It started with a photo.

It’s me in a leather skirt, or maybe it’s pleather (I hope it is, but let’s be real.)

Along with some sort of cheetah print that I’d never be caught dead in.

Not my style at all, but I loved fucking around downtown in clothes that weren’t mine.

I must’ve weighed around 80-90 pounds at the time.

I was hungry, to say the least. 

People don’t usually talk about it, but your stomach starts to bloat when you don’t eat.

My hair was brittle. My skin was dry.

My relationship at the time was rocky.

I didn’t really understand where we stood.

A lot of really terrible shit had happened, the restraining order had run out.

I was all “zen” and said the past didn’t matter. I’m an idiot, by the way.

For context, I had been dating him since I was 18.
He had been taking care of me, grooming me.
He often told me I belonged to him, and I think after so long,
I must’ve believed it.
It was hard for me to imagine a life without this person who owned me.

We were talking, and it was nice to have his support again.

I was living at my mom’s while I was in school, for the second time.
No one wants to live with their mom in their twenties, especially not me.

He and I were hanging out, he wanted me to meet his parents’ new dog.

I had fallen asleep. And I realize this may sound unusual,
but when you don’t eat food, you tend to fall asleep rather easily.

I woke up to him on top of me, his hands around my throat.
He just stared at me and said, “What’s his name?”

And I tried to answer, but I couldn’t make a sound.

Pulling his hands off my throat, his hands then clung tight to my wrists, like they always did.

I had no idea who “he” was that he was referring to.

I told him I didn’t know who he was talking about, and he stared down at the floor and said “Yes you do.” (I didn’t.)

I always had to put on this act like I wasn’t afraid of him and that everything was okay,
I was afraid to show fear, he’d get more angry, he’d mock me.

So, I politely went back home to my mom’s that night, and started to distance myself.

And he probably understood.

At this same time, I had a modeling photoshoot with a local thrift store.

It was really exciting for me, and I had told him about it earlier in the months previous.

So, when I got the photos back, I sent a few to show him. (Idiot.)

The leather skirt and the cheetah print. My bloated stomach.

He sent me a text asking if I was trying to tell him that I was pregnant.

And if so, I’d better fucking get rid of it.

(Side note – He knew I wasn’t pregnant. In the rare opportunity that there were to ever come close to even being a chance, there still wouldn’t be, because I had lost my period, and ability to get pregnant, at age 18 from malnourishment. )

His message felt like a knife.

And I can still see it so clearly now.

My phone started to rapidly shake from my trembling hands.

I replied “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that”

He said nothing.

I called him.

The classic girl laughing in the background. Not just laughing, scream laughing.

A girl who I later came to find out was a girl named Desiree from my highschool.
My group of “friends” in high school. 

I can’t remember what I did next. I think I felt a lightning bolt in my brain.

I do recall being unable to see where I was going.

Street lights and the backs of cars turned into big neon splatters as the rain poured over my windshield.

My eyes full of water, pouring twice as hard as the rain.

Driving down 41st street, trying to see anything. 

I had to get out of this body.

I made it to my room and drank until I was no longer awake and woke up in the most pain I’ve ever felt.

I don’t think I left the bed much the next day.

I wish I could just see this photo without the attached memory. I think about that often. About a lot of things.

But I’m happy for this girl in the photos. No one could ever tell the monsters she was battling. Smiling through it all like nothing. I’m forever amazed at the shit she has managed to pull herself out of. I don’t blame her for being tired. For wanting to be alone. I don’t blame her anymore.