(ALICE)
When I first learned of my pregnancy, I decided I wanted to survive. In that moment, I was a husk, a shell of my former self, so broken that I didn't even know how to begin to put myself back together. The desire to give my child everything I never had was what got me through it all.
Even now, I am not complete. I can feel the cracks in my psyche, the hollowness that has become a permanent part of who I am. However, the love I have for my daughter makes me continue to move forward.
My child was my new beginning. And in my new life, there was no room for the past. So, I took all the memories I had of Darian and put them in a small box before burying it somewhere deep inside my heart. Whenever my thoughts drifted toward him, they would be followed by a sense of worthlessness.
That is what he did to me.
He made me feel worthless. He humiliated me and broke my spirit. And the only reason he was able to do all that is because I let him. Because I trusted him.
