escalated from emotional and mental manipulation to actual physical abuse.
It was a backhand across the face one night, the pain a shock, but not nearly as bad as the emotional wound that opened up and bled inwardly.
But it was all my fault. I just wouldn’t stop nagging him, wouldn’t shut the hell up. He just wanted some fucking peace.
And it was never, ever going to happen again. He’d promised over and over as he kissed my swollen eyelids in bed after he’d listened to me cry for hours.
Inevitably, though, it did.
Then it escalated.
Got more frequent.
But at that point, even if I thought to run—and I didn’t—I had nothing to run with. He kept all of my money, making sure there was never enough left over to create an escape plan with. Hell, some months I would have to ask him, cheeks blazing, for a couple extra dollars to buy myself tampons.
Then, though, one night, he didn’t come home.
I didn’t learn until the morning when I saw his face pop up on the TV screen at work, that he’d been arrested for petty theft.
He didn’t call me asking to be bailed out, likely knowing I didn’t have the money. Or access to his money, wherever it was.
So, for the first time in years, I was all alone. My money was mine again. I didn’t have someone constantly beating me down, mentally and physically.
I gained some perspective.
My confidence started to grow.
I saved up a few paychecks.
Then I packed my shit and I got the hell out of there.
I thought that was it.
I was free.
I would never see Kyle again.
Until one day, about eight months later, when he was suddenly outside my door when I was about to head out on a date. My first date since I’d met Kyle years before. With this sweet, Golden Retriever of a guy who’d stuttered when he’d asked me out.
I didn’t slam the door in his face.
I didn’t demand he leave me the fuck alone.
It was like the previous eight months of personal growth never happened. And, suddenly, I was right there under his thumb again, giving him my paycheck, enduring his abuse that escalated now because How dare I leave him when he needed me most?
But after having a taste of freedom, there was a spark in me that hadn’t been there before. One Kyle tried like hell to blow out, but even when it flickered and nearly went dark, I kept my hands cupped around it, breathed new life into it, kept it burning.
That was when Kyle stopped being subtle with his insults and control and got more overt with it. He was no longer keeping it behind closed doors and would yell at me, belittle me, and hit me even when we weren’t in our apartment, not caring who saw what he was doing to me.
But I was also working more than ever, spending more time away from Kyle than with him. Long, overnight shifts in a bodega in a shifty area full of drug dealers and pimps. None of whom scared me as much as my own boyfriend.
That had been a sobering realization.
The man I shared a life with, a bed with, was scarier than the men who came into my work with visible guns shoved into the waistbands of their pants.
In fact, it was one of those men who came in after a particularly bad fight with Kyle had left me with a fat lip and a steadily-darkening bruise across my cheek.
He brought up his usual coffee and energy drink, passed me the cash, then reached for the pen on the countertop.
“Carotid,” he said, running the nub of the pen against his neck. “Carotid,” he added, moving to the same spot on the other side of his neck. Then, pointing the pen to his thigh. “Femoral.” At my scrunched brow look, he put the pen in his fist, and slammed the tip down onto the counter. “Five-percent survival rate. Just something to keep in mind.”
And with that, he walked out.
I’d never considered violence before.
I was a small woman.
Kyle was a big guy.
Even trying to pull away had never been successful for me. It seemed absurd to think I could overpower him and do any damage.
Let alone kill him.
I wasn’t a killer.
That remained true.
Even through two more times of getting fed up and leaving him, trying to start over, only to have him track me down again, pull me back again.
The last time was the most hurtful time.
Because for the first time ever, I’d been desperate enough to go to my brother for help.