Let’s put it out there. He strangled me, and it wasn’t his first time. Though he would tell the story and omit this information or try to replace it with snippets of other information, that’s exactly what happened. On the evening of September 15, 2016, my now ex-husband and I drove to LA to see his brother who had come from Chicago to perform in a DJ battle. It was another drag along trip for me. Seemed we were always going to LA on a weekend when I had plans or been invited out in Las Vegas. So much so, I began to feel he was reading my texts, stalking my social media movements and intentionally thwarting my plans with a trip to LA. He had done all of that before. There was one occasion in which I demanded that we do a beach only trip, specifically because I had gotten tired of always going to LA, missing out on what I wanted to do just to go along with his plans. Yet, here we were on another trip…sacrifice, right?

This time it was to support his brother, so I figured let’s chalk it up to that. Sucking it up and putting my best smile on had become a way of life since he and I had been together. We argued almost daily; there was never a time when being with him made me feel good. Sure we did things together that were enjoyable, but in reality they were things I would’ve enjoyed doing with anyone or even alone. This time, on this trip, I smiled, screamed at the top of my lungs, and rooted for his brother as if he were my own; technically he was.

His brother won that battle and we all left shortly after. My daughter and I walked ahead towards the car. My ex, his brother, and a friend of theirs who had also joined us at the battle walked behind. In between all of us was the girlfriend of their friend. It was late and we were all hungry, so they decided that we would go to Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles to eat. But wait…I recalled hearing that Roscoe’s was going bankrupt or something along those lines (does anyone else remember hearing that rumor?). I’d even heard that Snoop Dogg was going to buy it so locations wouldn’t go out of business. I turned as we walked and asked this to my then husband.

“Isn’t Roscoe’s going out of business?”

“No; what?” he replied. “They’d never go out of business.”

Nah, I was sure I’d heard that, I was even confident he was the one who had told it to me. If it wasn’t him, it was the radio. Now I was confused. We made it to the car and my ex and his brother pulled out the White Hennessey from the trunk he had brought from our cruise just a few weeks before. I got into the car with my daughter and waited, trying to think where I had heard such a thing. I knew I had heard it but where?!  Once he got into the car I inquired again

“Didn’t you say that Roscoe’s was going out of business?”

He went off, “No, Synava, it wasn’t me! That was some otha nigga you was talkin’ to!”

My face curled up, but I ignored the comment initially, and began to fiddle with the auxiliary cord that had broken off in my phone. Here I was racking my brain with some ditzy nonsense really trying to figure out where, if not from him, I’d heard the Roscoe’s rumor, and now I was being accused of having a conversation with another man. Being me, I wasn’t about to let him make such an accusation. If I had been talking to another man, surely I would’ve let the comment slide; no point wasting energy on denying the truth. So to remain silent would have been like affirming his accusation.

“If it wasn’t you then I don’t know who it was!” I stated.

Of course defending myself only provoked him more, how dare I tell him he’s wrong. An argument ensued and was brought to a close with him advising me to shut up then turning up the music. Once we arrived to our destination, he got out of the car and slammed the door. Then I knew he had a serious attitude. Here we go again. My daughter and I got out of the car and he was nowhere to be found. He had gone inside leaving us in the dark. Whatever, ignore it. To be honest I wasn’t sure what his problem was. Up to that point I had been partially in my own world, really confused about where I had heard the Roscoe’s rumor. Now I was being jolted back into reality by his attitude.

We had driven my car to LA and when he went inside he left the doors unlocked. I walked into the restaurant and asked him to give me the keys so I could lock the car.

“Can I get the keys?”

He ignored me and waited for the host. As the host came over I reached for the keys in his hand and he pulled away. Bullshit.

“Give me the keys; I want to lock the door.” I said, this time voice raised.

He ignored me further and just as I was reaching for the keys a second time he finished his talk with the host, turned and brushed past me and back outside. I think he was looking for his brother.

“I wanted to lock my car, what’s with your attitude?!”

The next thing I knew he was towering over me and yelling so loudly that a couple of waiters who had come outside for a smoke break stopped their conversation to listen to his belligerence. Shocked and embarrassed, I stared at him baffled. The last thing I recall him saying at that moment was “…or we’re gonna fight!” My mouth came slightly ajar in disbelief. All this in front of my daughter, and for what reason was he so pissed off? He then turned to go back inside.

“You’re gonna fight me?” I asked in a way that wanted to confirm what I couldn’t believe I’d heard.

He’s twice my size, what real man would say some shit like that to a woman, even if he wasn’t bigger? I had to remember he had put his hands on me before, and many things that occurred throughout our relationship showed and proved that he wasn’t a real man at all, just pretending.

Following him inside, we were seated and his brother, their friend, and his girlfriend all came immediately after. Over dinner I was completely in awe at how my ex was acting like we were one big happy family, playing with my daughter, cracking jokes; like he didn’t just threaten me minutes earlier and leave it at that. He had done that before too, pretending nothing had happened; all the other times he had put his hands on me, and every time we argued in public. He was adept at pretending everything was all good. He was adept at pretending in general. Our whole relationship was like that: a cover up of reality, of what was really going on. I made small talk, but had every intention of confronting him about his behavior when we were in private.

The drive to his mother’s apartment was silent. Once inside we all got quietly ready for bed. I put my daughter in the spare room and my ex and I went to his mother’s room to sleep. Both of us lying down, he said goodnight and leaned in for a kiss. I couldn’t believe he was willing to go to sleep without apologizing or even acknowledging his behavior.

“I don’t appreciate how you disrespected me earlier.” I stated. “You had no right to disrespect me like that.”

He gave a frustrated sigh, “You know if I confused you with another female you‘d be upset about it!” he began to raise his voice.

“I wasn’t confusing you with anyone; I really thought it was you! I still think it was you!”

“It wasn’t me and you know it. You’ve been talkin’ to other niggas.”

I could hear him clap his hands together. My face scrunched up in the pitch black.

“Synava, you were getting me confused with another man. Now if I did that to you, you know you’d be mad about it.”

“No I wouldn’t!” I yelled, leaning to get out of bed “That’s part of your problem, you know I wouldn’t! It wouldn’t bother me ‘cause I don’t give a fuck!”

I get tired of this, men thinking that all women are jealous and insecure. The problem I was referring to was him wanting me to fit in that box. I just didn’t have it for him like that, so being jealous, over him especially, was a non-issue. I had explained that to him before, why didn’t he get it? From the beginning I let him know I don’t operate that way. Jealousy and competition with other women is not my thing seeing no need for it. Most women compete with looks and physical attributes, which is superficial and small time. If I were to waste energy competing it’d be over success, intelligence, knowledge of self, mastery of emotions or the like, and even then it wouldn’t be competition because I’d want to make a woman concerned with those things my ally. Not something petty like what he was going through. So no, I wouldn’t have felt the same. Had it been me I would’ve only been happy to be free to do exactly what my partner was bringing into the equation.

While some women keep an eye out for their man flirting, being attracted to, or even dating another woman, with him I’d hoped for it all along. I’d always felt like I was in the relationship to babysit his emotions and feed his ego, that maybe if he found someone else he would finally let go and I could be free. He knew this as well; I didn’t keep it a secret from him. He wanted to be in control, he wanted to be the one to leave and have me chase after him, as if he had something worth chasing. He was waiting for that moment when my love for him would surpass his love for me. That moment never came. Had we stayed together a painful lifetime, that moment never would’ve come.

He was waiting for that edge that would give him control and a sense of power. That was a red flag I saw from miles away. As if he were losing at a game of chess, he was willing to give up his most valuable piece, his heart, for selfish gain (the Queen has always been the most valuable piece in chess for me; in creating an analogy between love & chess, I can see how ‘Queen of Hearts’ would be catchy). Even foolish naïve me knew better than to give my heart to a man like him. A man who plays love like a game, so caught up in his efforts to win that he didn’t even realize how badly he was losing. No matter how much I tried to show and tell him.

Back in the room, I became frustrated not only by his continued lack of understanding me, and by his attempts to overlay his own feelings onto me, but also that he was still missing the ultimate point that I was trying to make: He had no right to disrespect me the way he had earlier and his accusation was simply not true. Forget about how he has no job, forget about how he pretends like his life is gravy though he’s insecure and lonely, forget about him not having any goals set or achieved at damn near forty, forget he never shows his true self and fears what others think of him, forget about all that pretending. At this moment, this guy wanted to focus on the illusion of me confusing him with another man. Though to this day, I don’t know where I heard the Roscoe’s rumor if it wasn’t from him.

As I got up to leave the room in the pitch black dark, he grabbed me by my hair, pulled me back down, and shoved my face into his genitals.

“Suck my dick!” he said through his teeth. “Suck my dick!”

“Let go of me!” I demanded.

He eventually let go. What the fuck!?! What now? Did he think I was just gonna turn around and leave the room after what he had done?? As I rose up, the disgust swelled. I cocked all the spit I could conjure in my mouth and spat into the darkness in the direction I figured his face was. Must’ve been right on target because then he got up, grabbed me by my shoulders, and slammed me onto his mother’s bed with such force that it broke the frame and the mattress fell through. He then laid across the top of me, I couldn’t move an inch.

With both of his hands around my neck he forced his thumbs down just below my larynx. He was strangling me, and wasn’t letting go. I could hear him taunting me, and a couple times he picked me up by neck then slammed my head back down onto the mattress. Unable to move, I could feel the stomach acid rising into my throat. Right as it crossed my mind that I might die, what will happen to my daughter…he let go. My only thought was to get to my daughter, if he could do such a thing to me being so much smaller than him and having done nothing but get up to leave the room, who knows what he would do to her.

He wouldn’t let me leave and stood in between me and the door. He had cut the light on and had a “So what do we do now?” look on his face, as if we were about to have a sensible conversation. Determined, I tried to push past him but he grabbed me again and slammed me back down on the lopsided mattress. He covered me and squeezed me so I couldn’t get free.

“If this is going to be my last time with you, I’m going to hold you.” he said.

I kept crying out for him to let go of me so I could check on my daughter. I was worried she’d heard the commotion and would try to come into the room. Oh God, what if she came to the door?! I didn’t want her near him. He held me so tight I could barely breathe.

“I’m going to have this time with my wife!” he yelled.

I kept repeating for him to get off of me. Finally I thought to tell him to call his mother and tell her what he had done, what he was doing. I also told him to call my father and do the same. He was always so fake, projecting a different demeanor to others than what I saw every day, afraid of having his true colors exposed, just like how he was at Roscoe’s. So my thought was since he is always concerned with what others think of him, such a suggestion would make him snap out of it. He called them both, still not letting go of me.

Neither answered. I told him to call them back and leave messages. To my father he said “You know what I’m dealing with bro.” Guess that’s how you talk to a woman’s father. To his mother he simply stated what he had done as if it was a climax they had already discussed. I realize now that regardless of the moment, he was able to leave such a message with my father because he had absolutely no respect for either of us, and that he had left such a message with his mother because she already knew this was him.

She knew this was what he was like, and it made sense now. She always seemed just as desperate as he was for us to work out, so that at least his life wouldn’t be a complete flop, at least she could at some point say, and truly mean, he got it right. Speaking intuitively, and looking back on all the cues and red flags in my time of knowing them, she didn’t want to go through life and see her son remain forever 21. She wanted him to be somebody, but could see he wasn’t evolving into much on his own.

I began to realize how his mother’s comments regarding him had always been filled with hope for better, and talks of “potential”, sprinkled with a hint of her not wanting to feel like she didn’t get the results she had hoped for with the child she had raised. After all, the child you raise is, in one way or another, a reflection of you…

After struggling hard and arguing long, he eventually let me out of the room. The dim light above the stove in the kitchen was like a beam from heaven. It felt like I hadn’t seen light in ages, like my world had been darkness and I was experiencing light for the first time. I almost didn’t recognize it for what it was. This experience would later be a metaphor for the time I had spent in a relationship with this man.

I headed to the spare room where my daughter was sleeping, and could feel his oppressive energy close behind me. What do I do, locked in a space with such a person, and having my daughter here? No parent should have to experience that feeling. There was still darkness everywhere. I opened the door quietly and stood in the doorway of the spare room, pausing for a moment to gauge whether she was awake or not. No, she had slept through it. In that moment all was well. As long as she was oblivious to what had just happened, all was well.

*Music by Shlomo – The Way You Do

Header image: Black Queen Chess Piece © Creative Common Stock Photos | Dreamstime.com. Meme images: Used by permission © Kristi King-Counter.