Kapitel 1
I had everything one could imagine.
I was engaged to my childhood friend.
We lived in a spacious apartment, and he was climbing the career ladder quickly.
I had two wonderful children with him. Felix was just two years old, and Lina was only a few months old.
And in the end, I had nothing left.
The relationship fell apart. I was yelled at, emotionally broken down and… cheated on.
I held Elija’s phone in my hand.
For weeks, I had felt that something wasn’t right.
Of course, the relationship was already broken, but there was more.
And now I was reading messages from a girl named Luisa.
Well, great.
The only reason I was still with Elija was financial security. I had nothing left in common with him. Over the past years, all I had learned was how despicable I was, how I was nothing more than dirt on this earth.
I put the phone aside—the one he had forgotten this morning—and called my best friend.
“You need to come pick us up,” I said.
She sighed in relief. That was the sentence she had been waiting to hear for years.
Lina was still asleep, and Felix had fallen asleep on the couch while watching Paw Patrol.
The apartment was spotless. I had done nothing but clean. And still, he yelled at me every single day.
I had a high school diploma and had even studied computer science for a while, yet now I was unemployed and dependent—and he used that mercilessly.
I opened the bedroom door. A cream-colored bed, wardrobe, and carpet greeted me. I yanked open the wardrobe doors, grabbed my clothes, and threw them into bags.
I did the same with my children’s things.
They couldn’t grow up like this.
Then I heard the apartment door.
Fuck.
I heard footsteps. I heard him call my name.
Double fuck.
He opened the bedroom door and looked at me.
“What are you doing?” he asked calmly.
“I’m moving out,” I said, continuing to sort the children’s clothes.
He laughed. Not because he didn’t understand or thought I was joking—but out of pure contempt.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
I didn’t answer.
“You are NOTHING without me!” he shouted. “You’ve never achieved anything, Lou. All you can do is have children. Look at you—you’re so young and already have two kids.”
It felt like someone had dropped an anvil into my stomach.
“Someone who barely takes care of his children shouldn’t talk,” I muttered.
I didn’t have the strength to stand up to him.
I had hoped for months that he would change.
But he didn’t.
My loving, down-to-earth Elija had turned into something monstrous.
He swung his arm and swept all the pictures and my makeup off the dresser in one motion.
Glass shattered.
I flinched but kept going. Marlene, my best friend, lived just around the corner. She would be here soon, and then everything would be okay.
He stepped toward me, his eyes full of hatred.
I don’t know what I did to him. I tried everything to make him happy, to be good enough for him.
“I’ll kill you,” he hissed.
“Try that once, Elija, and I’ll hang you by your balls,” Marlene said from the doorway.
I gasped.
She held up her phone, clearly showing the emergency number.
“If you don’t let them go immediately, they’ll hear everything. And you don’t want that.”
“You’re both filthy little whores.”
Marlene clicked her tongue. “Tell me something new, sweetheart.” She raised an eyebrow and ignored him. “You take the bags, I’ll take the kids.”
Marlene went to the children first. Elija let me pass, and I stepped into the hallway. Marlene followed with Lina in the car seat and Felix in her arms, still rubbing his eyes.
“I WILL DESTROY YOU, LOU! DID YOU HEAR ME?!” Elija shouted into the hallway.
I sat down in the passenger seat while Marlene secured my daughter and son in their seats.
Then I started crying.
Marlene sat beside me and took a deep breath. “When did he turn into such a psychopath?”
I cried again. “I don’t know…”
She patted my leg. “Everything will be okay, Lou. Starting over will be hard, but I’m here. We’ll manage. Tomorrow morning, we’ll sort everything out and find you a new place.”
“Marlene… my parents are dead. I have no one.”
“You have me. I count as at least four generations of family. The important thing is that you’re away from that piece of trash!”
We drove on.
I put the bags down in Marlene’s small kitchen.
She had arranged her apartment so that Felix—and now Lina—would always have something to do.
Felix was still rubbing his eyes. He had fallen asleep again in the car.
Of course, he didn’t understand what was happening.
Marlene had already tossed her keys into a wooden bowl in the hallway and was on the phone.
When she finished the call, she came into the living room.
I sat on the couch, staring ahead.
I was more composed than I expected.
I had thought I would be completely broken.
But I wasn’t.
