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SLASH & BURN

E very day the bitterness inside me grows, like rotting fruit in my chest—festering, sour and heavy. At night, it seeps into my dreams, distorting them until even sleep offers no refuge from the frustration I feel toward Timmy.

Sunset Cay was supposed to be paradise, but instead, it feels like I’ve been trapped in an endless cycle of disappointment—caught between the consequences of his past actions and the relentless toll of his present behavior.

I try to tell myself that ‘things’ shouldn’t matter, but the list of damaged items keeps growing, each one a small but meaningful loss.

While Timmy is very mindful and protective of his own possessions, he handles my belongings like they’re disposable, smashing them in tantrums triggered by things I don’t even remember saying. The slamming of dishes into the sink feels like gunshots to my nerves, sharp and sudden.

"I’ve always done that,” he says casually, driving a knife straight into my favorite cutting board as I watch in disbelief. His careless excuse grates against me. He knows I’ve asked him to stop doing that specific thing before. He knows. But it’s like asking water not to be wet .

Then came the irreplaceable mug, the one I carried with me across cities and continents, through fifteen years and multiple life chapters. One of the only possessions I carried around for that long. “I didn’t know it was important to you,” Timmy says when he notices my expression, his voice dismissive, as if the loss is trivial. The worst part? He didn’t even break it by accident. “You hurt my feelings, so I threw things into the sink to break them.”

Who does that? Timmy, apparently.

Then there’s the custom-made tiki carving of Sabre as a kitten. It was special to me, but meant nothing to him. He intentionally scratched it, gouging lines into it when he got upset. And when I confronted him, he couldn’t even recall why he was angry in the first place. “I just remember you hurt my feelings somehow,” he shrugged, as if that justified destroying something so precious to me.

Every time I try to move past these things, to let the resentment go, it pulls me down further. I can’t unsee the way he sleeps until at least noon, and then insists on binge-watching TV for the rest of the day, all while my savings dwindle away under the weight of his endless list of wants. It feels like living with a human CVS receipt—his desires just keep adding up, into a longer and longer list, multiplying every time he watches something new or takes another nap.

I try to force a smile each time, try to pretend like it doesn’t bother me. But I’m not a good actress, and Timmy is too attuned to my emotions to miss the growing distance between us. The more he senses my resentment, the more erratic his behavior becomes. The apartment feels darker, colder, suffused with an unsettling energy that makes my skin crawl.

I start noticing things I hadn't before, new aspects to this recurring cycle that have crept in—the way he watches me, peeking around doors when he thinks I don’t notice. He’s always lingering on the edges of my vision, just out of reach, as though keeping tabs on me has become his new obsession. He continues to invade my space constantly, continually stepping into the bathroom when I’m showering or even when I’m just peeing.

And every time I catch him spying on me in the shower, he laughs it off like a joke, insisting he’s being playful. But it doesn’t feel cute anymore, like it did at the very start of our relationship. Now, it feels invasive, like a game with invisible rules that only he understands.

Even the smallest conversations have become more charged, more intense. Every word is a potential trigger, and he’s more easily irritated than ever before. I find myself shrinking, calculating every word and action more than ever in a futile attempt to avoid setting him off.

My body responds in ways I can’t control. My throat feels tight, as if it’s being squeezed shut. A strange buzzing floods my hands and feet most days, like my blood is rushing to prepare for flight, even though it feels like there’s nowhere to run. The cortisol spikes leave me feeling swollen and out of sync, like a bloated sausage in a freckled casing stretched too thin.

And knowing I look and feel this way just amplifies the anxiety further—anxiety that clouds my mind, giving me brain fog so thick it makes every decision feel impossible. Even something as simple as choosing what to eat has become overwhelming.

Timmy notices everything. He always does. I can’t tell if he’s feeding off my emotions or responding to them in real-time, but it’s unsettling either way. It’s like he’s anticipating my next move, waiting for the exact moment when my defenses are down, or when I do something he can pounce on.

And all the while, he keeps watching, waiting, lurking—until I feel like I’m suffocating inside, smothered in my own skin, trapped in a life that’s no longer mine.

And he notices all of this..

Hell, he might even be more aware of how I’m feeling than I am.