July 5th 2021
He didn’t say a word about it and asked if I wanted to come over to dinner. Naively, I had hoped I would get an apology or an explanation for why things had been so haywire between us. How could I have been so stupid?
I showed up with the bottle of wine he had asked me to bring.
Craig didn’t cook, but he planned to pick up dinner to eat at his apartment.
We didn’t even get to take the food out of the containers before a fight started.
He told me to change my plans for the fireworks.
I refused. I had no reason to cancel on my friends, especially after not hearing from him for days.
I couldn’t take the name-calling, the belittling, or his trying to convince me that my friends only invited me out of pity.
Last year, taking him with me had been a disaster, and I didn’t want to repeat it.
When I refused to change my plans, he insisted he would be going with me.
He didn’t really like being told that he wasn’t invited this year.
I didn’t ask my friends why they hadn’t extended a ‘plus one’ invitation; I honestly didn’t care. I just wanted to go alone.
Never had I thought fireworks would set someone off as badly as if the fuse had been lit on them instead.
I ended things, at least I tried to. When I tried to leave, he actually hit me, struck me across my face.
Without thinking, I swung the wine bottle I had picked up to take with me and swung it back at him, hitting his head.
It wasn’t hard enough to do much damage, but it was enough for him to call the police to have me arrested for assault.
I cried so badly sitting in the cop car.
They hadn’t believed that he had struck me first. When he backhanded me, it hadn’t left a mark.
The wine bottle, unfortunately, had left a bruise on his cheek.
I was humiliated, treated like a criminal just for trying to break up with my psychotic boyfriend, but they didn’t see that.
They saw a man trying to get his girlfriend ‘help’ for her violent outbursts.
With no record, I was booked and released, due in court next month to possibly face charges. They gave him a five-day restraining order against me. Once those five days are up, I’m scared of how this is going to play out. Will he continue pressing charges against me? Or will he let me go?