“And go where, Autumn?” she shoots back, her voice raw from screaming. “Tell me… where do we go? How do we pay the rent? How do we eat?” Her hands tremble slightly as she gestures to the room around us, her chipped nails catching the dim glow from the single lamp we can afford to keep on. “He is the only reason we got this place. He’s on the lease, not me.”
I flinch at the truth behind her words. They hit harder than I’d like to admit because deep down, I hate that she’s right. Hate that survival sometimes means clinging to men like Frank—men who bleed us with their words and break us with their fists—because they hold the power to keep a roof over your head. The lease is an issue, and it shackles us to him like chains we can’t break.
Still, something inside me refuses to let this go. Re
