Before the teacup, there was laughter. There was warmth. There was a version of me who believed in love, in safety, in the idea that home was a place of comfort, not a cage.
I remember the early days, when her words were soft, her touch gentle. She made me feel special, like I was someone worth loving. I held onto that feeling, even as it faded. Even as the silences stretched longer, as the criticisms crept in. At first, they were small—little things I could brush off. A comment here, a sigh there. But they grew.
The first time she truly hurt me, it wasn’t with her hands. It was with a sentence. A simple, devastating sentence that lodged itself in my ribs like a shard of glass: “You’d be nothing without me.”
I laughed it off then. Told myself she didn’t mean it. But she did. And she proved it, piece by piece. She made sure I believed it.
She took away my confidence first, then my friends. Family became distant. She built a world where she was the only voice that mattered. And I let her. Because love, real or imagined, was a powerful thing. It made me stay. It made me ignore the way she chipped away at me until I barely recognised myself.
Then came the cup.
Every morning, there was a cup of tea waiting for me in the kitchen. Always in the same broken cup. I hated that cup. I wanted to smash it, grind it into dust beneath my heel, but that would just get me in trouble. She would also leave the teabag and spoon for me to clean up, a silent order, a reminder.
She did it to remind me that I was a broken mess and that nobody would ever want me.
It was never an act of kindness. The tea was a weapon, the cup a symbol. The chipped rim that cut my lip once, the fine cracks that spidered across its surface, the weak handle that threatened to break apart in my hands—it was all deliberate. A quiet, daily reminder that I was just as fractured, just as useless. She didn’t need words to tell me I was worthless. That cup said it all.
I don’t even remember when it started. One day, I woke up, and it was there. My morning ritual of submission. Some days, I swallowed it down, forcing myself to pretend it didn’t matter. Other days, I couldn’t bring myself to touch it. The worst days were when I thought she was right. That I really was that broken. That I deserved it.
I tried to leave once. I made it as far as the front door before the fear dragged me back. I told myself I had nowhere else to go. That I was safer here. But the truth was, I had let her burrow into my mind, twisting my thoughts until I believed her lies. Until I believed I was nothing without her.
Then, one morning, I woke up, and the cup wasn’t there.
The kitchen counter was empty. No lukewarm tea. No damp teabag clinging to the sink. No passive-aggressive reminder of my place. My breath caught in my throat. My hands trembled. Something was different.
I turned, and my bag was by the door, packed. Not by her, but by me.
I had done it in the dead of night, my heart pounding so hard I thought it would wake her. Every item I packed had felt like a betrayal, but I kept going. Even as my hands shook. Even as doubt screamed at me to stop. I hadn’t been sure if I would follow through.
But now, standing in that silent kitchen, I knew.
No cup. No tea. No more excuses.
I grabbed my bag, my fingers tight around the strap as I stepped toward the door. My pulse roared in my ears, my body alight with terror and something else—something unfamiliar.
Relief.
I walked out. And this time, I didn’t look back.
