5SOS Imagines

Calum - Previous Abusive Relationship

He loves me.

Right?

-

You aren’t sure when you started to lose yourself.

You couldn’t quite pinpoint the moment you started to fade, the moment your smile started to dim.

All you knew was that when you looked at old pictures of yourself, the smile you used to wear seemed so bright in comparison to the half-broken quirk you saw in the mirror every morning.

All you knew was that when you talked to friends or family, they spoke of you like you were a different person back then; someone whose description you couldn’t remember. Someone you didn’t know anymore.

All you knew was that the girl you became after him was someone else.

Someone you didn’t want to be.

You didn’t know when you stopped going out to see your friends, or when you stopped liking the things you used to or stopped laughing until your stomach hurt.

You didn’t know when you started needing him more, when he started becoming the centre of your thoughts, when he started to convince you with the words he hissed into your ear.

You aren’t sure when you started to lose yourself.

But you knew when you knew you needed to find yourself again.

-

It wasn’t easy.

It wasn’t easy cutting him out of your life when he was already a disease that overtook most of your body; viciously fighting the bits of you that made you you.

It wasn’t easy convincing yourself all you needed was yourself when he would growl I’m the best thing that your miserable, pathetic existence will ever have into your ear every night.

He had brainwashed you so, so well.

It wasn’t easy telling yourself that you didn’t need him; that you didn’t need anyone.

That there was once a time when you were happy to sleep alone on a bed meant for two because it meant more space for you.

But he had changed that. He forced you to shrink yourself, to make yourself smaller and smaller until you were clinging onto the edges desperately even when he wasn’t there.

But you wouldn’t be like that anymore. You wouldn’t wait for him to turn away from you at night when he remembered to come home in the first place, you wouldn’t crawl back to him after he left you on the cold, hard ground.

It wasn’t easy, but would do it.

You would go out with your friends again, you would read books that made you smile, you would dance along to music that made your heart lift.

You wouldn’t be afraid to get out of bed for a midnight snack, you wouldn’t be afraid to stay out a little later, you wouldn’t be afraid to wear that top that hugged you in all the right places.

Day by day, you started to remember who you were again.

And while he scared you, you stood strong and you braced yourself because you were tired of falling, you were tired of the floor and you were tired of crying.

You told yourself you deserved better.

And while you didn’t believe it at first, even the false words echoing in your mind gave you a shred of strength when you stood against him until the phrase wasn’t just a comforting lie anymore.