They were perfect.
Her words are swords, slicing through his manipulation and leaving no room for interpretation. Brutal in their honesty, unflinching in their boundaries, and filled with a strength she doesn’t even realize she has.
Timmy’s frantic replies, his manipulative pleas—they’re just proof that she’s finally slipping out of his grasp.
I want to shield her from all of this, to swoop in and fix everything. But I know she needs to do this on her own.
It’s her fight—her victory.
I’ll be here, watching from the sidelines, ready to step in if she needs me.
But for now, I’ll keep cheering her on, proud and relieved with every step she takes toward freedom.
Because Margaux deserves more.
Much more than Timmy.
Much more than the lies and the violence and the chaos.
Margaux deserves peace.
And I’ll be damned if I don’t do everything in my power to help her find it.
CHAPTER 108
JUST CAN'T GET YOU OUT OF MY BED
MARGAUX
Ihaven’t heard a peep from the police—no knocks on the door, no phone calls. The TRO appears to have gone into some kind of administrative black hole, deprioritized. Ironic, considering the many times the police have urged me to get one so they can serve it as soon as possible.
The apartment is suffocating. A centipede hisses as it crawls across the floor, cockroaches dart around the kitchen, and Sabre's food and water bowls sit pathetically empty.
The mess surrounding me feels like a physical manifestation of everything wrong in my life—Timmy’s chaos, my own exhaustion, the weight of my painful period’s relentless grip.
I can’t eat, can’t drink, can’t think. My body is a battleground, and the fog in my brain is as dense as the heat pressing against the apartment walls. The books that need marketing, the packages that need sending—they’re all distant, impossible tasks.
The fog is winning.
Timmy—still staying with Matty—reaches out again, and—desperate and in a moment of sheer vulnerability—I respond. I tell him what’s going on and how I’m doing—not well.
His messages come through again, his words more polished and poignant than I expect:
Timmy:
Let me come and help you.
I’ll get rid of the centipedes and cockroaches.
I’ll clean the apartment and send your books out.
I’ll take care of Sabre.
I’ll take care of you and love on you.
I’ll rub your back and bring you heat pads and ice packs and massage your feet.
Just let me come and love you.