Then you hated yourself for bleeding over people who did not know you.
One evening, after a particularly cruel article suggested you had “a pattern of emotional instability,” you threw your laptop onto the couch and screamed.
Damian was in the kitchen, making coffee badly.
He looked up.
“Do you want me to destroy them legally or financially?”
Despite everything, you laughed.
It came out wet and broken.
“You can’t destroy everyone who talks badly about me.”
“I can try.”
“That’s not healthy.”
“No,” he said. “But it is satisfying.”
You smiled for the first time in days.
Then the smile faded.
“They’re making me sound crazy.”
Damian leaned against the counter.
“Powerful men have called women crazy for centuries. It’s cheaper than admitting they’re afraid of the truth.”
You looked at him.
“Are you afraid of the truth?”
His eyes darkened.
“Every day.”
That answer stayed with you.
Weeks passed.
Your bruises changed color, then faded.
But the fear took longer.
You still flinched when doors closed too loudly.
You still woke with your heart pounding.
You still couldn’t wear white.
Your wedding dress had been taken as evidence, sealed in a bag somewhere, the lace stained with hospital scissors and the memory of almost becoming someone’s property.
Your mother called every day.
At first, you didn’t answer.
Then one afternoon, you finally did.
She cried so hard you almost hung up.
“I failed you,” she said.
“Yes,” you replied.
The honesty stunned both of you.
She sobbed quietly.
“I thought if the wedding happened, he would calm down. I thought once everything was official, the pressure would stop.”
“You thought marriage would make an abusive man kinder?”
“I wanted to believe it.”
“That belief almost killed me.”
Silence.
Then your mother said, “I know.”
You closed your eyes.
“I love you, Mom. But I don’t trust you right now.”
Her breath shook.
“I’ll earn it back if you let me.”
You didn’t forgive her that day.
But you didn’t hang up either.
That was enough.
Your father was harder.
He showed up outside the safe apartment three weeks later, holding a paper bag from the diner you loved as a child.
Damian’s guard would not let him inside.
You went downstairs but stayed behind the glass door.
