To the Version of Me Who Stayed

Reader’s Note:

There will be brief mentions of physical and emotional abuse. Not in graphic detail, but it is there. Walk carefully, friends.

Dear The Version of Me That Stayed,

I want to ask you: did it ever get better?

No holds barred. Nothing. Just that. Did it get better? Or did my fear become your reality?

Did she finally figure out how to love you— for you, not because it was another cog in her wheel to get what she wanted? Did you stop asking to exist in the space she had or continue to make yourself as small as possible when she entered the room? Do you still hold your breath— so as not to cloud her air with yours? Is your voice stronger now or brittle and worn down from underuse? Have your bruises finally healed from the bad nights when she needed an outlet, and you were just the easiest target? Did it get better?

Unfortunately, I am writing to a hypothetical person. Much like Schrödinger’s cat, we are in the space between possibilities. What is and what could be. I could tell you what I finally learned about people like her—how to read the room before you’re fully in it. How to disappear before being told to, or worse, shown what happens when you don’t. But none of it would tell you if things got better. For either side of this proverbial coin flip.

All I know is you stayed— while I left. I slammed that door shut years ago and bolted it so it would never return. You kept it open. Kept giving her a way in. Never truly realizing your full potential in doing so. Because of the need to please her.

I want to ask if you’re okay. But I don’t think that I’m allowed to ask that from here. In a place of safety. Okay is a term used for people who have left these types of situations. I don’t know the right word for the people who don’t. Not that I blame you. I don’t. Or pity you. You did what you had to do. Just— I wish I could hold your hand. Offer you some sort of hope. But I can’t. She did a number on me, too.

I still flinch when a voice similar to hers comes in on the phone. Even when I know it can’t possibly be her. I would blank out and disassociate for a second before the voice would bring me back to the present. I still feel my pulse rise, sweat form on my spine, and my anxiety spike while my heart thumps louder in my chest. Feeling like I’m caving into my own fucking ribcage just to get it to stop. To quiet. It isn’t her. Sounds like her. But it isn’t. I moved. I changed numbers. I moved to a country away to get clear of her.

There are days when I remember her hands. The vile words and hate spewing from her mouth as she raised her hand up to strike —like a cobra. My limbs lock into place. Another voice asks if there’s anything else I need as I come back to reality, still holding a package in the pharmacy. I still apologize even when I know I don’t have to. The words vomit up as if second nature at this point.

I don’t know what your week looks like now. I used to know. I can’t lie and say it’s better or worse for me. I like what I said above. I have my good days, and then I have my down days. (Mostly down lately.) Everything really is subjective to the eye of the beholder, or who you are now in this very moment, reading this as the one who didn’t leave. I think the not-knowing is still another loss in itself. I gave up the choice and the information, slamming that door closed on my way out.

All I know is — this will never reach you. You stayed, and I left.

I’m not coming back for you. That’s a promise I will keep for myself. For my family. For my daughter. I closed the door while you left it wide open. Are you better? Are you even whole?

You’re in my thoughts. But this will be the only time I will open the lines of communication.

I left. You stayed.

Wish it were a better ending.

Address unknown. Forwarding not requested.

xxx