The mirror in our hallway was my enemy. For seven years, I avoided looking into it because I knew what I would see—not my own reflection, but the version of me that Richard had created.
For years during our marriage, he told me I was ugly, stupid, and worthless.
It was a slow drip of poison. “That dress makes you look desperate,” he would say before a party. “Don’t speak during dinner; you’ll just embarrass yourself,” he would whisper before guests arrived. “You’re lucky I settled for you,” he would remind me before bed.
I believed him. I shrank. I stopped wearing bright colors. I stopped voicing my opinions. I became a grey, quiet ghost haunting my own life, convinced that I was indeed the burden he claimed I was.
Then came the day he packed his bags. He found someone “better,” someone “worthy.” When he left, I thought I would die. I lay on the floor of the empty living room, terrified of the silence, convinced I couldn’t survive without his “guidance.”
But silence, I learned, is not empty. It is peaceful.
The first week was hard. The second week, I slept through the night for the first time in a decade.
Slowly, the color came back to my face.
I started wearing red lipstick again. I bought a dress that hugged my waist. I spoke up in a meeting at work, and instead of being told I was stupid, my boss nodded and took notes.
The transformation was rapid. I started smiling—a real smile, not the tight, apologetic grimace I had perfected for Richard. I got a promotion to senior manager. I met friends who laughed with me, not at me.
I was glowing. I felt lighter, as if gravity had loosened its grip on my bones.
I ran into him a year later at a coffee shop downtown.
I was laughing with a colleague, wearing a fitted blazer and heels. Richard was standing in line, looking grey and miserable. He turned and saw me.
He froze. His mouth actually fell open. He looked shocked. He scanned me from head to toe, trying to reconcile the confident woman in front of him with the mouse he had left behind.
He walked over, his arrogance faltering for the first time.
“Clara?” he asked. “You look… happy.“.
He sounded accusatory, as if my happiness was a personal insult to him. He was fishing for a compliment, expecting me to say I had changed for him, or that I was trying to win him back.
I took a sip of my latte and looked him dead in the eye. I didn’t feel fear. I didn’t feel love. I felt nothing but relief.
“I smiled and replied, ‘I lost 180 pounds of dead weight,’” refering to his exact body weight. “‘Of course I’m happy.’“.
I watched the realization hit him. He wasn’t the prize I had lost; he was the anchor I had cut loose. I turned back to my friend and continued laughing, leaving him standing there with the heavy realization that he had been the only thing dragging me down all along.
