It Ends with Her

by Brianna Labuskes

What had proved even more insidious than the outright violence was the emotional abuse. He tested the waters with it. Tested to see how much she’d put up with. Little jabs and digs at first. The put-downs that were so neatly and precisely dressed as concern. But even when she knew it was happening, it didn’t stop her from internalizing it. From accepting it as truth, as the water scalded her degree by degree until she was so used to it she didn’t feel the blisters covering her skin.

The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break, it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.

She could be strong. If only for today.

She wanted to live. Maybe there had been times in the past that she hadn’t wanted to, where the ease of sinking into the oblivion had called to her, a siren’s song that had been hard to resist. But,