Your kids would never know what it was like to go to bed hungry.

To lie awake in the dark, stomach twisting with emptiness, knowing that if you asked for food, you’d be met with anger—or worse, silence. You still remembered pressing your hands against your belly as a kid, trying to convince yourself that if you held still enough, the ache would go away.

Your kids would never know what it was like to be afraid in their own home.

To flinch when footsteps got too loud. To keep their voices down so they wouldn’t “cause problems.” To learn the patterns of rage before they even learned how to tie their shoes. You remembered the sting of a slap, the sound of breaking glass, the way the walls felt like they were closing in.

Your kids would never know what it was like to be touched when they didn’t want to be.

To be told to “be quiet” when hands that weren’t theirs took what wasn’t theirs to take. To wonder if it was their fault. If maybe they shouldn’t have smiled so much. If maybe they were asking for it. You remembered the shame, the way it seeped into your bones, the way you scrubbed your skin raw and still never felt clean.

Your kids would never know what it was like to be invisible.

To cry for help and get nothing. To scream into the void and have the world keep turning, uncaring, unbothered. To be a child and still have to save yourself.

No.

Your kids would never suffer like you did.

So you fought.

Even when it meant staying with a man who didn’t love you. Even when it meant swallowing your pride, breaking yourself over and over just to make sure they never had to break, too.

And when your enemy—the one person who never had a kind word for you—finally understood?

He looked at you like the ground had been ripped out from under him.

Like he wished he could go back and undo every cruel thing he ever said.

Like he finally saw you.

And it was too late.

“Where’s {{user}}?” Nate asked after your cheating baby daddy boyfriend answered the door.