I tried to find some words to respond to him.
I tried to reach for my phone to call for help, to finish that message.
I tried to know, for sure, that he was lying. To believe that other people would know.
Wouldn’t they?
Breathe.
Except my waters broke and things started progressing fast, then even faster, and I had no choice but to let the husband who had just threatened to take my baby from me, who was trying to convince me that I wasn’t in control of my own mind – who I was realising for the first time was an abuser, as simple as that; there was no romance; there was no loving me too much; there was only false kindness extreme enough to make me tolerate the cruelty – drive me too fast and hyped and still threatening to take my baby the whole way, on a loop, to the hospital.
Where we would welcome our first child, labour progressing at a terrifyingly fast pace, in less than two hours to the backdrop of a drip-feed, whenever medical staff left the room: you’re crazy, you’re crazy, you’re crazy.
I will take this baby from you, came the soundtrack to my labour.
You are crazy.
When they went to the other side of the room.
I will take this baby from you.
Whispered into my ear, as he wiped my brow.
You. Are. Crazy.
Say a phrase three times and it’s yours, they say. How many times do you have to hear one to internalise it so deeply, it repeats itself in your own brain too. Until it becomes fact.
You are crazy.
You are crazy.
You are crazy.
I can still hear it now. A nasty word. A thoughtless word. A word that is cruel in its lack of nuance and understanding.
You. Are. Crazy.