Long lost Luna

Kate’s POV: It’s another day in paradise. No matter how tired I get, no matter how exhausted I get of this life… I just keep pushing. Maybe I still have a sliver of hope, or maybe - more likely, I’m just a masochist and all I’ve ever known is pain. Every time I tell myself I’m just going to give up and be compliant, I can’t help the fire that burns in my chest, the ache to fight back, to try to prove that I matter. Though sometimes I have a hard time believing that myself. I’m sitting in the passenger seat of my own car. Nick, my husband, never lets me drive. I’m dropping him off at work so I can take our kids to the pediatrician. Traffic is bad, which means Nick’s mood is more sour than usual. He gets such bad road rage and I’ve never understood it. We’ll get there when we get there. So I’m trying to focus on my k****e, read to distract myself. Any time he talks i immediately put my book down and engage in the conversation, I hate when he interrupts my reading but I don’t dare start a fight with him or make a big deal about trying to read while he’s talking. “All you ever do is read. I’m f*****g sick of it.” Nick suddenly blurts out. I can tell by his tone of voice that he’s really angry about this. Looks like even though I tried to keep the peace it wasn’t enough. “I’m sorry. I’ll put it down.” I say calmly. I don’t understand what the problem is, but I don’t need to start anything with him, especially since he’s already worked up about traffic. Unfortunately, as per usual, keeping my mouth shut doesn’t work when he’s in this kind of mood. Part of me can hear him berating me, my brain registering the cruel words he’s saying to me. Another part of me is just trying to be anywhere but here, staring at the other cars on the freeway, trying to not think at all. But he doesn’t like it when I shut down. He wants me to fight back, yell. Honestly no matter what I do he’s not gonna stop anytime soon. When he gets like this he just keeps pushing and pushing until I break. If I try to leave the room or get away from the situation because I can’t take it anymore, he will block my exit or emotionally manipulate me into thinking I can’t leave. He’ll tell me I’m abandoning our children or he’ll tell me that he’ll call the cops on me. He traps me. Until I either start crying and feeling like my only escape is death, or I try to push him, hit him, get him away from me so I can get the space I need away from him. Then I’m the bad guy, and he’ll play the victim card hard. But this is what my life is. As much as I don’t want to be with him anymore, I don’t have much of a choice. I don’t have access to money of my own. He barely just started letting me work again, and I’m not sure how long that will last. He’s ruined my resume, tells me I need to work and then makes me quit without notice because he can’t handle watching our kids. I don’t have support from anyone. He’s isolated me, made sure the small number of friends I had aren’t close to me anymore. Add that to the fact that I’ve always been the black sheep of my family and I don’t have anyone who I could rely on to get me out of here. At least this time, his face to face bullshit has an expiration time. We’ll be at his work soon enough. I’m sure the text messages will still come all day long, but those I can handle a little easier.