“You’re Really Gonna Cry, Brittney?”

You didn’t raise your voice.

You didn’t have to.

You just smiled

and rearranged the truth

until I started apologizing

for things you did.

You said I was sensitive.

Dramatic.

Confused.

You said my memory had holes,

that my feelings were exaggerations,

that my pain was inconvenient.

And slowly—

I believed you.

I started second-guessing

my own reactions,

replaying conversations

like crime scenes,

looking for proof

that I was the problem.

You taught me how to mistrust myself.

How to ask permission

for my own emotions.

How to swallow hurt

and call it maturity.

When I cried,

you called it manipulation.

When I asked questions,

you called it paranoia.

When I needed reassurance,

you called it neediness.

You were always so calm.

So reasonable.

So sure.

And I was always unraveling,

wondering how I could feel so wrong

while you felt so right.

You erased things gently—

a sentence here,

a moment there—

until my reality felt slippery,

like trying to hold water

with shaking hands.

I started keeping quiet.

Not because I had nothing to say,

but because I didn’t trust

what I knew anymore.

And that’s the cruelest part:

you didn’t just hurt me—

you made me doubt

my ability to know

when I was being hurt.

But here’s what you didn’t count on.

Memory comes back

when distance does.

Clarity returns

when the noise leaves.

And truth—

truth is patient.

I remember now.

I remember how my body reacted

before my mind caught up.

I remember the way my chest tightened

every time you said,

“That never happened.”

I wasn’t crazy.

I was responding to lies

wrapped in softness.

I wasn’t broken.

I was being bent.

And now,

I choose myself again.

I trust the voice

you tried to quiet.

I believe the version of me

who knew something was wrong

even when she couldn’t explain it yet.

You don’t get to rewrite me anymore.

I know what I lived.

I know what I felt.

And I no longer need your permission

to call it what it was.