I looked at his outstretched hand. I looked at his piercing blue eyes, which used to dictate whether my day would be heaven or hell.For three years, my heartbeat had been tethered to his approval. I had memorized his preferences, anticipated his anger, and molded myself into a perfect, compliant doll just to keep my sanity intact.Slowly, I stood up straight, pulling my hands away and burying them deep in the pockets of my new coat."No," I said.Edwin’s face fell, the hope draining from his features just as it had from Mark's the night before. "Victoria...""You say you did it to survive, Edwin, and maybe that's true," I said, my voice gaining a steady, resolute strength I didn't know I possessed. "But you survived by breaking me. Every time you turned your back on me, every time you looked at me like I was nothing but a nuisance, you left a scar. You might have been wearing a mask, but the trauma I felt was entirely real.""I can heal those scars," he begged, a desperate edge to his
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