Page 51 of Broken Trails
I slam through the front door harder than I mean to, my shoulder clipping it as it swings shut with a dull thud. The house greets me with silence, pressing in from every side. The air feels wrong, too warm, too dense, like it’s fighting me for every breath.
My chest is already tight. My eyes already burn. I barely make it two steps before the thread I’ve been clinging to finally snaps.
My knees give out, and I slide down the nearest wall until I’m on the floor, my back pressed to the cool plaster. The tears come before I can even think to stop them. They blur the edges of the room until it’s nothing but shapes and shadows. I press my palms into my eyes, like I can push it all back inside, but it’s useless.
My breathing turns shallow, sharp. Each gasp scratches down my throat like it’s snagging on something jagged. My fingers clutch at my shirt, twisting the fabric tight in my fist as if it’s the only thing anchoring me to the ground.
Why does it matter so much?
Why do I care what those women said?
I shouldn’t. God, I shouldn’t. I’m not her anymore—the woman who spent years tiptoeing through her own life as a child, who swallowed betrayal after betrayal because starting over felt harder than staying. I was supposed to be free.
But right now, I don’t feel free at all.
I feel exposed.
Stripped bare.
And maybe I won’t feel any different until I’m completely severed from him—from the man I’m spending every last scrap of strength that I have, trying to erase from my life.
The woman who arrived here with her lipstick perfect, her smile rehearsed, telling herself she could rebuild from ruin—she’s gone.
That confidence? Gone.
That poise? Gone.
The last pieces of dignity I’d been holding onto? Shattered, somewhere between the gossip dripping from those women’s mouths and the truth that I’ve spent too long pretending none of this hurts. It does.
God, does it hurt.
Now I’m here, in a house that feels too still, too hollow. I fold in on myself, arms wrapped tight around my legs, forehead resting against my knees. I try to breathe, but every inhale snags. The room tilts, and the pressure building behind my eyes threatens to cave me in from the inside out. It’s been two years since the last time this happened—since that kind of panic came tearing through me without warning.
And back then, it was worse. So much worse.
Because I hadn’t seen it coming. I didn’t have the scar tissue I do now, nothing to brace against the blow. We’d just come home from dinner with his friends. I’d said something he didn’t like—nothing big, nothing cruel, just a casual disagreement. I can’t even remember the exact words now. All I know is that it embarrassed him, made him look weak, at least in whatever warped version of reality he lived in.
The second the door shut behind us, his voice was no longer measured, no longer charming. It was sharp, slurred, venomous with every insult he could throw, every name he could spit.
His backhand had come fast after that. The sting cracked across my cheek before I even registered what was happening. Istood there, frozen in the middle of our apartment, ears ringing, vision pulsing. Not because of the pain, but because I couldn’t quite believe it had happened.
I remember thinking—he hit me.
He’d actually hit me.
The moment felt suspended in time, held still by disbelief. He’d apologised, of course, once he sobered up. Said he didn’t mean it. Said I pushed him too far. And I, like a bloody idiot, had believed it. Believed it was an isolated moment. All because he was drunk and embarrassed, and needed to reassert his ego in the only way he knew how—violence. It wasn’t frequent. But once is enough.
Once should have been too much.
Once is all it takes to know who someone really is.
And now, two years later, I’m on the floor again. This time, in a different place, in a different context.
But the same goddamn feeling, nonetheless.
That same choking, suffocating pressure in my chest. That same cold sweat running down the back of my neck. That same inability to breathe, to ground myself, to remember who I am outside of what’s been taken from me. Because no matter how far away I get, no matter how fresh the start or how pretty the clothes or how many damn iced coffees I sip with smiling women at local bakeries, I’m still her.
The woman who stayed, who tolerated the lies. The cheating. The manipulation. The bruises that weren’t always physical but somehow left deeper marks.
