forgetting an anniversary or backing into a mailbox.
A pattern of fear, apology, blame, and another hand across a face is not a mistake.
It is a choice repeated until someone finally refuses to absorb it.
People still divide themselves when they hear my story.
Some think I should have left sooner.
Some think involving the police was too much for a husband who was crying by the end.
Some still ask whether forgiveness might have been possible.
Maybe that is the part people argue over because it keeps them from facing the clearer question: how many warnings should a woman survive before she is allowed to save herself.
I only know that the morning I served breakfast to my brother and my husband at the same table, I stopped protecting the wrong person, and my life began the moment I did.
