Page 70 of Where the Snakes Sleep

“He never really said it outright.” My eyes burn, and I blink back tears. “He’d slip in comments about missing my old voice, complaining my legs were too hairy and that he liked them better smooth. Saying my face looked ‘harder’ now. He started buying me tops that were just a little too girly. Later, that shifted into lingerie every once in a while.”

Camille’s expression stills, as if braced against something unpleasant.

“And every time I pushed back, he made me feel crazy for thinking it meant anything. Clothes are just clothes, he’d say. He thought I looked sexy. I was making everything about gender when he was just trying to do something nice for me.” My chest tightens so sharply I can hardly breathe. “And I believed him.”

That’s the humiliating part—not that Paul lied, but that I translated each lie into something softer, something I could live with. “I believed him because the alternative was admitting the man I planned to marry wanted someone who didn’t exist anymore.”

His wine still untouched, Camille doesn’t move. I press on before doubt steals my courage.

“It got worse when surgery stopped being a distant idea. Once I booked consultations, he found reasons I shouldn’t go through with it.” My voice twists. “Economy—recovery—scars—what if I regretted it? What if I lost sensation? What if I waited another year… or five?”

“Anything that postponed it,” he says so quietly I almost miss it.

“Exactly.” I lean forward, hands clasped tight. “I ended up not moving forward with it because of my own reasons, but if I actually did have it, I’m not sure what he would’ve done.”

Camille’s eyes sharpen, his posture stiffening.

“I think that was when I started to understand.” My voice drops until it’s almost a whisper. “He didn’t see my transition as something I was doing for myself. He saw it as something I was doing to him.”

Camille sets his glass down with such care that the soft click of crystal on wood sounds like a shout.

“And after that, I started to notice other things.” I fold one leg beneath me and turn toward him. “How he hounded me for my whereabouts, how fast I answered texts, who I spent time with, how much money I spent. He demanded access to shared accounts because we were ‘building a life together,’ and when I refused, suddenly I wasn’t committed enough.” My throat closes. “He’d get angry if I stayed out later than promised. Make me feel guilty for wanting space. Sometimes he’d show up unannounced because he ‘missed me,’ which I—stupidly—thought was romantic.”

“That is how controlling people survive,” Camille murmurs, voice so soft it feels like a hand on my chest. “They make control resemble devotion until you can’t tell one from the other.” His words strike me in the center of my ribcage.

I swallow, the lump so big it almost stops me. “Yeah.”

We sit in a suffocating silence before I realize I’ve edged closer—our knees now touch, where before there was a whole cushion’s width of space. I could scoot back. I don’t.

“He hurt me too.” My confession feels ragged in my own ears. Camille doesn’t react outwardly, and somehow that makes it easier.

“Physically?” he asks.

“Sometimes. Mainly sexually,” I murmur, because if I’m going to tear this open, I might as well finish the job. “Not always violently, but with pressure—wounded insistence until I gave in. And… at the end, he—he raped me.”

Camille’s nostrils flare. He clenches a fist on his knee.

“That’s the first time I’ve admitted it out loud. It’s weird.” Between us, the air seems to shiver, and I look back at the terrarium before I can choke on the next words. “I ended up hitting him in the head with a lamp to get him off of me, then I ran. I just started driving. I lived in a motel for a while until I left for here.”

My throat burns with shame. “So, um, yeah. That’s what happened.” I pause for a moment before I add, “But the physical stuff, the… the rape, that isn’t what fucked me up the most.”

Camille’s brow draws together.

“The lies were worse.”

He stares at me.

“Because once I saw what he wanted, I had to go back over every memory and question it. When he drove me to my first testosterone appointment—was he secretly hoping I’d change my mind on the way? Every wedding plan—was he picturing me at the altar in a tux, or still that bride in white?” My voice quavers. My eyes sting, and I blink. “What about when he said he loved my body? Which body did he mean?” That one almost breaks me. I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth. “I realized he’d been waiting…”

“For what?” Camille’s voice is patient.

“For me to go back.”

Camille’s face goes astonishingly blank—an anger so cold it could freeze the humid air. I recognize that expression from earlier.

“I think Paul loved a woman he’d invented,” I whisper. “And I was close enough that he believed he could sculpt me into her.”

Camille looks down, jaw clenched. “I am sorry,” he says.