Page 20 of Peak Cruelty

But I learned young: some cages don’t need locks.

Just someone who believes they know better.

I was twenty-two.He didn’t yell.He didn’t have to.Just said my name as though it was a warning label, and suddenly I wasn’t a person—I was a hazard.I feel it now, the echo of it, low and tight in my chest.Like someone’s holding a match near a gas leak.

That’s what happens when the wrong man decides he’s right about who you are.

I close my eyes—not to rest, but to think.Harder.Past the panic.Past the question of where I am or what happens next.

What matters is what heknows.

Ava.

I picture her in the kitchen this morning—feet bare, dragging her stuffed rabbit by the ear, asking if monsters drink coffee, too.I said no.I lied.Of course I lied.

It’s not the first lie I’ve traded.It won’t be the last.

That’s what he’s betting on.That I’ll confess—just to make it stop.

They always do.That’s how it starts—your name, your fault.

I’ve been married.I’ve sat through seven years of cold silences and sharp critiques that cut deeper than fists.I’ve had men press their power into me, word by word, until I couldn’t tell the difference between shame and obedience.

This?

This isn’t new.The shape’s different.The weight’s the same.

It’s just the stakes that have changed.

He wants me to sit here and stew.To crack under the weight of waiting.

But I’ve done harder time than this—in nicer rooms.

He wants a confession.For what, I haven’t figured out.

But it’s not like I’m dealing with a sane or rational man.

A confession would be easy.I could build him one from the bones of better lies—polished, heartfelt.The kind that makes monsters cry.

But I don’t think it’s the truth he’s after.

It’s permission.

That’s the danger.

He wants to believe the worst of me.Because it means he’s right.And people like him?They fall apart when the world refuses to cooperate.

And yet here we are.

I hear the ocean—distant, steady and something in me shifts.

It’s not that I think there’s a way out of this.

Escape’s a fantasy.

But endings?

Endings I know how to write.

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