Some nights, I imagine packing the bags.
Not in some dramatic burst, but quietly. Soft socks, small shoes, toothbrushes tucked into corners. I’d lift my daughter gently from her bed, still warm with sleep, and we’d slip into the dark without a sound.
But then morning comes. And so does he.
It wasn’t always like this. I met him in the kind of whirlwind that feels like love because you don’t know better. He was charming, intense, so sure of himself that I mistook it for stability. I see now it was something else entirely: control dressed as confidence—possession sold as passion.
The drinking started subtly. A few extra beers. A harder edge to his words. The man I fell for slowly became someone who yells when things go quiet — someone who needs to be the loudest voice in the room, especially when no one else is speaking.
He’s never hit me. That’s the line I tell myself, as if bruises you can’t see don’t count.
But the words — those leave their own kind of mark.
He says I’m lazy when the dishes pile up, stupid when I forget something small. He mocks the way I speak, the way I cry, the way I comfort our daughter when she’s scared of his voice. He drinks, then denies. Yells, then blames. Leaves, then returns with promises I’ve stopped believing.
