Red Roadside Wildflower

I should have listened when the sirens started blaring in my head.. or when my stepdad pulled me aside prior to his wedding and asked how sure I was that I wanted my then-husband to be there. He said, “These are going to be my wedding photos for the rest of my life; we can’t change them. Are you sure you want him in them? Because I don’t.”

I am not even sure where this energy came from at that specific moment, but it was a valid response.

I had never fully let my parents into the world of abuse that I was experiencing, but they knew me, and they understood that it was there.

Sometime around my stepfather’s wedding, we took a family vacation together. I assume the intention was for us to bond and get to know his new family. Instead, I spent most of the trip avoiding public spaces and awkwardly enduring the moments my presence was absolutely necessary.

It never mattered which trip my ex and I went on, which holiday it was, or whose family function we were at; there was guaranteed tension and confrontation.

On this particular trip, he went through my Insta and realized that an ex he warned me to stay away from had started following me. This ex received no follow-up or PMs. There was no provocation for him to try to interact; it just happened to occur on the same weekend we were visiting with my stepfather. I ignored it and moved on.

Once my ex-husband saw it, however, I knew there would be no rest. We first argued by the pool, but I quickly moved the issue to our private quarters. He grilled me with questions for hours throughout the day, clearly not believing that I had nothing to do with this friend request. We came to dinner to save face, made small talk, and appeared normal for the time being, but once we were back in our rooms, the argument continued.

The twins couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 because Dejah wasn’t yet a year old. I placed Dèjah on the bed between the boys and asked them to keep an eye on her. Within the hour, the man they knew as their father was body slamming me to the ground right in front of them.

In the bathroom a few moments before, and where just a year earlier we had posed in front of the mirror to take a picture for my baby announcement, he had given me a black eye… but the violence in front of our children was too much for us both, and around midnight, he finally left.

Early in the morning, around 2 A.M. he arrived with a hand-picked bouquet of wildflowers.

All was discussed and forgiven.

In the morning, we packed our things, said our goodbyes to my stepfather, and made our way back home. I never told my stepfather what happened. In fact, I tried very hard not to tell anyone what was happening in my home. At the time, I believed I had good reasons. If I told people, it would ruin their day. It would change how they saw him. It would change how they saw me. They would be angry, disappointed, and heartbroken. But more than anything, I was afraid they would ask the question I wasn’t ready to answer:

If it’s really that bad, why are you still there?

So I learned to carry it alone.

I still feel the sting of guilt for staying.

I told myself for a long time that it didn’t matter. At least you survived.

But as I’ve started revisiting these memories, trying to understand them and make peace with them, I keep coming back to the same questions..

What did everyone else see?

Did I seem like myself?

Was I always this quiet and withdrawn?

Were my eyes always this tired?

Was my weight always fluctuating?

Was my stomach always in knots?

Or were there pieces of me disappearing right in front of everyone?

And if they noticed, did they know what they were seeing?

The first time I met my stepfather's wife, Betty, was at one of my twins' birthday parties. The twins’ birthday parties were always exhausting for me. I was responsible for the children and nearly everything that came with them.

So I spent those parties doing what I did best back then—managing.

Making sure everyone had what they needed.

Making sure I said hello.

Making sure I said thank you.

Making sure the kids were happy.

Making sure everything looked okay.

Making sure nobody noticed that I wasn’t.

At this party, I was not tuned in enough to the fact that Betty felt isolated and out of place, or that my mother had been cold, whether unintentionally or intentionally.

My stepfather called me later that night after leaving the party and said that he would not be attending any more birthday parties for my children out of respect for his relationship. And I guess that made sense. However, all I felt was despair.

Not because he was choosing her.

Not because he was setting a boundary.

But because I felt abandoned.

I wanted to scream:

Can’t you see how much I need you?

Can’t you see he’s hurting me?

Please don’t leave.

Instead, I apologized on my mother's behalf.

As we continued vacationing together and meeting for dinners, I kept withholding these pleas.

Maybe that’s why when Scott asked if I really wanted my ex-husband in his wedding pictures, I just thought, “yeah, he’s my family”…

He was the devil I knew. Being included, dressing up, showing off, and presenting his best family man face. Those were the things he lived for.

They sound normal, I suppose.

But by then, I had spent years organizing my life around his presence. Around his moods. Around his accusations. Around keeping the peace. Around surviving. Somewhere in all of that, I stopped noticing what it was costing me.

Not just physically. Not just emotionally, but relationally.

The people who loved me weren’t only losing access to the truth.

They were losing access to me.

The day of my stepfather’s wedding is a blur. I remember taking pictures of my children, all dressed in their best. I remember how emotional my brother and I were. Looking back, I think we were afraid of losing a man we considered a father—a fear that was far too familiar by then. I remember the dancing, the elegance, the beauty, and the flowers. I absolutely remember the flowers. At the end of the night, I became fixated on one of the floral centerpieces. I wanted to dry it and return it to Scott and Betty on their first anniversary. Like so many plans I made during that season of my life, it never happened. My ex-husband was tasked with carrying the bouquet back to our hotel room, which should have been only a block or two away, but we got lost because of my directions and ended up in a part of downtown Houston, TX, overrun with unhoused people. It felt dangerous, and I assume the children were in tow, although my mind can’t place them there now. What I do remember is Desmond yelling, me standing on a street corner, me handing one of those kind souls a rose, and me asking for directions. Downtown Houston felt dangerous. Every instinct told me I should be uncomfortable there, but I realized I felt safer among strangers than I did with the man I married. We both had too much to drink, and at least one of us continued drinking. I know from old videos that I went upstairs, took a bubble bath, happily singing and enjoying my own energy. Later that night, the tension finally erupted. One minute we were arguing in private, the next I was standing in the doorway of our hotel room, exposed to a hallway full of strangers. And by exposed, I mean Au Naturel. Mortified, I got dressed and went outside to sit and collect my thoughts. I may have bummed a cigarette or two as I sat, knees pressed to my chest, alongside the cold exterior walls of the grand hotel my stepfather graciously put us up in. I thought to myself, I am the problem. When Scott said he didn’t want Desmond in his wedding photos, maybe that should have included me. Not because I had done anything wrong, but because by then, chaos seemed to follow me everywhere. Part of me still wonders if I was the real embarrassment.

Every holiday.

Every vacation.

Every family gathering.

I couldn’t separate myself from what was happening to me. I thought that if there was a common denominator, it would have to be me. The next time I spoke to my stepfather, I didn’t tell him about any of this, or much of anything that followed, but eventually I announced the divorce. Most people who were close to us saw it as long overdue, something that needed to be done. I saw it that way, too. The time that I had lost to this relationship was a devastating realization. People say there is a purpose for everything, but honestly, I have found no purpose in my choice to stay all those years.

I thought I was doing it for my children, and some of it came from guilt.

I thought I was doing it for love, loyalty, and security.

I thought about a lot of things back then.

The truth is, I still don’t fully understand all the reasons I stayed. What I do know is that every single year I stayed in that relationship, I became a little less recognizable to myself.

I wasn’t invisible.

My stepfather noticed something was wrong. My family and friends sensed it. People saw pieces of it. The tragedy isn’t that nobody cared. The tragedy is that I became so accustomed to carrying it alone that even when people got close enough to see the smoke, I couldn’t bring myself to point to the fire. Survivors often spend years wondering why nobody helped them, while simultaneously remembering all the reasons they worked so hard to make sure nobody knew help was needed.

Isolation changes your relationship with truth.

You become so focused on surviving that eventually silence feels normal.

You stop asking for help even when help is standing directly in front of you.

Staying cost me—it cost me a lot.

It cost the connection I had with my stepfather.

It cost the connection I had with my family.

It cost versions of myself that I rebuilt over and over again.

It cost all the years I spent hiding.

It cost a multitude of opportunities.

It cost me the chance to be fully loved by people.

The abuse didn’t simply occur between me and my ex. It happened in the space between me and others. It distorted every relationship around me.

For years, I’ve found myself wondering why people weren’t more aware of the chaos I was living in.

Did they not notice how carefully I managed every room, every conversation, every conflict?

I never gave anyone the full truth. Only fragments.

Enough to worry them. Never enough to understand.

I thought I was protecting everyone. What I didn’t realize was that every secret built another wall between the people who loved me and me.

I am making a greater effort to stay in touch with my stepfather now. I tell him I miss him more than usual. I am not sure if he will ever understand how much his consistency has meant throughout my life, and it’s the least I can offer back. I mourn the time that I lost with the people I love, but I keep trying to move forward and create deeper, more meaningful, lasting relationships. I know those intentions were lost for some time.

Abuse rarely takes everything at once.

It takes a little here and a little there.

A friendship. A hobby. A piece of your confidence. Your faith. A family gathering. A phone call you never make.

It alters your identity and causes many missed opportunities and connections. Sometimes it takes pieces of relationships that may never quite look the same or a version of yourself you barely notice disappearing. Until one day you look around and realize how much you’ve lost while convincing yourself you were okay.

You deserve more than survival.

You deserve connection. You deserve peace.

You deserve a life that doesn’t have to be managed minute by minute. And it is never too late to start finding your way back to yourself.

Relationships like the one I am describing convince you that survival is enough.

But surviving and living are not the same thing.

I can’t get those years back. I can’t undo the distance, the silence, or the relationships that suffered while I was trying to survive.

What I can do is be present now.

I can answer the phone.

I can make the drive.

I can say the things I used to swallow.

I can let people know I love them while they’re still here to hear it. Maybe that’s what making up for lost time really means.

Not reliving the years we missed.

Not punishing ourselves for the choices we made while trying to survive. Just refusing to miss any more of the life that’s still in front of us—or the people who make it worth living.