The Story Of Her

 

This post is not short because her story never was.
And if you make it to the end, then you’ve seen her—
not the version she lets people pick apart, not the pieces they project onto—her.
The woman behind the noise. The one holding the weight that no one else even notices.

You don’t have to say anything.
But if you felt anything,
then silence isn’t honesty—it’s comfort.

 

Chapter One: The Woman Who Was Fading

Once upon a time, there was a woman who lived in a house full of people, but none of them really saw her. Not truly.
To them, she was the one who kept the lights on, the dishes from spilling over, the animals fed, the child grounded, the man afloat.
She was the one who remembered appointments, restocked the toilet paper, defused tempers, bandaged egos, and carried the weight of everyone's chaos with a quiet kind of strength that no one ever really thanked her for.
They just expected it. Like breath. Like air.

But day by day, she was fading.
Not dramatically, not all at once. She didn’t scream for attention or crumble to the floor in front of them. She just... shrank.
Bit by bit. Word by word. Tear by tear.

At first, it was subtle. The way her laughter stopped coming as easily.
The way her opinions got softer, like she was asking for permission to feel.
The way she started lingering longer in doorways, wondering if she should speak — or if it even mattered.

No one noticed. They were too busy needing her. Or blaming her. Or leaning on her, again, for the messes they made.
And when she finally raised her voice — when the sadness built into rage and spilled out like a thunderstorm — they called her dramatic. Too emotional. Overreacting.

“Why are you always so angry?” they asked, never once looking in the mirror at the ghosts they left her fighting alone.

She was expected to be kind when called a bitch.
To be calm when she was being accused.
To forgive after being broken.
To hold the same people who just finished hurting her.

And so, the woman — the real her — began to vanish.
She could still be found in the laundry room, folding shirts with numb hands.
In the kitchen, scrubbing counters while everyone else left their mess behind.
In the shed, hiding, smoking, breathing just to feel like she still existed.

They didn’t see it, but she was already gone.
The sparkle. The hope. The fight.
They only missed her when the house started to crack.
When the silence stopped being convenient and started feeling lonely.
When the woman they called “too much” was suddenly too quiet.

But by then, it was too late.
Because silence doesn’t scream — it echoes.

And the woman? She didn't leave in a fury. She didn’t pack a bag and slam the door.
She just... stopped showing up for a life that never showed up for her.
She may still live there, technically. But she’s gone.

Buried beneath the weight of all the emotional labor and unmet needs.
Trapped in a house that remembers her chores, but not her name.
A shadow in the shape of a woman who once believed her love could fix everything.
Once upon a time, she thought that was enough.
Now she knows better.

 

Chapter Two: The Good Old Days That Weren’t

They like to talk about the "good old days."
The times when she laughed more. When she partied. When she was the life of everything, wild and free.
They say they miss that version of her.

But no one ever really asks why she was that way.
Why she drank.
Why she needed to.

Because the truth was, she didn’t laugh more back then.
She just drowned more.
She drowned her loneliness in liquor.
She numbed the guilt with whiskey.
She pushed the emptiness down with cheap wine and late-night blackouts that kept the pain just far enough out of reach.

She was never the carefree woman they remember.
She was the woman quietly bleeding beneath the surface while everyone toasted around her.
She’d sit at the kitchen table with her fourth glass of whatever, staring out the window, pretending to enjoy the music playing in the background while trying to hold her tears in just long enough to make it through the night.

She was the one who took shots in the laundry room so she could make it through another tantrum.
The one who downed wine from a coffee mug while folding clothes and wondering why the hell she felt so alone in a house full of people.

But even then, she did everything.
Drunk or sober, she still made dinner.
She still took care of the pets.
Still cleaned the house.
Still comforted everyone else when they fell apart — even if she was holding a bottle in one hand and her own broken pieces in the other.

They called her an alcoholic.
A wreck.
A disappointment.

But not one of them ever looked at what she was trying to escape.
No one ever asked her why she needed the numb.
Why she couldn’t stop.
Why everything felt so damn loud all the time, and the only way to survive was to drown it out.

And when she finally quit?
When she clawed her way out of that pit and got sober — did they cheer? Did they hold her up? Tell her they were proud?
No. They just moved the finish line.

Suddenly, that wasn’t enough either.
Sobriety wasn’t the miracle cure.
She was still too angry. Still too sensitive. Still too cold.
Still not the woman they remembered, because they never really saw her then either — they just liked that she didn’t complain.

She stopped drinking — but nothing else stopped.
The expectations. The blame. The messes. The silence.
Only now, she faced it all sober. Awake. Alone. Wide-eyed and raw.

Every ounce of emotional labor she used to pour wine over now landed squarely in her chest.
It stole her sleep. Her appetite. Her will.
And that hurt worse than any hangover.

Because she fought like hell to come back.
To be better.
To be enough.

And even at her best? She was still not enough for them.

That was the day she stopped trying to go back to who she was.
Because that girl was never loved, either.
Just used. Decorated in alcohol and party tricks to be more palatable.

And now?
Now she isn’t even trying to be seen.
She just wants to be free.

She wants to breathe without guilt.
To cry without judgment.
To stop being the villain in a story she never wrote.
To stop being a cautionary tale in their mouths and start being the hero in her own god damn life.

She doesn’t want the old days back.
She wants out.

 

Chapter Three: The Day She Almost Left

It wasn’t the first time she packed a bag. Not by a long shot.
There were dozens of times before when she walked out that door. Tossed clothes into a tote, slammed the trunk, and drove off into the dark like a storm in motion.

But those times? Those weren’t about escape.
Those were her revenge.
Her hurt turned into a performance of absence.
Those were the nights she left not because she wanted to go — but because she wanted to be chased.
To be missed.
To be proven worthy.

They were punishments.
Fire-for-fire.
You made me hurt, so now you’ll feel it too.

But this night — this one — was different.
This was the night she almost didn’t come back.
The night she packed in silence. No slamming, no dramatic exit. Just fear.
Real, soul-deep, mother-driven fear.

Because for the first time, she wasn’t leaving to teach him a lesson.
She was leaving to survive.

It had started like all the others — a fight.
But this one was heavier. Meaner. Something had cracked wide open in him and what spilled out wasn’t just anger, it was rage.
Unfiltered, irrational, and terrifying.

She’d never feared him before. Not once. But that night… she did.

He was outside. Screaming.
Saying things about her past — ancient wounds she thought they’d buried together, healed over.
But clearly not.

His voice was wild, broken.
He smashed things.
Threw whatever he could get his hands on.
Words. Accusations. Objects.
All of it crashing like waves, again and again.

Inside, she held her son.
Tried to tell him everything would be okay.
Tried to sound steady. Like she wasn’t planning their escape in her head.
Like she hadn’t already texted her aunt in another state.
Like she hadn’t already bought the bus tickets.
Like she wasn’t already calculating exactly how long it would take a friend to come get them.

She told her son, “He’s just having a moment.”
But she was lying.
She was watching the door like a soldier.

She didn’t sleep that night.
She cleaned. She packed. She guarded. She watched.
Every sound from the other room made her flinch.
Every second she stayed felt like a second she was gambling with their lives.

Morning came like a blade.
She told her son to pack a bag. Told him they were going to stay with her aunt for a little while.
That he needed some time. Some space. Some help.

Her son didn’t understand, didn’t like it — he thought they were abandoning him.
And maybe they were.
But she had to choose.

She hoped they’d be gone before he woke up.
But life doesn’t work like that.

He got up. Saw the bags. Saw her.
And for the first time, he didn’t yell. He didn’t accuse.
He just looked… broken. Ashamed.

She told him the truth — or at least the version she could live with:
That she was scared.
That she had to go.
That what happened the night before had pushed her to the edge.

She told him, “This isn’t forever.”
But she knew it could be.

And then — he spoke.
He begged. He said he loved them.
Said they were his world.
Said the war, the things he’d seen — they made him into something he didn’t recognize.
He promised he’d get help.
He promised he’d change.

And she believed him.
Because of course she did.
Because she wanted to.
Because what she saw in his eyes, in that moment, was the man she knew — the man she loved.
The man she wanted to save.

And behind them, standing quietly in the hallway, her son was listening.
Watching. Waiting for her decision.

So, she stayed.
She put down the bag.
Canceled the ride.
Refunded the tickets.

And that morning lives in her forever like a sickness.
Because sometimes she still wonders:
What if I had left?
What if I had chosen me — for once — instead of loyalty?

But the truth is… she’ll never leave.
Because she’s the one who loves him anyway.
The one who holds on when everyone else would run.
The one who sees his broken parts and still believes they can be mended.

She will drown herself trying to keep him afloat.
And she will call it love.

 

 

Chapter Four: The Shed Confessional

She built the shed from nothing. No plans. No blueprints.
Just scraps and nails and the will to have something that was hers.
Her hands — cracked and calloused — carved every inch of that space.
It was built from wood and grit and rage and hope.

It is not just where she hides — it’s where she exists.
This is where the noise stops.
The questions. The accusations. The pretending.
In the shed, she can breathe.
She can cry.
She can scream until her voice is shredded and the walls still won’t tell.

This is where she builds.
Sometimes furniture. Sometimes thoughts. Sometimes strength.
She writes out here. She talks to the voice in her head — the one that always listens, always answers without judgment.
Sometimes she talks to her father.
Sometimes to the wind.
Sometimes to nothing.
Just to hear her own voice again.

And when it’s too much to sit still, she sands.
She stains.
She builds shelves that may never get hung.
Because making something out of nothing is her only form of peace.

This is where her grief lives.
And her anger.
And her guilt.
Her shame over drinking.
Her frustration over staying.
Her exhaustion.

All of it cluttered into the corners with the sawdust and cigarette butts and piles of wood she keeps “just in case.”

It’s messy in here.
Tools strewn across workbenches.
A half-finished something leaning against the wall.
Smoke lingering in the air.
The stench of the ducks outside mixing with the scent of wood and dirt.

But she wouldn’t change it. Not a single screw.
Because this is her.
The chaos. The control.
The place where no one tells her who to be or what to feel.

She wonders often, sitting on the cold hard chair, if this is what freedom feels like.
Not joy. Not escape. Just… quiet.
She doesn’t get that anywhere else.

She wonders if things would be different if her son had never come to stay.
If she would’ve stayed sober.
If he would still be her man.
Or if this spiral was inevitable.

She wonders if she’s still herself anymore.
Or just the version they need her to be.
The one who carries all of it while being told she’s the problem.

When she cries out here, no one hears.
When she laughs, it’s real.
When she breaks, she does it safely.

And she always comes back.
Because even when the house crumbles, when he disappoints, when she disappears in their eyes —

The shed still sees her.
Still holds her.
Still waits.

It is her confessional.
Her chapel.
Her last line of defense against the silence.

And when she’s ready — she sweeps the floor, wipes her face, lights a smoke…
And walks back into the fire.

 

Chapter Five: The Body Giving Out

It didn’t happen overnight.
It wasn’t one moment, one breakdown, one snap.
It was slow. Torturous.
Like a candle that doesn’t flicker out but melts itself dry over time.

It began with her mind unraveling.
Not violently — subtly.
Like threads being tugged one by one.

First it was sleep.
She just… stopped.
Not because she didn’t want to, but because her brain wouldn’t let her.
Wouldn’t shut up. Wouldn’t rest.

A night of insomnia turned into five. Then weeks.
And when she did sleep, it was in broken fragments that didn’t feel like sleep at all — just time skipped forward.
And the world started to blur.

Things she thought she said — she didn’t.
Whole conversations lost.
Time missing.
Chunks of the summer are still just… gone.

She was there, they said.
Laughing. Functioning.
But she wasn’t present.

Her body was going through the motions, a puppet on a stage she didn’t remember walking onto.
Her brain had said fuck this and checked out.

So she clung to sugar.
It was the only thing that made her feel something.
Chicken nuggets. Raisin Bran drowning in sugar. KitKats in every drawer, under every pillow.
It wasn’t a diet. It was a life raft.

If she didn’t have sugar, her skin would crawl.
Her brain would spiral.
She would shake and rage.
It calmed her.
Kept the monster at bay.

Until it didn’t.

Then came the panic.
Real panic. Over nothing. Over everything.
Her body was at war with itself.
She’d walk into a room and forget why she was there.
She’d look at a task she’d done a hundred times before and it felt foreign. Impossible.

And then came the blackouts.
Talking to people she didn’t remember seeing.
Making dinner she didn’t recall cooking.
Holding conversations that never registered.

Everyone told her she was fine.
But she was vanishing inside herself.

That’s when the pain started.
Not metaphorical. Literal.
Every morning — like a cruel joke — at 2:45 a.m., her lower back exploded in agony.
Like someone took a bat to her spine.

She’d stumble, gasping, to the porch, collapse into a cold chair, and cry.
Ugly, silent, shuddering sobs — the kind where you scream but no sound comes out.
She was alone.
And scared.
And no one came.

Except once.
He saw. He helped.
For ten minutes.
Then she snapped at him — not because of him, but because the pain made her blind.
And he walked away.
Left her there.
Like always.
Like it was her fault she was breaking.

So, she stopped asking.
What was the point?

Then came the rages.
Not tantrums — breakdowns.
Violent, screaming meltdowns that erupted out of nowhere.
Sometimes no one was home.
Sometimes they were.
Didn’t matter.

She’d scream at the ceiling, at the past, at her reflection.
She’d sob until her lungs gave out.
It was a body purging what it couldn’t hold anymore.

And still, she carried on.

The sugar betrayed her.
Gouty arthritis hit like a hammer to her toe.
One wrong step, one honey bun too many, and she’d collapse from the pain.
Couldn’t walk. Couldn’t breathe.
Her toe would scream with agony that made her whole body useless.

Then came the TMJ.
Not from grinding her teeth in her sleep — no, if only it were that easy.
That would’ve been a vacation.
This was all day, every day.

Clenched so tight her head would throb.
Her neck would seize.
Her jaw would click and crack and finally lock.
She cracked a tooth.
And then another.

The pain wasn’t even the worst part.
It was the sound.
The sound of her own jaw splintering from the inside.
A reminder that even in silence, her body was still screaming.

But she still cooked.
Still cleaned.
Still remembered every birthday. Every vet appointment.
Still tracked school schedules. Medications. Bills. Chores. Life.

And when she tried to explain?
He turned it around.
Made it about his pain.
His stress.
His trauma.

Like hers didn’t count.
Like her pain was optional.

She was disappearing.
From the inside out.
Her mind had gone first.
Then her body.
Now her soul was cracking under the weight.

But she was still here.
Still holding the walls up with shaking hands.
Still pretending.
Still surviving.

And he still didn’t see it.

That’s what destroyed her.
Not the pain.
Not the exhaustion.
Not even the loneliness.
It was being invisible.
It was giving everything she had — and being nothing in return.

 

Chapter Six: The Imaginary Conversations

They happen in the shed — her sacred place — the only place where no one talks over her, no one rolls their eyes, no one twists her words into weapons.
In there, the sawdust is her audience, the cracked wood her confessional, and the stale air her echo chamber.
It’s where the truth gets spoken.
Not the pretty truth — the bleeding, screaming, raw truth that no one wants to hear.

She has entire conversations in that space — the ones she’ll never have in real life.
The ones they couldn’t handle.
The ones that would break them to hear.

Most of the time, it’s him.
Not the man she fights with now.
Not the shell of a man she shares a house and a bed with.
It’s the version she thought he’d be — the one she waited on for years to reappear.

“You remember who I was when we met?” she asks him in the still silence.
Her voice cracks, but there's steel underneath.
“I was vibrant. I lit up every room. You chased me. You loved me.
But now I’m just the keeper of the house, the fixer of your messes, the woman you blame when life feels too hard.”

She tells him she should’ve left the morning he snapped.
That night when the man she loved became a stranger — not just angry, but unhinged — screaming, breaking things, dredging up sins she thought they’d buried and forgiven.
Her son had watched her that night, eyes wide with confusion and fear.
She remembers whispering to him, "It’s okay, baby. He’s just upset. He’ll be okay."
But she knew.
She knew it wasn’t okay.
And it wasn’t going to be.

“I had the tickets,” she tells the air now.
“I had our bags packed. I had someone coming for us.
And I stayed. God help me, I stayed.”

She tells him how he begged her to stay.
Told her he’d get help.
That he loved them more than anything.
“And I believed you,” she says bitterly.
“Like a goddamn fool, I believed you.
And now I’m still here. Still cleaning up after your breakdowns.
Still catching you when you fall.
But who the hell catches me?”

Her eyes sting but she doesn’t cry. Not yet.
Then the shed goes quiet for a moment before a new voice enters her mind.

Her son. Her world. Her heartbreak and her salvation.
She has different conversations with him.

She tells him she knows he’s angry — furious, even.
And he has every right to be.
She tells him that she sees how he flinches when she gets firm.
That he looks at her and doesn’t see the woman who got sober, who clawed her way back from the grave, who tried to be better —
he sees the version of her who fucked up.
Who left him behind.
Who didn’t protect him the way she should have.

“I know I failed you,” she whispers, shaking.
“I know you hate me sometimes.
But I would die for you.”

She tells him what he doesn’t know.
She tells him about his father — not the watered-down version.
The real man. The monster.

How he held her by the throat.
Hoe threatened both their lives before he was even born.

She tells him that her "no" never really mattered.
That it was violence disguised as love, and no one helped her.
No one believed her.

She tells him that she left — but not soon enough.
And she tells him she stayed, gave them a second chance, because he said he’d be okay.
He promised her.

But now she wonders if any of those choices were right at all.

And then, the worst conversation. The one that breaks her every time.
She turns again to him.
The one who claims to love her.
The one who tells her she’s, his world.

“Then why?” she asks, staring at the wall like it might answer.
“Why is it so easy for you to look past me?
To dismiss every cry for help like I’m whining?
Like I’m just dramatic?”

She screams it sometimes.
“I am fucking drowning and you’re asking me to smile about it.”

But he never hears.

So, she begs the air.
“Tell me I matter,” she pleads.
“Prove it. Say you're sorry for once.
Say you know you hurt me.
Say you see how goddamn hard I try.
I don’t want flowers. I don’t want gifts.
I want you to just see me.”

But he never does.

So, she talks to the wood.
To the dust.
To the silence.

Because in here, she’s the loudest she’s ever been.
And in here, even if no one responds, no one interrupts her either.

In here, she’s heard.
And one day hopefully that will be enough.