Tom’s outbursts used to feel random—until I found a calendar hidden in his office. Each red dot marked a night he’d started a fight and vanished. The next one was five days away. This time, I followed him. What I heard changed everything.
Everyone loved Tom. He was charming, thoughtful, the guy who never forgot a birthday. Falling for him was effortless. I felt like I’d won the lottery.
But behind closed doors, his kindness faded. He could go from sweet to cruel in seconds. I once asked what he wanted for dinner—he exploded, accusing me of “suffocating” him with my breathing. I thought it was stress. Until I saw the pattern.
The fights weren’t random. They happened on specific days—days marked on that calendar. Every red dot matched a blow-up. He was planning them.
So I waited. On the next red-dot night, I played my part. Asked about his day. He snapped, stormed out, and I followed.
He didn’t go to a bar or a friend’s. He parked outside a warehouse labeled “Personal Power & Boundaries for the Modern Man.” For a moment, I hoped it was therapy. But inside, I heard him brag: “I start a fight just big enough to get space. She always thinks it’s her fault.” Laughter followed.
It wasn’t therapy. It was training—in manipulation.
I didn’t confront him. I went home, packed, and pinned the calendar to the wall above his desk. Beneath the final red dot, I wrote: “The night your game stopped being private.”
Then I walked out, quietly and finally free.