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My legs are wobbly as I leave the restaurant. I don’t want to go back to our apartment, but my bags are there, and I don’t see any alternative.

Jesus, I’ve never openly faced a single person in my entire life, and today, I did it with six at once.

I’m not rude; in fact, I’m rather patient. However, my glass overflowed when I saw that cynical smile on his face.

Who does he think he is to judge me? I read a lot, but even if I didn’t, that doesn’t make me stupid. As my mother says, not all geniuses have diplomas.

I order a cab from the valet, and just as I get in, I see Mike coming out of the restaurant. He calls out to me, but I ignore him because, as angry as I am, I’m capable of making a scene, and I don’t doubt that someone will photograph it and print it in the newspapers.

I want to end my marriage exactly as it started: discreetly.

I have no doubt he’ll follow me because even though we’ve never gotten as far as we have today, our lives have been hell since our wedding night and the recurring fights.

It was as if, by putting a ring on my finger, he thought he had a free pass to do whatever he wanted with me .

Not anymore.

I’m just finishing up packing my suitcase when I hear the sound of the apartment’s alarm going off.

“What the hell has gotten into you today?” he asks as soon as he enters the room.

I don’t turn to face him, and I know he shuts up because he sees me closing my suitcase.

I just got back from a trip, and in theory, I should stay in Boston until the day after tomorrow before heading to New York for the meeting with my new employer. I won’t be leaving town today, but there’s no way I’ll stay with him for another minute.

“, I asked you a question.”

I turn to him. “There is no longer any point in answering it. It doesn’t matter anymore, Mike. You know perfectly well what I’m doing: leaving,” I say, keeping my voice steady and silently thanking therapy, which has taught me to love and respect myself.

I was rejected in my orphanage years, but I don’t have to keep allowing people to do that to me as an adult.

From the look in his eyes, I think he understands that I’m not just talking about the next trip; I mean forever.

Still, he pretends we’re having another one of the many fights we’ve had in our short marriage. “You were very rude to my friends.”

“More than they were to me?” I start, but I regret it. There’s no point in prolonging this discussion when, inside my head, the decision is already made. “It’s over, Mike. We both know that.”

His face transmutes into pure hate. It’s not the first time, but it still scares me. All the veneer of a fine man, an intellectual, disappears. “Because you didn’t do anything to improve it. You never did anything for our marriage, .”

“If by doing something about our marriage, you mean diving into your kinks, yes, then I didn’t do anything for our marriage. I thought I was bonding with someone normal, not a man who needed . . . I don’t even have the heart to put it into words . . . someone with your preferences to get turned on.”

He’s approaching so fast I barely see the hard slap coming before it smacks my face and I fall over, hitting my head against the bedside table.

Even dizzy and terrified by that violent action, I reach for my phone on the bed and run to the bathroom. It feels like a replay of that day on the ship, but this time, I’m going to call the only man I trust in the world.

“?”

“Dad, I need you to come get me at home. Mike just hit me. I want to leave, but he’s outside the room.”

“, my God! Do you want me to call the police?”

“No, please. That will cause a scandal. Once I’m at your place, I’ll calmly consider what to do, but for now, I just want to get out of here.”

“I’m coming, honey.”

“, it’s Daddy. You can leave now.”

I look at myself in the mirror before opening the door. I haven’t had the courage to do so until now. My whole face hurt, so I knew it must be ugly. The area where he assaulted me is sore, and I was afraid that upon seeing the evidence of his final disrespect towards me, I would lose it.

Now, however, I see that my imagination has lost its way to reality.

The entire left side is swollen, and my eye, which is naturally slanted in the area where he slapped me, is even smaller.

My God, there’s no way I’m going to make it out of here without calling attention to my face. The last thing I want is for the end of my marriage to make the headlines in celebrity magazines.

“?”

“I’ll be right there.” I unlock the door, and as soon as he looks at me, his face flushes like a red pepper .

Instead of hugging me, he leaves the room, and I follow him because I can already imagine what will happen.

As I thought, my Dad has Mike up against a wall, and his face is already turning a little purple.

“Dad, don’t do this; I just want to get out of here.”

“Never touch my daughter again, you bastard, or I’ll kill you.”

He lets go of Mike, opens the apartment door, and waits for him to get out, but Mike still tries to get close to me. My father gets in the way.

“, forgive me. I lost my mind.”

I look at him, thinking I should have walked away on our wedding night when he waited until we were married to tell me what he wanted from me.

“No. It’s over. My lawyers will come to you with the divorce papers. The only thing I want now is for you to leave me alone.”

He tries once more to get closer, but my father stops him.

“I wasn’t kidding, asshole. Touch my daughter again, and I’ll kill you.”

This time, Dad doesn’t wait for him to make up his mind but pushes him out of the apartment and closes the door.

Then he opens his arms for me. “Forgive me,” he says.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes, it was. Right at the beginning, when you came to tell me that the marriage wasn’t going well, I should have listened to you, but I was stuck on the fact that you were very young and maybe weren’t used to a shared life. I had no idea he was abusive, kid.”

“This was the first time he physically attacked me if that’s what you’re talking about. But there are other forms of abuse than physical abuse. He was drying me out, Dad, sucking my energy. Our marriage was a mistake.”

“What do you mean by that?”

I think about what happened on our wedding night when he finally revealed himself. I didn’t spend the morning resting in the arms of the man with whom I had hoped to have a family but crying alone in the next room.

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter anymore,” I say because I don’t have the heart to tell my father about it. My therapist and Bia are the only people who know.

“Okay, but at least tell me what led him to assault you today.”

“What makes a man attack a woman? Cowardice, knowing that she’s someone with less physical strength? Because he sees her as an object that he can treat as he pleases? I think it’s a combination of all that, but mostly the lack of respect, Dad. We haven’t been okay since the first day of marriage. He played a character until he was sure we were bound by the law.”

“And now, what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to ask Bia tomorrow, not a second later, to contact a divorce lawyer.”

“You can also go to a police station. He should pay for what he did to you.”

“I know, but we can’t afford to have my name in the headlines. With that contract I told you about, I’ll be able to pay off the mortgage on your house in full and give Mom more comfort, too. But if my name comes up in a scandal, they might terminate it.”

“And will you travel a little less, too? You always seem to be going back and forth, honey.”

“I don’t know. In this new contract, they will have exclusivity over me.”

“All right, darling. The last thing you need today is pressure. I just want you to know that I love you, . We both love you very much, and bringing you into our family was the best thing we ever did.”

He’s crying, and it makes me finally fall apart.

“Me too, Dad. I’m not good with words and even less with showing feelings, but I love you two so much.”

“We need to put ice on your face. How did that bastard have the courage?”

“It’s over, Dad. That’s what matters. I was already determined to put an end to it, and there were even some rumors about it in the press. That’s why I don’t want to go to the police station. I’m going to ask Bia to hire a lawyer. When she finds out what Mike did, I’m sure she’ll be able to keep him away from me. ”

“You’re very strong, . Anyone who sees you from the outside as beautiful and delicate is wrong. You are made of steel, child.”

“Not yet, but I’m learning.”