The relationship didn't feel like a crime while you were inside it
The clearest sign that something was wrong was how normal it felt. Not peaceful, not kind, but normal. You had adjusted to the unpredictability so completely that his moods became your weather forecast. You read the room before you spoke. You softened your sentences. You apologised for things that hadn't happened yet. None of that registered as abuse because abuse, in the way you'd always imagined it, was loud. This was quiet. This was him saying you were too sensitive, and you believing him, because by then you had been told it so many times that it had become the story you told yourself.
