Day one started late, but it was the most important.

I left.

With supportive police officers at my side, tears in my eyes, fear in my body, pain in my heart, and bags on my back—I walked away.

I know I’m doing the right thing. I know he was abusive, manipulative, and unkind. I knew I would feel every emotion like a gunshot to my soul. I knew I would question, regret, and crumble.

I knew all this, but knowing and living it are two very different experiences.

He hasn’t reached out. Not once. That fact alone should validate why I left. It should remind me that this choice was necessary. But it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

There is still this tiny flicker of hope inside me—hope that this explosion would finally ignite change in him. It hasn’t. It won’t. Because the truth is, the man I’m hoping for never really existed. The love I felt was an addiction to someone who was slowly destroying me.

I hate that I know all of this and still feel torn in half. I hate that I’m proud of myself in one breath, and furious at myself in the next. I want to go home. I want to run away. I want him to call. I hope he never does.

Leaving feels like stumbling through a haunted house, where the walls are liquid, the floor won’t hold still, and the door to freedom is so far away my feet won’t move. I can’t turn back. I can’t stay still. I can only keep pushing forward, even when it feels impossible.

This is Day Three.

I am out.

I am terrified.

I am free.