The Break-Up Retreat(74)

“You came to Himlafall for a one-week therapy intensive. You are all getting the benefits of months and months of rigorous psychological treatment in seven days. That is going to be a somewhat painful experience!” Her voice cracks, and I hear a door being slammed shut in another part of the building; Martina jumps, and her eyes are drawn to the windows.

“No,” I say. “You’re not telling us everything.”

Martina looks to me, and now I see the fear writ large on her face.

“There’s someone here, isn’t there?” I get up on my feet. “Someone who isn’t supposed to be.”

Martina is silent. Her eyes flick from me, to Leyla, to Pernilla.

“The running of this clinic is none of your concern, and—”

“No,” Leyla interrupts her, standing up, too. “It’s too late for that. You’ve got to tell us, Doc. What the hell is going on?”

Martina swallows, over and over again. I can see the muscles in her slim neck working compulsively.

“Nothing.” As though she can make it true by saying it. “Nothing at all. Now, I think that this has gone far enough. Clearly, you are all—”

“If we’re not safe here, we have a right to know,” Pernilla says. “So tell us.”

She is clutching her hands together rigidly, her posture absolutely perfect, and I can feel every ounce of social privilege working in her favor, pressuring an answer out of the doctor; it’s intense enough that I feel the urge to answer her, myself.

Martina shakes her head, her hand flying up to her neck, to the little pendant hanging there, and for one, long second, I feel a strange pang of kinship with her.

“Some things have gone missing,” she admits. “Patient files. But it’s nothing to worry about. None of your files are gone. I think one of the staff members working in the kitchen might have gotten into them, or maybe the cleaning crew. To sell to the press, perhaps.”

“Are you sure you didn’t take them, Isobel?” Clara raises her eyebrows.

Her nostrils are flared, her pupils the size of coins; she’s trying to be mean, but her voice is high and frightened.

She wants it to be me , I realize. Because at least then she doesn’t have to be scared .

“Why would she have done that?” Martina’s confusion is turning back into anger.

I decide to get ahead of Clara and do my own dirty work.

“Because I’m a journalist,” I confess. “I came here to write an article about the Himlafall Clinic. And, yes, I’ve looked at my own file. But I didn’t take any of them.”

Martina stares at me.

A beat passes. Two.

Then all hell breaks loose.

“I can’t believe you would come in here under false pretenses, violating the sanctity of—” Martina screams, her face twisting, as Leyla gets to her feet and says:

“Guys, can we just—”

The lights go out, plunging us into darkness.

And then the screaming begins.

r/ActuallyLesbian

My ex is coming by to pick up her stuff and I’m scared

posted by: u/throwawayduckling123

18:16 09/17/2023

I don’t even really know what I’m asking, but I feel like I need help. Or maybe just emotional support. You’ve all been very kind to me before, and I don’t have anyone to talk to about this, so I came back here.

If you look through my old posts, you’ll see that I was in an abusive relationship. I didn’t realize it at the time. It was only when I sought help on here that people started to point out that the way my girlfriend was treating me wasn’t normal, or okay.

I wish I could say that I left when I realized what was going on, but it was so hard. It was so, so hard. It was like my ex noticed me pulling away, and then she started showering me with affection. Suddenly, it was like everything was back on track. I’m ashamed to say that I thought that maybe I could stay with her. She even proposed to me, and I said yes. I know it was stupid. I’m so stupid.

But after a while, it started getting bad again, and one night something in me just . . . snapped. I don’t know what happened. We were sitting on the couch, and she was braiding my hair, and she commented that my scalp was dry. She started talking about how I didn’t wash my hair often enough, and that it was embarrassing. She said I smelled bad, and that other people could tell, too, and that they just weren’t telling me because they didn’t want to upset me, but that it was gross. She said I was gross.

It was such a small thing, compared to everything else. And it might sound ridiculous, but . . . I know I don’t smell bad. I’m very hygienic. I shower every evening before bed, and I floss twice a day, and I wash my hair with shampoo every two days. It became so very clear to me in that moment that nothing had changed, and that she was just saying that to hurt me, and to make me feel insecure.

My mom (who has passed away) used to braid my hair for me when I was little. It was just the two of us, and she worked two, sometimes three jobs, so there were days when I would only see her in the morning when she braided my hair. And in that moment, I thought about how safe and happy I used to feel when I was little, when my mom was doing that, and how scared and small and disgusting I felt now. And I just realized I couldn’t do it anymore.

So we broke up. I broke off the engagement. It got very ugly. I don’t really want to go into detail, but at least I didn’t have to go to the hospital.