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Chapter Twenty-Five - ROOK

After Ronin leaves I change into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and slip into a long peaceful sleep In fact, when I wake up in theI feel rested and at peace withall the way back to my childhood, before my mom overdosed and I went into foster care She was aattention, no clue how to take care of a kid

Andbut chaos In fact, now that I think about it,chaotic episode after another

When I first decided to put so the hell away froo to the library and use their co history being detected I could never trust that anything I looked at on our ho traced because that was Jon’s job Computer forensics He wasn’t a cop but he worked with theirlfriend trying to etaway

Anyway, the library had all kinds of material on domestic abuse It took me several visits to finally accept that was the situation I was in Domestic abuse just sounded so clinical I just knew he hit me, mostly for no reason, but soet it over with

It turns out that h a cycle--it starts out fine, then the tension builds and builds, he snaps and gets violent, and then the e is the only tih I didn’t really understand this before reading that paer and the tension building to a peak And it drove me insane, how I had to just wait for him to release it Onon purpose just to get to the e where I could relax for a feeeks

Except there’s just one probleets worse and worse and the ets shorter and shorter until it fades away entirely Then there’s only tension and violence

That’s the stage Jon and I were in

Twenty-four-hour tension and violence If he wasn’t hittingh he knew damn well he was the only man I’d ever been with And the last time was the end of the line forto kill me next time Of course I could’ve called the police and stayed in Chicago, letting the system work it out But the statistics were not in et a restraining order, the guys almost never respected it There was even a paet the woht still be pretty weak right now, but I aer than I was back then I know for sure--I’d have been one of those duirls ent back I would’ve So the only way out for h and let all this bad stuff out with the air

It’s over now, so I can let it go It’s been ave up, he’s ot hi person Whatever happened after I left, it didn’t happen to uilty that I didn’t put hiirl And even now I’er--back then it was inco to stop hiht back like that if it ever happens again, but right now I’ile It’s a hell of a lot better than broken

And that’s what I was back in Chicago A s that had no hope of understanding that what he did toI accepted pretty quick when I started to realize as happening to me internally--the way I justified his acts and allowed him to keep me there in the house after his abuse I was just as sick as hiical disorder that grew over the years until I was incapable of understanding what a healthy relationship was

I was sick The abuse had conditioned e state of acceptance and I can remember every detail of the day it all beca at a computer in the library and I suddenly looked around

And asked myself an honest question

Is this all there is for me?

I mean, I was a kid once I had drea up facts about domestic violence when I had a state-of-the-art co room that I was afraid to use

I was broken, beaten, and scared of pretty e my life then I’d have to do itto protect me, or saveas heroes, no such thing as being rescued, and if I had a doure it outto end up dead

And while Ronin sees that keepI can afford to do right now Because in the end there is still only me

I need to keep this in mind as I make choices about what I will and won’t do while I’raphy studio