Chapter Fifty-Eight
Brooklyn
The house is too quiet.
It’s that kind of quiet that presses in, where every creak and hum sounds louder because you’re listening too hard. I sit on the couch with the TV on low, some crime show that feels like a sick joke, the noise just there to fill the space he used to.
Jackson didn’t come home last night.
He texted to say he was working late, that something came up. I told him it was fine, that I was going to bed anyway. It wasn’t a lie. I did go to bed. I just didn’t sleep.
Now it’s the next night, and when I hear his truck pull into the lot, my chest gets tight but I don’t move. I hear the door open, then shut. His boots hit the floor heavily and the air shifts like it always does when he’s home, but this time it feels off. Heavy.
He stops in the doorway, just watching me. His eyes look darker than usual, tired and raw. I open my mouth, then close it again, not knowing what to say.
“Hey,” I finally whisper.
“Hey.” His voice is rough, like gravel. He drops his keys on the counter and takes off his jacket, but he doesn’t move closer.
“Long day?” I ask, because it’s the only thing I can think to say.
“Yeah,” he says. “Long few weeks.”
That one lands. Right in my chest. I flinch, even if I try to hide it.
He runs a hand through his hair, sighs like he’s trying to push words out that won’t come easy. “Brooklyn, I can’t keep doing this.”
I freeze. My fingers curl tight in the blanket. “Doing what?”
“This,” he says again, his voice breaking a little. “Coming home to silence. Watching you disappear a little more every day. I know you’re hurting. God, I know you are, but I can’t just sit here and watch you drown when you won’t even let me in.”
Tears sting, burning and blurring everything. I shake my head as my throat closes up. “You think I want this? You think that I want to feel like this?”
“I don’t know what you want anymore,” he says softly, and that’s what really breaks me. He’s not angry. He’s just…done. Exhausted. “I love you baby, I do, but it’s killing me. And I don’t know how to help you if you won’t even try.”
He calls me baby, and it hurts because I can hear how tired he sounds saying it.
“I’m trying,” I whisper, but even I know how weak it sounds.
He shakes his head, and for the first time, he looks like he doesn’t believe me. “Then try harder.”
He leaves the room, slowly and quietly. I hear the bedroom door shut behind him, but I continue sit there on the couch until the TV goes to static.
The next morning, I’m sitting across from my therapist, with hands twisted together in my lap. The office smells like lavender and coffee. There’s a clock ticking somewhere, steady and loud.
She doesn’t start with questions. Instead, she just waits, like always, until I speak first.
“I think I broke something,” I say finally. My voice is hoarse and small. “Between me and Jackson.”
Her head tilts a little. “What makes you think that?”
“He said he can’t do this anymore. That he loves me, but he’s tired. And I don’t blame him. I’ve been…gone. Even when I’m right there next to him, I’m not.”
She nods but doesn’t interrupt.
“I keep thinking if I just stay quiet, stay still, if I don’t move too much or say the wrong thing, everything will stop spinning. But it doesn’t. It just gets worse. And now I think I’m losing him because I don’t know how to let go of what happened to me.”
The words hang between us. They sound ugly, but real.
“You’ve been through trauma,” she says softly. “And sometimes trauma convinces us that survival means staying small. But that’s not living, Brooklyn. That’s hiding.”
I stare down at my hands. “It’s easier to hide.”
“Maybe,” she says. “But it’s also lonelier. You said you think you’re losing Jackson. Do you want to?”
“No,” I whisper. “God, no.”
“Then maybe it’s time to stop letting him win.”
Her words make my stomach twist. She doesn’t mean Jackson. She means *him.* The man who took me. The one who made me this way.
But hearing it like that, it hits something deep.
The next few days are a blur. I move through them like I’m watching someone else’s life. Jackson’s still here, but it’s quiet. Too quiet. We talk about small things like food, chores, appointments but we never talk about us.
Every night, he still sleeps beside me. But his body stays on his side of the bed, like there’s a wall between us.
I wake up one morning and he’s already gone. There’s a note on the counter that just says, *Coffee’s fresh. Be back later. Love you.*
I stand there, staring at those two words. Love you.
He still does. Even when I’ve done everything to make it impossible.
And that’s when it hits me.
All this time, I thought I was keeping myself safe by shutting everything out, but I’ve just been letting the man who took me win. Every time I choose silence over healing, fear over love, I’m letting him stay in control.
I’m still his prisoner, even here, in my own home.
The realization knocks the air out of me. I sink to the floor, shaking. Tears come fast, hot, relentless.
It’s not just grief. It’s anger. At him. At myself. At what I’ve become.
I don’t know how long I sit there before I get up. I shower. Get dressed. Make coffee. The small things. The things I used to do before everything changed.
By the time Jackson comes home that night, I’m sitting on the couch again. But this time, I’m waiting for him.
He looks surprised to see me up. His eyes flick to mine, cautious, like he’s not sure what version of me he’s walking into.
“Hey,” he says quietly.
“Hey,” I say back.
There’s a pause. He looks like he wants to ask something but doesn’t. He starts to walk past me toward the kitchen.
“Jackson?”
He stops. Turns.
My throat’s tight. My chest feels like it’s going to split open, but I push through it. “Can you hold me?”
He freezes. I see it hit him, the way his shoulders drop, the way his eyes soften, like he’s scared to believe it’s real.
Then he nods. “Yeah, Baby.”
He crosses the room slow, sits down beside me. I lean into him before I can lose my nerve, pressing my face against his chest. His arms wrap around me tight, like he’s afraid if he lets go, I’ll disappear again.
For the first time in what feels like forever, I let myself cry. Not the quiet kind. The broken, gasping kind.
And he doesn’t say anything. Just holds me.
The world feels smaller in his arms, but safer too. Like maybe this is what healing looks like, messy, slow, painful, but real.
When the tears finally stop, I’m still shaking, but lighter somehow. I look up at him, his jaw tight, eyes red, and whisper, “I’m sorry.”
He starts to speak, but I stop him with a small shake of my head. Not yet. I’m not done.
I know tomorrow won’t magically fix everything. I know the nightmares will come back, the fear, the dark days. But for the first time, I want to fight them.
For me.
For him.
For us.
And in that moment, with his arms around me, I take my first real breath in weeks.
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