SURVIVING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Friends Are Family You Get To Choose

Find the ones that resist your silence

Image created by author in Microsoft Designer by way of AI

Content warning: this story includes explicit violence and elements of various types of domestic abuse. The names have been changed to protect anonymity. I gave the antagonist a colorful, NSFW French ‘nickname’.

Coup de grace

It was a cool Saturday morning in early October, and Salaud and I packed weekenders for a visit to surprise my parents with our engagement. Under my yellow V-neck sweater and denim trousers, I wore uncomfortable bruises that reminded me, “he ain’t the one, sis,” every time I moved. He had been hitting me for months.

I accepted his proposal to buy time.

I met him at work in my early twenties, a grand time of blind trust and mindless optimism. (Isn’t that true for most twenty-two-year-olds?) I thought I was in love, but I know now what I actually fell for was his masterful grooming.

He was calculated. Salaud gained my confidence quickly and meticulously engineered my spending, hobbies, and even meals. He made it all look so ordinary — my autonomy was taken grain by grain. I didn’t know I was becoming his marionette. Never suspected a thing. No one did.