Grace

It’s funny how you can feel like two completely different people at once. That’s me Grace, the bank’s golden employee by day, and a woman picking up the pieces of her shattered life by night. I don’t even know how I’m doing it. Maybe I’m not. Maybe I’m just pretending. But pretending feels like survival right now, so I go with it.

I left Tony three months ago. Three months, but the bruises both on my skin and in my mind feel like they’re still fresh. I can still hear his voice sometimes, sharp and angry, telling me how useless I was, how I’d never find anyone better. And the worst part? For a while, I believed him.

I still see him in flashes his hands grabbing my wrist, the way his face twisted with rage that night. That was the moment everything shifted. I remember staring at the mark he left on me, feeling the pain sink deeper than my skin, and realizing I couldn’t live like that anymore. I had to leave, even if I wasn’t sure where I’d end up.

Now, I wake up every day and go to work at the bank like nothing happened. I wear my neatly pressed blazer, slap on some lipstick, and plaster on a smile that doesn’t quite reach my eyes. The customers don’t see it, though. They only see “Grace, the efficient one.” The one who never misses a deadline and handles complaints with a calm that would impress anyone.

But my colleagues? They’re starting to notice. I hear the whispers when I skip lunch for the third day in a row, opting to eat a granola bar at my desk while I drown myself in spreadsheets. It’s not that I don’t want to take a break it’s that I can’t. When the office goes quiet, my mind gets too loud.

“Grace, you’ve been working nonstop. Are you okay?” Mrs. Peters asked me last week. She looked at me like she already knew the answer. I told her I was fine. What else could I say? That I’m barely holding it together? That work is the only thing keeping me from falling apart?

Even therapy doesn’t make it easier. Don’t get me wrong it helps. My counselor says I’m doing the hard work, that I’m learning to trust myself again; and to believe that leaving Tony was the right choice. But some days, I sit in that chair, staring at her, wondering if I’ll ever feel normal again.

At night, when I get home, it hits me the hardest. The silence. The absence of Tony’s voice. The absence of the chaos I hated but had gotten used to. I keep a journal by my bed now. It helps, me pour my thoughts onto the page when the emotions get too heavy to carry.

I’ve started trying new things, little steps toward reclaiming myself. Yoga, for one. It’s awkward, and I’m terrible at it, but there’s something about focusing on my breath that makes the world feel a little quieter. I’ve also started texting old friends, people Tony isolated me from. They tell me they’re glad I’m back, and I try to believe them when they say I was missed.

Every day, I show up at work and navigate my way through the chaos of the bank, pretending I’m fine. Some days, I almost convince myself that I am. But when I think about it about how far I’ve come I realize something.

I’m still here. I left him, even when I thought I couldn’t. I’m standing, even when it feels like I should have crumbled. And maybe that’s enough for now. Maybe survival is its kind of victory.

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll find my way back to myself again.