So, I caved in.
I folded.
I stitched the mask back onto my broken face.
I lived each day as though nothing had happened. I walked, I talked, I smiled, I played my part like an actress in a play I never auditioned for. And the audience - the friends, the family, the neighbors - they never suspected a thing. They never saw the fractures, because I made sure they didn't.
I carried my bruises beneath my clothes, my torment behind my silence. I became an expert at disguise, my survival stitched together with fake laughter and hollow reassurances.
Inside, though, the war never stopped. The conflicts raged louder than any of his blows. My heart begged me to run, my mind chained me with fear, my soul whispered that one day it would be better.
And so I stayed. Stayed in the house that had stripped me of dignity. Stayed with the man who had stolen my voice, my joy, my body, my very sense of self. Stayed because I convinced myself - lied to myself - that somewhere beyond this storm there must be a brighter sky.
That maybe, just maybe, a better life was being written for me in the shadows, waiting for me to endure enough before it arrived.
But the truth that cuts the deepest is this: every day I stayed, every day I acted, every day I silenced myself, I wasn't just surviving. I was disappearing.