As my hyperactive mind takes over yet again in the hollow vastness of this apartment - this palace of glass and steel that outsiders envy - I ask myself the same question I've been too cowardly to answer: why do I stay? The irony drips, bitter and cruel. I can't even call this place "mine." It never was, and perhaps never will be. I mouth the word "ours" for appearances, but the truth claws at me in silence - it is his, entirely, indisputably, proudly his. He has made sure of that.
With words sharpened like knives, with silences heavy as boulders, he has hammered this reality into me, until it echoes in my very bloodstream: this is his world, and I am only allowed to exist in it.
And no matter what mask I wear - be it the painted smiles at gatherings, the hollow laughter that sticks to my throat, or the desperate immersion into my work - I cannot outrun the reminder. I have been working for years, building a career, burning myself at both ends, and yet, what do I hold in my hands? Dust. Crumbs.
A paycheck that, in his eyes, is laughable - a token meant for trinkets, not survival. He calls it "peanuts," as though my effort, my sweat, my hours, my sleepless nights, were nothing more than a child's hobby. And I swallow the insult every time, though it burns my throat like acid.
The truth is - I am not a fool. I know I am no financial genius. I cannot spin gold from numbers, I cannot multiply wealth like magic. But must survival always be measured in empires and investments?
Is the dignity of work so easily dismissed when it does not stack up to his towering pride? My job sustains me in ways no balance sheet can show - it anchors me, distracts me from the cold indifference of this house, this marriage, this life. And yet, that invisible contribution, the one that keeps me breathing, is invisible to him.