In a matter of weeks, he’s taken over my life and stolen every ounce of control from me and I hate it. I hate that all of my choices have been taken from me and no matter how many times I tell him or my mom or my supposed best friend that this isn’t what I want no one cares. I’m impotent, silenced and ignored and instead of growing accustomed to the feelings there’s a simmering melancholic rage that’s building and festering inside of me, I’m as angry as I am hopeless and I don’t know what to do to make me feel normal again.

Everything that’s happening to me is his choice. He wants me to be his, so I am. He wants me to go places and do things, so he insists I do it and when I argue he manipulates my mom or my only friend to coerce me to do what he wants.

I’m a prisoner in my own life and no matter how loud I shout or how honest I am, he’s stolen my voice. Day by day it feels like I’m becoming more and more brittle, that constantly being forced to bend to his will is slowly snapping me in two. Winter break and Christmas with my dad is the only bright spot on my horizon. Mom lost her shit when I told her I planned to go to Maine for the holidays, telling me I was selfish and childish and mean for leaving her alone at Christmas. Miranda swooped in and saved the day when she invited my mom to have Christmas at their house with Clay, Evan and Hunter’s families too.

Sebastian was beyond pissed when he found out I was going to visit with my dad, he even tried to invite himself on the trip, but my dad shot him down. He said that as much as he’d love to meet my boyfriend, this was our first Christmas together in fourteen years and he wanted it to just be the two of us.

Because winter break isn’t that long, Dad convinced my mom to allow me to miss the last week of school so I could spend more time with him. Today is my last day of suffering, then tomorrow it’s sayonara Green Acres and hello two weeks of blissful Sebastian-free time.

“Are you all packed?” Mom asks, her lips pressed into a flat line as she leans against the doorframe in my room.

“Yep,” I say, nodding my head in the direction of my case leaning against my closet door.

“Have you got your thermals, it’s probably going to be snowing and below zero, you’ll freeze.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing the snow. I have plenty of layers and Dad said he’s taking me to get a winter jacket and anything else I need when I get there.”

“You know you could have just gone to Vail with Sebastian if you wanted to see the snow, the Lockwoods offered to have the holidays in the mountains if that’s what you wanted.”