“No, they weren’t. You let that guy steal them. They’re gone.”
My mind spins. I remember, as clearly as the sun rising this morning, Timmy showing me the brake pads, relieved they hadn’t been taken.
But now, he’s rewriting history in real-time. He’s done this before—traded or given away things, only to blame me when they’re mysteriously missing.
He must have sold them. Or swapped them for God knows what.
The man is insane. But more insidious than that, he believes his own lies.
He’s perfected the art of bending reality, leaving me questioning everything but the small fragments of truth I cling to desperately.This?This, I’m sure of. The brake pads were there.
But I don’t have the energy to argue. Not about this. Not anymore.
I nod absently. “Oh. Well, that sucks.”
And just like that, I let it go, and I go on about my day.
Defeated.
Ashamed.
Exhausted.
Over it.
Over him.
Over everything.
The past few weeks have left me reeling—emotionally shredded—as if someone grabbed the fabric of my sanity and ripped it into jagged pieces.
“They all hate you for what you did,” Timmy says one afternoon, his words as sharp as glass. “More people are stopping me in public places, asking me for money to fix the fence you ruined. Telling me how much you owe them. God, it’s so embarrassing for me.”
The weight of his words presses down like a physical burden. I feel mortified all over again. I can’t reconcile my behavior from that night—leaving the apartment, the whiskey-fueled haze, the moment I lost control of the truck and smashed into the fence. How out of character this whole situation is for me.
That wasn’t me.
That isn’t me.
I’m not the kind of person who yells at a partner or drives recklessly.
I’m not the kind of person who ends up in situations that spiral so completely out of control.
But lately, I’ve been doing things I never thought I’d do.
And any attempt to hold Timmy accountable for his behavior feels like shouting into a void.
Two weeks later, I have my intake appointment with my new therapist. I’m optimistic. Nervous, but optimistic.
It feels like a small chance to reclaim a part of myself,to process the chaos, to untangle the mess that is my life. God knows I need help with what’s going on at the moment, let alone all the trauma from my past.
I shut myself in the back room and log in to the session. My therapist, Kathleen, and her supervisor, greet me warmly. Kathleen is wrapping up her postdoctoral studies, and her demeanor is professional yet compassionate.
For the next hour, I tell them everything—or as much as I can fit into sixty minutes. Kathleen and her supervisor listen with interest—and perhaps a touch of horror—as I tell them about my less than conventional life.
The adoption.
My overbearing mother.