Grace had once believed that the worst thing about Alex was that he was dull. He wasn’t violent. He never raised his voice. He didn’t tear her down with cruel words or angry hands. By all appearances, he was… safe.
But safety could be a trap. And Alex had been the kind that slowly tightened around her ribs until she could no longer breathe.
He exhausted her. Not through battles or wounds, but through a suffocating stillness that drained the life from her. It had taken her far too long to walk away, not because of fear, but because she hadn’t been able to find a sharp, final reason. There had been no clean wound to point at, no moment that screamed enough. Instead, there was only fatigue. A slow erosion of her spirit, until she had looked in the mirror one morning and barely recognized th
