So, just in case there was any doubt left to sort through, it is now clear that Matvei wasn’t bluffing. Every single thing he told me last night in that closet is real, and all of it is happening.
For no real reason in particular, my mind floats back to the first time Raymond hit me. It was a month into our marriage and I’d burned a roast. He came home, smelled the char from the foyer, and swept into the kitchen and slapped me so hard I bit my own tongue and started bleeding all over the tile floor.
Then he told me to clean myself up and we went out for sushi. He held my hand across the table and told me he loved me and that he was sorry and it would never happen again.
I have not, until this exact moment, allowed myself to fully reckon with what he really is. I’d always known he was a
