I jolted upright.
“Dad, what are you doing?!” I blurted out, voice shaking.
My husband sat up quickly.
But instead of taking my side, he turned on the light and gave me a forced smile that made my stomach twist.
“Babe, relax. He’s old. This is just tradition. Don’t ruin our first night over something so small…”
Something so small.
My eyes burned. My throat tightened.
I felt like a child trapped in someone else’s house, someone else’s rules, someone else’s version of “normal.”
I realized in that moment that if I stayed in this marriage, my body, my privacy, my dignity — none of it would ever truly belong to me again.
At exactly three in the morning, after hours of lying stiff and sleepless, my skin suddenly felt unbearably itchy — not on the surface, but beneath it, the crawling sensation of anxiety turning into panic.
My heart pounded. My body trembled.
It was like every nerve in me was screaming:
