Leaving

Nine months ago Sunday, I walked out BN2's door into the terrifying unknown.

For months I wanted to leave, but couldn't. I was afraid – afraid of being totally alone, without even an office to go to for distraction. I could barely afford to travel across London, let alone go out, and I literally feared I'd die of loneliness, misery, cold, or some combination of the three. I was afraid that he was my only chance. But mostly, I was afraid that all the things he accused me of were true – that I was selfish and thoughtless and, as he once memorably put it, incapable of adding anything to anyone else's weekend but more dirty dishes.

I catch my breath sometimes, just thinking about how bad it was.

My eyes can well up crossing a street, the thought or sight of something dislodging memories I can hardly believe happened in my life, not some horrible made-for-TV movie.

I remember the deep unhappiness that comes with feeling there is nothing to look forward to. And yet I did hope. I carried on hoping I could fix it, because that's what I was taught: With enough hard work, you can make anything work. But what was I winning in the end?

I didn't choose my time to leave. It was Saturday afternoon, six days before Christmas. BN2 had to pick something up in Clapham, and I went along, planning to sit in a cafe and have my planned Skype date with one of my best friends in the US. Then we were going to pick up a necklace I'd taken his daughter to make at a painting studio months before, but we hadn't gotten round to fetching.

I knew how to walk to the shop, but I didn't know how to get there by car. BN2 snapped at me that it was selfish and unfair of me to expect him to drive and navigate. I remember getting that familiar rollercoaster feeling in my stomach – that we were about to have a fight that there was no way I could stave off, and that it would get ugly, because every single fight with him got ugly, no matter what tactic I tried. I remember trying to pull up a map on my computer and panicking because it wasn't loading fast enough, and all the while he was shouting at me about how useless I was for not properly knowing directions.

I remember saying something about how I'd have printed out directions if I'd known we were going to drive, and he told me he was tired of my lying and dishonesty. He said that was a blatant lie and in his military interrogator way, began marshalling evidence. As he also did with every other fight, he stoked the flames with references to my every previous misdeed. He'd bought me The Tudors for Christmas the previous year, and I had a vision of myself bound in rope, a traitor hanging above the fire, the flames licking her feet.

"Why are you making such a big deal out of this?" I finally said timidly, on the verge of tears.

"Oh, so because it's not a big deal I'm just supposed let you lie with impunity?" he snapped.

I thought I'd always remember every detail of this fight, but like all the others that came before it, it turned my brain to mashed potatoes. I remember him yelling at me and me at one point daring to yell back.

He pulled the car over to the side of the road and for a fleeting moment I literally feared for my life. He shoved me toward the door. "Get out," he said. "You can make your own way home."

"Are you going to let me in?" I remember saying pathetically. He nodded. (He had taken my keys away after some previous misdeed.)

I stumbled blindly onto the sidewalk. Everyone who knows me well knows I am hypersensitive to the cold – it sounds princess-and-the-pea, but I have an autoimmune condition that actually makes my hands and feet freeze easily, to the point where I can barely walk – and it can be a half hour after coming indoors before I can type again.

I watched his taillights recede and thought: No one who loved me – or would ever love me – would force me out of the car to walk home in the dark, damp freezing cold.

And still such was my state of mind that I needed help leaving – I needed someone to make it OK; to tell me that I wasn't overreacting. I wondered about going back to my own flat, but didn't think that was the answer. I walked an hour back to his place, each footstep closer bringing fresh doubts and fears. Could I really leave?
He let me in and I went into the front room, got on my computer, and for moral support and guidance Skyped another friend in the US who was not exactly a fan of his. (Though honestly, none of my friends were.)

"Get out," she wrote. "Tell me when you're leaving, give me his address, and if I don't hear from you I'm calling the police."

I asked her a bunch of probably mostly irrelevant questions in what I recognize now was an attempt to keep the conversation going – both wrapping myself in her idea that everything would be better if I left and yet terrified actually to have to walk.

He came in and said: "Are we going to talk about this?"

"I'm just finishing a conversation with a friend," I said.

"Who's more important than me?" he bellowed.

I am, I should have said, but at the time, it would never have occurred to me.