“Oh no,” he whispered and a chill chased up my spine at the sound of it. “No, you fuckin’ do not, Amelia,” he kept whispering sinisterly. “If you were mine, no matter if you fucked me, you’d get respect from me. I know that shit because my wife sunk into a bottle, she fucked up our lives, our future, our kids, and she never gets that shit from me. You cannot tell me that whatever it is that happened between you two is as bad as you pickin’ booze over your family. So you cannot tell me the way he spoke to you was what you deserved because I know that shit isn’t fucking true.”

Again, he was right and this time, not kind of.

This time, he was really right in a way that again rattled me.

“I can’t imagine why we’re discussing this,” I said defensively. “We hardly know each other, and again, my business isn’t yours.”

“I figure you’re right, you can’t imagine why we’re discussing this because even someone who gives a shit about you, we hardly know each other or not, lays it out straight with no bullshit, you’re so deep in what he’s taught you to believe, you refuse to see.”

Again.

Right.

Again.

Rattled.

“Maybe we should stop talking,” I suggested.

“Maybe,” he returned.

“Like, ever,” I went on.

“You want it that way, Amy, in your big house all alone, accepting the dregs when a woman like you should be handed everything, you got it.”

Before I could reply, he hung up on me.

I took the phone from my ear and stared at it, asking, “Did that just happen?”

The phone and the entirety of my house were unsurprisingly silent.

He convinced you that you were a piece of shit when he is and you went down without a fight.

Mickey’s words pummeled me so hard mentally, my entire body jerked.

Did I?

Did I go down without a fight?

It felt like I’d been fighting for years. Anytime I saw Conrad or Martine, anytime I forced them to see me, I fought.

But I didn’t.

In the game they made me play against my will, each time that happened, I wasn’t fighting.

I was showing them my cards.

So it wasn’t a big shock that they’d bested me.

And maybe he’s convinced your kids you’re a piece of shit too.

My husband had cheated on me. He’d left me. He’d destroyed our family.

I thought we’d been happy. For years, years, I’d run through moments, snippets, hours, weeks, months and the only thing we consistently disagreed about was how he didn’t want me to spoil the children. Outside of that, I’d never found a single second where he’d given me any indication things were going wrong.