I was 23 when I married Jerome. 23 and so full of hope, it practically radiated from my skin. I believed in the fairy tale, you know.

I believed that love conquered all. That a good woman could love a man into being better. That marriage was this sacred thing where two people built something beautiful together.

Jerome was handsome, in that way that makes your girlfriends jealous and your mama nervous. Six foot two, smooth dark skin, smile that could charm the paint off walls, and a way with words that made you feel like you were the only woman in the world. When he proposed to me outside that little church in Atlanta where we first met, I thought I was the luckiest woman alive.

The first red flag should have been his son, Fred. Not Fred himself, that baby was innocent in all of this, but the way Jerome talked about Fred’s mother, Veronica. She was just a mistake, he’d say, whenever I brought up the fact that they still talked regularly.

You’re my wife now, baby. You’re my future. I swallowed those words like medicine.

Bitter, but necessary. I told myself that loving Jerome meant accepting all of him, including his past. I told myself that being a good wife meant supporting my husband, even when that support felt like swallowing glass.

The second red flag was how he treated me when we couldn’t get pregnant right away. Month after month, I’d take those tests, hoping and praying for two little lines. Month after month, nothing.

And Jerome? Jerome made sure I knew whose fault he thought it was. My boy’s strong, he’d say, gesturing toward Fred’s pictures on our mantle. I already got proof I can make babies, so what’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with you? Those four words became the soundtrack to my marriage.

What’s wrong with you when dinner wasn’t exactly how he liked it? What’s wrong with you when I asked him to spend less time texting Veronica? What’s wrong with you when I suggested we both go to the doctor to figure out why we weren’t conceiving? I ain’t going to no doctor, he’d snap. I got a healthy son running around. That’s all the proof I need that everything works down there.

So I went alone. Month after month, appointment after appointment, test after test, I let them poke me and prod me and examine every inch of my reproductive system. I drank those awful contrast drinks for the imaging.

I lay on those cold tables while machines hummed around me. I subjected myself to procedures that left me cramping and bleeding and crying in hospital parking lots by myself. And you know what all those tests showed? That I was perfectly, completely, 100% fertile and healthy.

My eggs were good, my tubes were clear, my hormone levels were textbook perfect. There was absolutely nothing wrong with me. But Jerome didn’t want to hear that.

When I came home with the results, practically vibrating with relief and hope, he barely looked up from his phone. That’s good, baby, he mumbled, fingers flying across the screen, probably texting Veronica again. Jerome, this means the issue might be, ain’t no issue with me, he cut me off, finally looking up with eyes that had gone cold.

I got proof walking around calling me daddy. Don’t start with that nonsense. The physical pain was bad enough.

Jerome had hands that were quick to grab, quick to squeeze just a little too hard when he was frustrated. He never hit me. He was too smart for that, too concerned about his image.

But he found other ways to hurt me. A grip on my wrist that left marks, fingers digging into my shoulders when he wanted to make a point. The kind of touches that looked like affection from the outside, but felt like warnings to me.

The emotional pain was worse. Jerome was an artist when it came to tearing me down. He knew exactly which words would cut the deepest, exactly how to make me feel small and worthless, and grateful for whatever scraps of attention he threw my way.

You lucky I married you, he’d say during our fights. Most men wouldn’t want a woman who can’t give them children. Maybe if you spent less time running your mouth and more time figuring out what’s wrong with you, we might actually have a family by now.

Veronica never had any problems getting pregnant. Maybe the problem ain’t men. Maybe the problem is you.

Six years. Six years of this. Six years of taking his anger and his blame and his cruelty and convincing myself that this was what marriage looked like.

Six years of watching him text his ex-girlfriend, of pretending not to notice when he’d slip out for hours at a time with no explanation, of lying awake at night wondering what I was doing wrong. Six years of giving him everything, my love, my loyalty, my self-respect, and eventually my money. The money part started when Jerome’s job at the auto shop started slowing down.

Business was bad, he said. They were cutting hours, we were behind on rent, behind on the car payment, behind on everything. I watched him get more and more frustrated, more and more angry, and that anger always found its way back to me.

I had been saving money. Not much. My job at the department store didn’t pay much.

But I was careful. I clipped coupons and bought generic brands and skipped lunch more often than I ate it. Over the years, I had managed to save up $12,000.

It was going to be our nest egg, I thought. Money for a house someday, or maybe for fertility treatments if we decided to go that route. Jerome found out about that money on a Tuesday.

I don’t even remember how it came up, but suddenly he was staring at me with this look I’d never seen before. Not anger, not frustration, but something that looked almost like hunger. $12,000, he repeated.

You been sitting on $12,000 while I’m over here stressing about bills? I was saving it for us, I said quickly, recognizing the danger in his voice, for our future, for when we… Our future is right now, he interrupted. I got an opportunity, Rosalyn, a real opportunity. My boy Damon, he’s opening up a second location for his dry cleaning business.

He needs a partner, someone to run the new spot. This could be it, baby. This could be our way out.

I should have said no. Every instinct in my body was screaming at me to say no. But Jerome was looking at me with something that almost looked like love, talking to me like he was my partner instead of my problem.

And I was so desperate for that feeling that I ignored every red flag. How much does he need? I heard myself asking. All of it, Jerome said quickly.

The whole $12,000. I know it’s a lot, baby, but think about it. This is our chance.

Once the business takes off, we’ll make that money back in no time. And maybe… He moved closer to me, his hands gentle on my face for once. Maybe once I’m not so stressed about money, we can really focus on starting our family.

The hope in those words was like a drug. I was so desperate to believe that our problems were just about money, that once we got our finances straight, everything else would fall into place. I was so desperate to believe that Jerome could love me the way I loved him.

That night, I gave him everything. I emptied my savings account and handed him every penny I had worked so hard to save. And Jerome? He held me close and whispered promises in my ear about how everything was going to change, how this was going to be the start of our real life together….