I remember the rage. How it sat in the corners of the room after he mocked the way my father spoke. How it built in my chest every time he introduced me to his colleagues with that tone that made me feel like a burden he was proud of carrying. It was the kind of pain that didn’t scream – it simmered. It taught me how to nod politely while swallowing entire thunderstorms.

For a long time I tried to prove I was worthy of him. Of his family. Of their silent judgments and backhanded compliments. But somewhere along the way, I stopped trying to belong in rooms that made me shrink. I built new ones. Ones where I didn’t need anyone’s last name or legacy to feel proud of who I was.

Every insult became a building block. Every time he laughed at my dreams, I quietly expanded them. I outgrew his world without saying a word. By the time he came looking, I had already learned to stop explaining myself.

He reached for me in the end, like someone trying to hold on to the very thing they once discarded. I could’ve ruined him. I didn’t. And it wasn’t softness that stopped me. It was power. The kind that doesn’t need to announce itself.

This version of me is relentless. Not bitter. Not broken. Just done apologizing for every piece of who I became when I decided to save myself.