PROLOGUE: 04:46 AM
The phone reads 4:46 AM. The glare from the screen cuts through the darkness of the room, stinging my eyes. Sleep has slipped away from me once again. I keep my back flat against the mattress, slowing my breathing to fake a deep sleep.
While I maintain this exterior simulation, inside my mind, the story is entirely different. My skull has become a battlefield.
One part of me—the most fractured part—remains stranded down there, weaponizing the guilt of having left her alone. It repeats to me, like a sick echo:
"You didn't keep your word."
It assures me that the man I am now is nothing but a hollow facade, a lie that is becoming harder and harder to sustain by the day.
An automatic reflex triggers at the base of my neck, like an invisible cable snapping taut all at once. Breathing becomes difficult, and a sharp burning fills my chest every time I try to inhale without raising suspicion. My body demands that I freeze. Isolation is the only safe option if I want to protect the few pieces of myself I have left.
Suddenly, I feel an arm drape over me, and a hand rests on my chest...
Slowly, I turn my head to the left. I can see her. My wife’s steady breathing reveals that her sleep has not been disturbed. Gently, I take her hand and move it away from my racing chest, startled by the sudden jolt. Then, I slowly reach out and press my palm against her hip, feeling the warmth and softness of her skin. I love her—with a desperation that is difficult to explain, though that declaration carries its own dark nuances.
I have established a unilateral agreement with my reality, a truce built upon the absolute absence of apologies. By day, the silence and my mask show the excellent guy the world accepts without hesitation. By night, in the loneliness of the shadows, reality is quite different: a coward, a piece of trash that learned to walk upright.
The silence begins to slip away. The containment barriers I try to impose on my memory are bypassed when a painfully familiar melody starts to echo in my head, dragging up scenes from years ago: abuse, mockery, and humiliations that left my dignity trampled at the hands of someone who knew my weaknesses perfectly.
Once again, my diaphragm locks up.
A wave of acid nausea presses against my throat. Beneath the sheets, a fine tremor takes control of the phalanges of my hands. I know how much it will cost me to recover from this; the crises are increasing in frequency and duration. The mental defenses are giving way.
I clench my fists tightly, digging my nails into my palms, and fight back the urge to vomit until the collapse finally subsides. When the wave passes, I pick up the phone again to check the time.
-6:00 AM-
It’s time to get up. Nothing happened here. The day demands that composure be non-negotiable.
