Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 56238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Since deciding to walk away from my failed marriage to Brett, I have moved seven times, gotten countless phones, and bought just to turn around and sell three vehicles. This is the fourth car since leaving him. When does the chaos end? I know he follows me from work and that’s how he learns the cars. In order to stop him from finding me, I have to give up my job. How can I do that? What will I do to support myself and my son? From work he follows me to find my residence. It’s all a domino effect. Following me is scary, but the constant calls drive me to the brink of losing my mind. Turning them off only halts the calls for me to sleep, but I awake to the messages, thousands of them if I were to add them up from when I left. It doesn’t matter that I continually change my number, he figures it out every damn time. I think that rattles me more than being followed. The cell phone numbers, that is. I haven’t figured his source yet. How can he always feel five steps ahead of me?
Isolation. Is that his goal?
Probably.
The first time I left, I was given a brochure from the hotel clerk for a women’s shelter. I went to speak to an advocate who told me, control is the objective for men like Brett. The women’s center is an amazing place for knowledge. They help so many women, some of them just like me. However, they can’t control the significant other. For some women, once they leave, the men move on to their next target or focus on whoever they have on the side. For women like me, the danger only amps up. Except I didn’t know leaving put me in more danger. I thought the space would save me. I wanted him to realize he hurt me, and things were over between us.
In the beginning, I felt strong. I thought I could do this. Every step of the way he’s managed to crush my spirit more and more.
When he found me at the shelter, he made it clear someone had to pay for my transgressions. At first, I didn’t think he would hurt someone else. Now, I know differently. Tina and her daughter, two-year-old Chloe shared a room with me and Justice. It took Brett three weeks to sort my schedule. It was only five weeks after I left when Tina was found in a dumpster behind the diner she was working at. Strangled with military grade paracord tied with a specific knot mostly used by special forces. Her ex was a felon, not a skilled soldier. He hadn’t served a single day in his life to the military. While I couldn’t prove it was Brett, my gut tells me it was a message for me. His response to me leaving was clear and I knew it. I couldn’t put any other women and their kids in danger.
Using savings, I took what I could and got a place for me and Justice. A small apartment, but in a nice area. I thought neighbors were the way to go, like a deterrent. I wouldn’t get close to anyone, but there would be someone around most of the time. People to hear me yell, cry, or him acting out gave me a false sense of security. He still came, he still got to me. Waiting like a thief in the night, he got inside and sat comfortably while I was at work. Patiently, he hid in my closet until I got Justice to bed. That night was the longest night of my life. I didn’t think I would make it to the next morning.
Somehow, after taking what he wanted from my body, he jolted from the trance he was in and left. Honestly, my saving grace was him hearing Justice wake up with a nightmare. When Justice cried out for me, it was like Brett snapped back to reality. My son most likely saved my life and his own that night. For every second that ticked by, his anger grew worse, and I truly thought I would die.
Moving again, didn’t do anything but buy me about two months before he found me again. The punishment gets worse for me every single time and the legal restrictions on him don’t hold him back. No matter how many charges I press, nothing stops him. Even spending a seventy-two hour hold for violating the protection order for the third time didn’t deter him.
He is going to kill me.
The cops say they are doing everything allowable by law. Which means until he kills me, they can’t do anything. He gets locked up and within twenty-four to seventy-two hours, he is back out roaming the streets looking for any signs of me and my son.