He went away one weekend, and he didn’t want me going out. So he took all my clothes. He took everything. He even emptied my underwear drawer.
I was left naked in the flat. I couldn’t even answer the door.
At first, I thought he was joking. He stood by the door, holding a duffel bag filled with my clothes, a smirk playing on his lips. “You don’t need to go anywhere, do you?” he said.
I laughed, uneasy. “Come on, this is stupid.”
But he just tilted his head. “It’s for your own good. You don’t need to be out parading yourself.”
Parading myself. That was what he called it whenever I went anywhere without him. Even if it was just the shop.
Then he left. The door slammed. The sound of his car faded into the distance.
I walked through the flat, opening drawers, cupboards, even the washing machine—nothing. He hadn’t missed a thing.
The realisation hit me slowly, like the air had been sucked out of the room.
I was trapped.
I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor, my heart pounding. I couldn’t go out. Couldn’t answer the door if someone knocked. Couldn’t even cover myself with a towel and try to run to a neighbour’s because he’d taken those too.
The hours crawled by.
I kept expecting him to come back. To realise he’d gone too far this time. But night fell, and I was still alone. I lay in bed, cold and exposed, my arms wrapped around myself.
This wasn’t love.
I’d told myself for months that he just had a temper. That he loved me too much. That I could fix things. But this? This was something else.
This was control.
Monday morning, I woke up to the sound of my phone buzzing. His name lit up the screen.
“Change of plans,” he said, his voice casual, like this was nothing. “I’ll be away a few more days.”
A few more days.
Something inside me cracked.
I had no plan, no idea where I’d go. I just knew I couldn’t stay here, locked away, waiting for him to decide when I was allowed to exist again.
I tore through the flat, searching for anything he might have missed. The only thing left was an old T-shirt and joggers of his, stuffed in the laundry basket. I pulled them on. They smelled like him, and for a moment, I almost ripped them off. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
I needed to leave.
I ran to the door, threw it open, and stepped outside—barefoot, breathless, my heart hammering. The cold pavement stung, but I didn’t stop.
I didn’t know where I was going.
I just knew I wasn’t going back.
