It was all so pathetically familiar by then. I was able to retreat far back into my mind, nestled in my private prison, watching it all unfold. Next came the predictable, with his hands on my body, his tongue dragging roughly up my cheek. I remember thinking of the dog we never had. Scott had flatly refused every time I suggested a furry companion might make our home life a little less…

And then I’d trailed off. He’d snapped his gaze to me, eyes narrowing.

“A little less what?”

I’d shrunk away from him. There was another night: one of our so-called good evenings, meaning he hadn’t hit me, and I wanted to keep it that way. Shaking my head, I looked down at my book. It was a miracle he was even allowing me to work on my creative writing course in bed with him. A few days earlier, he’d hit me bad, so maybe this was his deranged way of apologising.

I had to take a break. Anyway…

My creative writing teacher was a radical woman, a hippie who’d had a series of poetry books published in the nineties, and more recently a children’s fantasy series. She was intense and believed in taking what she called alternate paths to develop one’s writing ability.

“My father believed in method writing,” she’d explained to the class once. “He’d lock himself in his office at the back of the garden any time he was working. He explained to me how it worked. His entire mental landscape would become the narrative, the characters, the world of the story. He’d lose his sense of self, only seeing another person when my mum brought him his meals. Sounds insane, yes?”

The class laughed uneasily. She looked like she was about to launch into another of her diatribes.

“He went on to write nine bestsellers. Many of you know his name. He sadly passed when he was only fifty-two. It was a few days before my name first appeared in print. It’s one of life’s unfunny jokes.”

The teacher had given us an assignment, something daring and strange, and I knew working on it in bed was a mistake. If Scott got his hands on it…

I’m not sure where to go from here. How can I explain how tragic and helpless I felt any time I had to ask to borrow one of the cards, my cards, so I could buy something at the shop? How can I explain the agony of wincing every time my husband walked past the bathroom door, the floorboards creaking, then pausing, my eyes fixated on the door handle?

Don’t turn, don’t turn.

I had married a young man with a soul full of hope and love, who I believed would always protect me. He’d never let anything bad happen to me. And he’d certainly never become the bad thing himself.

I’m not perfect. I lied to my husband for years; I never plan on telling him the truth. I may have to look through these entries when I’m done, cutting out all the parts about me and my lover, the woman who captivates my thoughts whenever I’m not with her, the name carved into the wall near the gnarled wind-battered tree.