This, I knew how to survive. I had been surviving since I was six years old. I was very good at it. I was thebest.
I turned around, went home, and started dinner—needing any task to pull me back into the routine.
Now, I wake. The same alarm. The same side of the bed. The same cold floor under my bare feet while Julian still sleeps, his back to me, his breath slow and even. I have always woken first.
I walk. To the bathroom. To the kitchen. The same steps I have taken every morning since I moved into this house. I could do them blindfolded. I have done them half-asleep, sick, shaking, numb.
I cook. Eggs the way he likes them. Runny yolks. Toast with the crusts cut off because he said so once, years ago, and I never forgot. I pack his lunch. The same container. The same napkin folded into the same triangle.
I clean. I wipe the counters. I sweep the floor. I pick up the crumbs he leaves by the toaster, the same crumbs he left yesterday, the same crumbs he will leave tomorrow. I scrub the sink until it shines.
The routine is a shield. I wrap it around myself every morning like a coat. The same things, every day, in the same order, at the same time. Nothing changes. Nothing surprises. Nothing reaches out from the dark to pull me down by my wrist.
I do not need love. I never did. Love was never on the table—just the tea, the biscuits, my parents across from Julian’s parents, everyone nodding. Love was never the warm thing thatfilled the hollow in my belly. Love was a word other people used. People with different childhoods. People who hadn’t made a rule at seven years old.
I can endure any silence. I was born into silence. I was raised by silence. Silence is my mother tongue. I can sit across from Julian at dinner and say nothing. I can lie next to him in bed and say nothing. I can stand in the kitchen while he tells me about his day and say nothing. Just a nod.
Silence does not scare me. Silence is the only thing that has never hurt me. Silence has always kept me safe.
I will survive. As long as I am not standing outside a locked door. As long as the gnawing in my gut remains a memory. As long as his hands do not become my father’s. As long as he reaches for the salt and not for my wrist.
I will wake up. Walk. Cook. Pack his lunch. Clean. Sleep.
The same as yesterday.
The same as tomorrow.
The same as always.
Chapter Five: Nora
Julian is standing at the doorway again.
Flowers this time. Wrapped in brown paper. Simple enough to seem sincere, cheap enough to avoid the stink of desperation. The kind a man buys when he wants to look at himself in the mirror afterward and believe he tried.
He looks nervous. His weight shifts from one foot to the other, a small, restless dance he doesn’t seem to know he’s doing. His thumb rubs back and forth over the brown paper wrapper.
There’s hope in his eyes. He’s looking at me like I’m a door that might open if he just stands there long enough with the right offering in his hands.
I thought he would have given up by now. The affair was months ago. Months of this. This performance. The constant, gentle trying.
It’s exhausting.
I don’t want his apologies. I have been told I’m sorry by a man who had just finished explaining why I deserved it. I have been told I’m sorry by a man who would do the same thing tomorrow. Apologies mean nothing. Pretty for a day. Wilted by morning.
I don’t want his flowers. I have no use for them. My father brought my mother flowers sometimes. The day after. The morning after. The peace offering that was supposed to erase thesound of the plate shattering against the wall. Now I can’t smell lilies without tasting fear. I can’t see a bouquet without seeing my mother’s hands shaking as she arranged them in a vase, the bruise on her arm already fading from purple to green.
I don’t want his guilt. That’s his problem, not mine. He just wants me to make him feel better about himself. So he stands in my doorway all nervous and hopeful, playing the part of a good man who made one little mistake. He gets to tell himself he showed up, he brought flowers, he stood here looking at me with an affectation that might pass for remorse.
I don’t want any of it.
I want him to stop.
I dry my hands slowly on the towel, my gaze fixed on the petals. It’s easier than meeting his eyes.
He clears his throat. “I brought these for you.”
Guilty men always come bearing offerings. A bouquet. A box of chocolates. A new toy, held out with trembling hands and wet eyes. A hollow vow whispered into my hair while his fingers still smelled like the belt. A temporary change that lasted exactly as long as it took for the next thing to go wrong.
