Possession

They say if you boil a frog slowly, it doesn’t jump out.

That’s how I explain it, sometimes, when people ask.

When they tilt their heads and say, “Why didn’t you just leave?”

But I didn’t realize that I was boiling.

Not at first.

He wore cologne that smelled like smoke and amber.

Drove an old car with torn leather seats and a tape deck that worked only if you tapped twice on the dash.

Said things such as “You’re not like other girls” and “I’d kill for you.”

He had battered knuckles when I met him.

Said they came from defending someone’s honor.

That required bravery on your behalf.

I never knew there were men who collected women as though they were collectibles, and polished them to remove the sheen.

Nevertheless

Our one-bedroom apartment was forever filled with the scent of roses and gas.

I kept everything clean.

I wore what he liked lace, mostly. Red lipstick, even when I was just going to the corner store.

He called me his little saint when I was good.

My little slut when I was not.

He voiced them as compliments.

However,

My religion was our love.

He preached with shaking hands that had trembled with alcohol.

I tuned in with finger-shaped bruises.

He’d say, “Look what you made me do.”

And then I’d say, “I’m sorry.”

Yes.

It was never a punch.

Not at first.

It was:

“Do not address him in that manner.”

“You didn’t return my call?”

“You’re embarrassing me.”

And then:

The grasp on my arm.

The shattered glass nobody cleaned.

The apologizing in tears with the roses and the sex that resembled punishment.

I did open up to my friend Lily, sort of.

Said, “He sometimes becomes angry, but always takes the right action.”

She looked at me for some minutes.

Remained quiet.

I didn’t mention it again.

Nothing.

I maintained a notebook which I stored underneath the bed.

Spoke all that you could never say in words.

March 12

He threatened to kill himself if he left me.

He had a knife stuck in his chest.

I kissed it off of his hand.

April 3

He has not allowed me to leave the apartment for four days.

He says that I need to “cool off.”

You’re feeling like you’re forgetting to breathe?

May 17

He then cried.

A false reply: “This isn’t me.”

Yet it is.

It was my “weather journal.”

In case someone happened upon it—

So they’d think that you were tracking the rain rather than the red.

He would sing to me.

Low and soothing, like lullabies of a broken god.

Said my bones were constructed of music.

Said he’d love to live in me.

I thought that was love.

Yes, I did.

I used to think pain meant passion.

That jealousy was proof. That obsession was romantic.

He’d watch me sleep and say, “You’re mine, even in your dreams.”

And I thought that meant I was special.

Not trapped.

You won’t realize what you’re missing until something lovely touches your skin.

A barista smiled at me once. Simply smiled.

She said, “You look tired. You okay?”

And for an instant, I was ready to drop to the ground.

Because no one had asked me that in months.

I hadn’t planned to leave that night.

I just stood in the kitchen at 2 a.m., shaking, staring at the knife block.

And I wondered:

If I stay, then I’ll die. Slowly. Quietly.

And no one will ever know the reason why I died.

So I picked up the notebook.

And a coat.

And the keys.

And barefoot, I left.

He never followed me.

Not that night.

And then the messages arrived.

You flattened us.

Nobody will ever love you as I loved you.

You’re nothing without me.

Come back home.

And worse.

Now that I am in my own house

There were days I nearly turned back.

When the silence felt louder than the shouting.

When I missed the chaos because it was familiar.

Because at least in his world, I knew the rules.

But then I’d remember the look in my own eyes, when I caught my reflection and didn’t recognize the girl staring back.

That’s what kept me gone. Not strength. Just the ghost I refused to become.

The walls are actually light blue.

Lavender sits near the window.

A scented candle with a rain fragrance burns without roses.

No yelling exists here.

No defective items.

Just emptiness.

And healing.

And me.

I read the notebook occasionally.

At times, I burn the pages one by one.

Occasionally, I make new ones.

So that I won’t forget.

Because memory is the source of my independence.

Pain is what led me to value softness.

Survival is not a straight line.

When people tell me, “You’re so strong,” I simply smile and thank them.

But what I want to say is:

I’m not strong.

I was just done.

Maybe one day I’ll write the whole thing.

Maybe someone like me will find it and feel a little less alone.

Or maybe I won’t.

Maybe surviving is the story.

And maybe that’s enough.

She closes the diary.

Snaps the elastic band shut.

Leans back in the chair.

Outside, it starts to rain.

Soft. Cleansing.

She doesn’t flinch,

how she used to…

She rises from the chair slowly,

each movement deliberate,

as if claiming her body back piece by piece.

She walks across the room barefoot

past the lavender,

past the candle still flickering with the scent of rain and something almost like peace.

She pauses at the window.

The rain is falling in quiet sheets,

blurring the world beyond the glass.

For a long time, she just watches it.

Not afraid it will turn into thunder.

Not afraid of shadows anymore.

She looks down at the sidewalk.

She’s stepped on it before running, breaking, leaving.

And now, she’s still.

She presses her hand to the glass.

Not to leave a mark.

Just to feel the cool.

Just to remind herself this moment is hers.

No more rushing.

No more looking back.

Now, she watches her steps.

Not out of fear.

Out of knowing.

Out of survival.

Out of finally being free.

She turns from the window.

And this time,

she walks away

without having to run.

End.