1.Anna
Ithought the worst had already passed.
I was wrong.
My fingers traced the purple stain below my ribcage. A bruise, four days old. A souvenir from Carter's latest grand gesture; a fight because I'd burned the toast, followed by breakfast in bed the next morning with wilting grocery store tulips and an apology that sounded more like a list of my failures.
Staring at my reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror, at the shadows carved beneath my warm brown eyes, I traced the familiar path my thoughts always took. This wasn't my first bruise from him. And he wasn't my first mistake.
My twenties had been a parade of fractured men, each one a project I was certain I could complete. There was Ben, whose sadness was a deep well I kept trying to fill with my own forced happiness. I'd stayed for twoyears, watching him sink deeper despite every effort, every sacrifice. Then came Mark, whose anger was always someone else's fault—his boss, the traffic, the weather—until it was mine. I'd believed him when he said I made him lose control, that if I just tried harder to understand him, he'd stop punching walls. Stop breaking things. Eventually, stop breaking me.
I'd stayed in each relationship longer than I should have, pouring out love like it was a magic solvent that could dissolve their demons. My mother had taught me that. Love fixes people if you're patient enough. She'd whispered it like a mantra while my father stumbled through our small house, knocking over furniture, slurring promises he'd never keep.
Then she proved herself wrong. I was twelve when I found her note on the kitchen table, the paper coffee-stained and tear-blotched.
I'm sorry, Anna. I can't fix him.
Take care of your dad. How was I supposed to continue? Take care of my dad? I was just a child, and before I could process her departure, before the first tear dropped from my eyes, I was placed between a rock and a hard place.
So I did what she'd asked. For seven years, I hid bottles in the garage, cleaned up messes before neighbors could see, and made excuses to teachers when he missed parent conferences. I believed with the fierce, foolish faith of a child that if I just loved him enough, purely enough,selflessly enough, he would choose me over the drink. That my love would be the thing that finally worked where my mother's had failed.
He died when I was nineteen. Liver failure. The hospital room had smelled of antiseptic and decay. The last coherent thing he said to me was,"Where's your mother?"Not my name. Not thank you. Not I love you. He died looking for the woman who'd abandoned us both, and I understood then that I'd spent seven years failing at an impossible task.
My failure had been absolute. And I'd carried it into every relationship since, a twisted mission: succeed where she failed. Prove that love, my love, could be enough to save someone.
But Carter was different. At least, that's what I kept telling myself until it became too hard to believe. He was a corporate attorney, sharp-suited and functional. He didn't drink to escape; he drank to celebrate, to socialize, to assert dominance. He wasn't a sad, broken thing like my father or Ben. He was a force of life. And for a while, I'd mistaken that force for strength, his certainty for safety.
He'd swept me off my feet with expensive dinners and confident declarations. Made me quit my community college courses because he'd "take care of everything." Slowly isolated me from my few friends, convinced me they were jealous of what we had. "I'll take care of you," he'd said, and I, exhausted from taking care of others, had let him.
I'd let him take until there was nothing left of me to give.
"Anna! Get out here!"
His voice boomed from the living room, shredding the fragile quiet of the bathroom. The sound bypassed my ears and went straight to my spine, locking it rigid. He'd been drinking since noon, working his way from scotch to bourbon. I could hear the violence simmering in that single syllable of my name.
“I can’t let them think I’m a bum, so what if I lost the company’s last litigation case? It was a freaking mess from acquisition!” His thoughts were public, and spoken out loud for me to hear when he was drunk.
I took one last steadying breath, pulling my simple gray t-shirt down over the bruise, a uniform of invisibility I'd perfected long before I started wearing it for work. I smoothed my long dark hair and fixed my face into what I hoped was a placid, attentive mask before pushing the door open.
The living room smelled of whiskey and expensive cologne, a combination that now made my stomach turn. Carter stood by the window, his silhouette sharp against the city lights. He didn't turn.
"We're going to Dixon's. Meeting the guys from the firm."
My stomach dropped. Dixon's was all dark wood and loud laughter, clinking glasses and the kind of aggressive male bonding that always escalated as the night wore on. It was a sensory trapdoor that dumpedme right back into my childhood. The sour smell of beer, the booming, unpredictable voice of my father, the desperate need to make myself small and quiet until the storm passed. The thought of spending hours there, performing normalcy while Carter held my elbow a little too tight, made me feel faint.
"Could we stay in?" My voice was barely there, a thread in the heavy air. "We could order something. It's been a long week."
He turned slowly. His eyes, usually a cool blue, were dark and glinting in the lamplight. "Stay in..." He repeated the words like they were foreign, absurd. "Why? Because you're tired?"
"I just thought?—"
"You know what? You're right. Let's stay in." His voice went soft, almost kind, and that's when I knew I'd miscalculated.
"We'll stay in every night. Just you and me. Since you're so tired all the time. Since everyone else is apparently too much for you." He took a step toward me. "Your mom figured it out, didn't she? How exhausting you are to be around. How much work it takes to love you."
His words were calculated and cunning, placed with the precision of someone who'd spent months learning exactly where to cut. Carter had collected my fears over late-night confessions. My mother who'd abandoned me at twelve with just a note, the father I'd failed to save, the crushing belief that I was somehow fundamentally unlovable. He knew exactly where my fractures were,and he pressed on them with the casual cruelty of a man who enjoyed watching things break.
"That's not fair," I whispered, hating how weak my voice sounded.
