London Calling

Prologue

straight down the tunnel

TOLERATE IT BY TAYLOR SWIFT

The crazy thing about drowning is that you don’t always realize it’s happening until it’s too late. Sometimes it’s not a quick submersion. There’s not always thrashing, screaming, or flailing.

Sometimes it’s stillness. It’s a slow suffocation, quiet and invisible, pulling you underwater like gravity. The weight settles over you so gently you hardly notice it’s there—until you can’t breathe.

That’s how it feels with Matt.

It was never about one specific aggression.

It was erosion. A slow chipping away at who I was, unraveling me so gradually, I barely noticed it happening.

I didn’t see it when I stopped speaking up in meetings, or when I started apologizing for things that weren’t even my fault, just to avoid upsetting him. I didn’t notice it when I dulled myself to give him more room to shine.

I was shrinking, and I didn’t even see it.

But I see it now. And I hate my own reflection. I hate this muted, careful version of myself I never meant to become.

Today is the day I finally realized I’m already underwater, and I have been for a long time.

It’s quiet in the apartment as I pack up the last of my things.

I only have a few boxes. I don’t want anything we shared here, anything we acquired together.

I don’t care about the art on the walls, or the overpriced sheet set he just had to have.

I don’t want anything from the life we built with his blueprints.

All I want are the pieces of me, and there’s not much of that left. He made sure of it.

Matt is in Los Angeles for work. I have twenty-four hours to move everything out before he gets back. Maybe even less, if he cuts his trip short. He does that sometimes. I used to think it was romantic. He just missed me so much he had to get back.

But now I realize it was never about romance.

It was always about control.

The intensity, the need to know where I was, and who I was with; I believed it was because he just wanted to protect me.

He convinced me people were fake, or didn’t really care about me, but now I realize all those people knew exactly who he was, and he didn’t want them putting ideas in my head.

I’m easier to control when I’m isolated.

And I believed that was love. I believed he was all I needed—because he designed it that way. He rearranged the truth until I couldn’t even recognize it anymore.

It’s only now, sitting on the bedroom floor, shoving the last of my items into a bag, that I see it for what it is—a slow suffocation, like a snake wrapping itself around my neck until I can’t breathe.

He chipped away at me, piece by piece, until I was so small I almost disappeared.

I can barely even breathe in the apartment now.

The air feels heavier, thick with every apology I didn’t owe, every piece of myself I handed over.

And now, the isolation is all so clear, because I have no one to call to help me move besides my mother.

I’ll always be thankful that when I called her for help, she didn’t hit me with a “finally” or an “I told you so.” It was just an immediate “I’m on the way.

” And despite New York City traffic, she and a moving crew were here within an hour.

But now I’m sitting on the floor in our bedroom, sobbing like I’m purging something toxic, or some demonic soul has been exorcized from my body.

Maybe both are true.

This isn’t just about leaving.

This is about kicking against the current.

Coming back up to the surface.

Breathing.

Today, I finally choose myself.

I have no job. No plan.

But for the first time in years, the unknown feels less terrifying than staying.