For the first time, I understood that I was allowed to choose.
\nI just didn’t understand yet how many choices had already been made for me.
\nThe car ride was quiet.
\nNot peaceful.
\nQuiet.
\nThere is a difference.
\nPeace makes your body loosen.
\nSilence can make every sound feel dangerous.
\nThe person driving kept the radio off. The road hummed beneath the tires, and every time we stopped at a red light, I found myself staring through the window at people walking past.
\nA woman carried a paper bag of groceries.
\nA man held an umbrella over a little boy.
\nTwo teenagers laughed outside a convenience store.
\nSomeone was arguing on a phone.
\nSomeone else was eating noodles from a plastic container.
\nOrdinary life.
\nIt continued everywhere.
\nThat almost made me angry.
\nHow could the world look so normal when mine had been turned upside down?
\nI rested my head against the seat and closed my eyes.
\nFor a few seconds, I imagined I was still in the hospital.
\nThen I remembered the ceiling.<\/p>\n
The rope.<\/p>\n
The blood.<\/p>\n
His voice.<\/p>\n
My stomach tightened so suddenly that I opened my eyes again.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you okay?\u201d<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
The lie came automatically.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The person beside me didn’t push.<\/p>\n
That was another thing I wasn’t used to.<\/p>\n
People had spent years demanding explanations from me.<\/p>\n
Why are you upset?<\/p>\n
What did you do?<\/p>\n
Why did you make him angry?<\/p>\n
Why can’t you just keep the peace?<\/p>\n
Why are you making this bigger than it needs to be?<\/p>\n
Now someone asked if I was okay and accepted that I might not have an answer.<\/p>\n
I looked down at my hands.<\/p>\n
They were trembling.<\/p>\n
I tucked them beneath the blanket.<\/p>\n
We kept driving.<\/p>\n
I didn’t know exactly where I was going.<\/p>\n
And for the first time, not knowing didn’t feel like failure.<\/p>\n
It felt like survival.<\/p>\n
The room they brought me to was small.<\/p>\n
There was a narrow bed, a chair beside it, a table, and a window with curtains that didn’t quite close all the way.<\/p>\n
I noticed the window first.<\/p>\n
Then the door.<\/p>\n
Then the lock.<\/p>\n
Then the distance between the bed and the door.<\/p>\n
I hated that my mind measured rooms that way now.<\/p>\n
A person can live in fear for so long that safety stops feeling like a feeling.<\/p>\n
It becomes mathematics.<\/p>\n
Two exits.<\/p>\n
One locked door.<\/p>\n
A phone within reach.<\/p>\n
Someone nearby.<\/p>\n
No familiar footsteps outside.<\/p>\n
I sat on the edge of the bed.<\/p>\n
My back protested immediately.<\/p>\n
I stopped moving.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon’t push yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
After the door closed, I was alone.<\/p>\n
Actually alone.<\/p>\n
No footsteps outside that belonged to him.<\/p>\n
No voice telling someone I was confused.<\/p>\n
No hand reaching toward my belongings.<\/p>\n
No demand that I explain myself.<\/p>\n
I should have felt relieved.<\/p>\n
Instead, I started crying again.<\/p>\n
I pressed my face into my hands.<\/p>\n
The crying came harder this time.<\/p>\n
Maybe because there was nobody there to punish me for it.<\/p>\n
I cried for the baby.<\/p>\n
I cried for the woman I had been before all of this.<\/p>\n
I cried for every time I had swallowed words because I knew what would happen if I said them.<\/p>\n
I cried for every apology I had made for things I hadn’t done.<\/p>\n
I cried because I finally had a room where nobody could hear me.<\/p>\n
And somehow that made me realize how little privacy I had ever truly had.<\/p>\n
That night, I couldn’t sleep.<\/p>\n
Every time I closed my eyes, I heard the ceiling beam.<\/p>\n
Not literally.<\/p>\n
Memory.<\/p>\n
My body had learned the sound of danger before my mind understood what was happening.<\/p>\n
At some point after midnight, I heard a vehicle outside.<\/p>\n
My entire body froze.<\/p>\n
Footsteps.<\/p>\n
A door closing.<\/p>\n
Another door.<\/p>\n
I stopped breathing.<\/p>\n
Someone walked toward the building.<\/p>\n
My hand searched for the phone.<\/p>\n
The footsteps passed.<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
Nothing.<\/p>\n
I slowly exhaled.<\/p>\n
Then I laughed.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t a happy laugh.<\/p>\n
It was the kind of laugh that comes when you realize your body is reacting to ghosts.<\/p>\n
He wasn’t there.<\/p>\n
But my nervous system hadn’t received the message.<\/p>\n
I turned onto my side as carefully as I could.<\/p>\n
My eyes landed on the small bag beside the bed.<\/p>\n
The keys were inside.<\/p>\n
I had checked three times already.<\/p>\n
I checked again.<\/p>\n
Still there.<\/p>\n
I don’t know why.<\/p>\n
Maybe I needed proof.<\/p>\n
Proof that he had not taken everything.<\/p>\n
Proof that something from my old life had crossed the threshold with me without belonging to him.<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes.<\/p>\n
This time, sleep came.<\/p>\n
Only for an hour.<\/p>\n
The next morning, there was a knock.<\/p>\n
I immediately woke.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The voice belonged to someone from the hospital.<\/p>\n
I relaxed slightly.<\/p>\n
The door opened.<\/p>\n
She carried a folder.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s something you should know.\u201d<\/p>\n
My stomach tightened.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
She sat down.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour husband has been calling.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at her.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow many times?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSeveral.\u201d<\/p>\n
I felt cold.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is he saying?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat he wants to know where you are.\u201d<\/p>\n
I said nothing.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe says he’s worried.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course he did.<\/p>\n
That was always his strongest weapon.<\/p>\n
Concern.<\/p>\n
He could turn cruelty into concern so quickly that sometimes even I had trouble separating the two.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe also says you left with property that belongs to him.\u201d<\/p>\n
I frowned.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat property?\u201d<\/p>\n
She hesitated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe keys.\u201d<\/p>\n
For a moment, I thought I had heard her wrong.<\/p>\n
Then I laughed.<\/p>\n
It came out bitter.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wants the keys?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has another set.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at the floor.<\/p>\n
Then I understood.<\/p>\n
He didn’t need the keys.<\/p>\n
He wanted me to give them back.<\/p>\n
Because they were one of the few things he could still demand from me.<\/p>\n
One of the few things he could point to and say:<\/p>\n
You still belong to my life.<\/p>\n
You still have something of mine.<\/p>\n
You still have to answer me.<\/p>\n
I looked up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re mine.\u201d<\/p>\n
She nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told them that.\u201d<\/p>\n
I swallowed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho are they?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople making sure the discharge information is handled properly.\u201d<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
Then she added something that made my fingers go cold.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has also been telling people that you are unstable.\u201d<\/p>\n
There it was.<\/p>\n
The old story.<\/p>\n
The story he had been preparing long before I ever found the courage to leave.<\/p>\n
I was emotional.<\/p>\n
I was confused.<\/p>\n
I was grieving.<\/p>\n
I was not thinking clearly.<\/p>\n
I was unstable.<\/p>\n
He had built a version of me in which my own testimony could always be dismissed.<\/p>\n
And suddenly I understood why he had sounded so calm in the hospital hallway.<\/p>\n
He wasn’t improvising.<\/p>\n
He had been preparing.<\/p>\n
I asked for a pen.<\/p>\n
She gave me one.<\/p>\n
I opened the folder.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWriting things down.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat things?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything I remember.\u201d<\/p>\n
She watched me carefully.<\/p>\n
I started with dates.<\/p>\n
Then places.<\/p>\n
Then injuries.<\/p>\n
Then names.<\/p>\n
Then things he had said.<\/p>\n
Not interpretations.<\/p>\n
Not theories.<\/p>\n
Just facts.<\/p>\n
The ceiling beam.<\/p>\n
The rope.<\/p>\n
The hours.<\/p>\n
The blows.<\/p>\n
The blood.<\/p>\n
The hospital.<\/p>\n
The keys.<\/p>\n
His attempt to take them.<\/p>\n
His claim that I was confused.<\/p>\n
His calls.<\/p>\n
His statement that he wanted to know where I was.<\/p>\n
I wrote until my hand hurt.<\/p>\n
Then I stopped.<\/p>\n
I looked at the page.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t a story anymore.<\/p>\n
It was evidence.<\/p>\n
That distinction mattered.<\/p>\n
Because stories could be argued with.<\/p>\n
Facts could be documented.<\/p>\n
Later that afternoon, someone came to speak with me.<\/p>\n
He didn’t sit too close.<\/p>\n
He introduced himself.<\/p>\n
He explained why he was there.<\/p>\n
Then he asked whether I felt safe talking.<\/p>\n
I almost laughed.<\/p>\n
Nobody had ever asked me that before.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWould you like someone else in the room?\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked toward the door.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
He sat down.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
The question was simple.<\/p>\n
But I knew this version of the question was different.<\/p>\n
He wasn’t asking because he wanted gossip.<\/p>\n
He wasn’t asking so he could decide whether I was exaggerating.<\/p>\n
He was asking because he needed my account.<\/p>\n
So I gave it.<\/p>\n
Slowly.<\/p>\n
Piece by piece.<\/p>\n
There were moments when my voice disappeared.<\/p>\n
He waited.<\/p>\n
There were moments when I couldn’t remember the exact order of events.<\/p>\n
He didn’t fill in the blanks for me.<\/p>\n
He simply marked them as uncertain.<\/p>\n
When I remembered something later, he wrote it down separately.<\/p>\n
When I said, \u201cI don’t know,\u201d he accepted it.<\/p>\n
That almost broke me.<\/p>\n
Because for years, \u201cI don’t know\u201d had been treated like a confession.<\/p>\n
If I couldn’t remember something, he told me it didn’t happen.<\/p>\n
If I remembered something differently, he told me I was lying.<\/p>\n
Now somebody was letting uncertainty exist without turning it against me.<\/p>\n
When the conversation ended, he closed the notebook.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is something else you should know.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour husband has contacted several people.\u201d<\/p>\n
My chest tightened.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople who know you.\u201d<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is telling them you need help.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked down.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is also telling them that you are refusing medical care and that you may be a danger to yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
My head snapped up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is trying to create concern around your behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n
I understood immediately.<\/p>\n
He couldn’t make me go back by force.<\/p>\n
So he would make everyone believe I needed to be taken back.<\/p>\n
I felt sick.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s building another story.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at the folder.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do I do?\u201d<\/p>\n
The answer surprised me.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou keep telling the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s where you start.\u201d<\/p>\n
That evening, I called someone I hadn’t spoken to in years.<\/p>\n
My voice shook when the call connected.<\/p>\n
\u201cHello?\u201d<\/p>\n
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.<\/p>\n
Then she said my name.<\/p>\n
The way she said it almost destroyed me.<\/p>\n
Not with pity.<\/p>\n
With recognition.<\/p>\n
As if she could hear everything I wasn’t saying.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere are you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can’t tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n
A pause.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you safe?\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at the locked door.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you need somewhere to go?\u201d<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don’t have to know.\u201d<\/p>\n
That sentence again.<\/p>\n
I don’t have to know.<\/p>\n
I began to cry.<\/p>\n
She stayed on the phone.<\/p>\n
She didn’t ask me why I stayed.<\/p>\n
She didn’t ask why I hadn’t left sooner.<\/p>\n
She didn’t ask what I had done to cause him to become angry.<\/p>\n
She simply stayed.<\/p>\n
After a while, she said something that I would remember for the rest of my life.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don’t have to prove that you suffered enough before you’re allowed to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n
I covered my mouth.<\/p>\n
Because somewhere inside me, I had believed exactly the opposite.<\/p>\n
I thought I needed one final disaster.<\/p>\n
One undeniable injury.<\/p>\n
One event so terrible that nobody could question me.<\/p>\n
I had gotten it.<\/p>\n
And I hated that it had taken the death of my child for me to believe I deserved safety.<\/p>\n
The following days blurred together.<\/p>\n
Pain medication.<\/p>\n
Appointments.<\/p>\n
Forms.<\/p>\n
Phone calls.<\/p>\n
Sleep.<\/p>\n
Waking.<\/p>\n
Crying.<\/p>\n
Trying to eat.<\/p>\n
Trying to stand.<\/p>\n
Trying not to think.<\/p>\n
Every day brought another practical problem.<\/p>\n
Every problem reminded me of something he had controlled.<\/p>\n
Money.<\/p>\n
Documents.<\/p>\n
The house.<\/p>\n
My belongings.<\/p>\n
Accounts.<\/p>\n
Phone access.<\/p>\n
Mail.<\/p>\n
People.<\/p>\n
And then there was the question I had been avoiding.<\/p>\n
What had happened to the house?<\/p>\n
I didn’t want to go back.<\/p>\n
But I needed things from it.<\/p>\n
My documents.<\/p>\n
Clothes.<\/p>\n
Personal items.<\/p>\n
Photographs.<\/p>\n
Things that had belonged to my family before I ever met him.<\/p>\n
I asked whether someone could retrieve them.<\/p>\n
The answer was careful.<\/p>\n
\u201cPossibly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout me going there?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
I exhaled.<\/p>\n
Then came the harder question.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you think he’ll let them in?\u201d<\/p>\n
Nobody answered immediately.<\/p>\n
That silence told me enough.<\/p>\n
A plan was made.<\/p>\n
Someone would go.<\/p>\n
I would not.<\/p>\n
I sat on the bed and made a list.<\/p>\n
Passport.<\/p>\n
Documents.<\/p>\n
Clothes.<\/p>\n
Medication.<\/p>\n
Personal photographs.<\/p>\n
A small box from my mother.<\/p>\n
My old notebook.<\/p>\n
I stopped writing.<\/p>\n
The notebook.<\/p>\n
I had forgotten about it.<\/p>\n
It had been hidden for years.<\/p>\n
Not because it contained anything dramatic.<\/p>\n
Because it contained me.<\/p>\n
My handwriting.<\/p>\n
My thoughts.<\/p>\n
The things I never said aloud.<\/p>\n
The first years of my marriage.<\/p>\n
The first time he frightened me.<\/p>\n
The first time I realized he could lie convincingly to other people.<\/p>\n
The first time I wrote:<\/p>\n
I don’t think this is normal.<\/p>\n
I had forgotten that sentence existed.<\/p>\n
My hands began to shake.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdd the notebook,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
The person helping me looked up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat notebook?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s in the house.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n
I hesitated.<\/p>\n
Then I gave the location.<\/p>\n
A place he had never had a reason to search.<\/p>\n
At least, I thought he hadn’t.<\/p>\n
The retrieval happened two days later.<\/p>\n
I was waiting in the room when the phone rang.<\/p>\n
\u201cHello?\u201d<\/p>\n
The voice on the other end was tense.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re here.\u201d<\/p>\n
My heart started beating faster.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs he there?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
I sat upright too quickly and pain shot through my back.<\/p>\n
I ignored it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is he doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s refusing to let us take some things.\u201d<\/p>\n
My grip tightened around the phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich things?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour documents.\u201d<\/p>\n
My stomach dropped.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe says they’re household property.\u201d<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes.<\/p>\n
Of course.<\/p>\n
\u201cAsk him to show you where they are.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe already did.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe says he doesn’t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
I knew that wasn’t true.<\/p>\n
He always knew where everything was.<\/p>\n
He just knew that information was another form of control.<\/p>\n
Then I heard another voice faintly through the phone.<\/p>\n
His.<\/p>\n
My entire body went cold.<\/p>\n
He was speaking to someone in the room.<\/p>\n
I couldn’t make out every word.<\/p>\n
Then the person on the phone said:<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wants to talk to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe says it’s about the house.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
A pause.<\/p>\n
Then his voice became louder.<\/p>\n
Even through the phone, I recognized the tone.<\/p>\n
The calm one.<\/p>\n
The reasonable one.<\/p>\n
The voice he used when he wanted witnesses to think he was the victim.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe needs to come get her things herself.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at the wall.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
The person on the phone repeated my answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe says no.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silence.<\/p>\n
Then his voice changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe doesn’t get to abandon her responsibilities and then send strangers to take things.\u201d<\/p>\n
My hand went numb.<\/p>\n
Responsibilities.<\/p>\n
That word.<\/p>\n
He had always loved that word.<\/p>\n
Responsibility meant whatever he needed it to mean.<\/p>\n
Responsibility meant staying.<\/p>\n
Responsibility meant forgiving.<\/p>\n
Responsibility meant silence.<\/p>\n
Responsibility meant returning.<\/p>\n
I looked at the keys on the table.<\/p>\n
Then I said:<\/p>\n
\u201cTell him I am not coming back.\u201d<\/p>\n
The person on the phone hesitated.<\/p>\n
Then repeated it.<\/p>\n
There was silence.<\/p>\n
Long silence.<\/p>\n
And then he laughed.<\/p>\n
Not loudly.<\/p>\n
Not angrily.<\/p>\n
Almost gently.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s fine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
My stomach tightened.<\/p>\n
Because I knew that laugh.<\/p>\n
It was the laugh he used when he had already decided on his next move.<\/p>\n
Then he said something else.<\/p>\n
Something that made the room around me disappear.<\/p>\n
\u201cTell her I already found the notebook.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stopped breathing.<\/p>\n
The person on the phone said my name.<\/p>\n
I couldn’t answer.<\/p>\n
My eyes remained fixed on the wall.<\/p>\n
The notebook.<\/p>\n
He had found it.<\/p>\n
The one thing I had written without believing anyone would ever read.<\/p>\n
The one place where I had recorded what happened before I learned to minimize it.<\/p>\n
Before I learned to doubt myself.<\/p>\n
Before I learned to say, \u201cMaybe I misunderstood.\u201d<\/p>\n
He had found it.<\/p>\n
And if he had read it\u2014<\/p>\n
I suddenly remembered the last page.<\/p>\n
The last sentence I had written years ago.<\/p>\n
A sentence I hadn’t thought about in a very long time.<\/p>\n
My blood ran cold.<\/p>\n
Because I remembered exactly what it said.<\/p>\n
If anything ever happens to me, it wasn’t an accident.<\/strong><\/p>\n I grabbed the phone.<\/p>\n \u201cGet out of the house.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGet out. Now.\u201d<\/p>\n The person on the other end went silent.<\/p>\n Then I heard movement.<\/p>\n A door.<\/p>\n Footsteps.<\/p>\n And before the call ended, his voice came through one last time.<\/p>\n Not angry.<\/p>\n Not shouting.<\/p>\n Almost amused.<\/p>\n \u201cYou should have burned that book years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n The line went dead.<\/p>\n I stared at the phone.<\/p>\n My hands were shaking so badly I nearly dropped it.<\/p>\n Because suddenly I understood.<\/p>\n The hospital wasn’t the end of what he had done.<\/p>\n It was only the moment when I had finally stopped hiding it.<\/p>\n And now he knew that I had written everything down.<\/p>\n Which meant he no longer had only one problem.<\/p>\n He had a record.<\/p>\n And he was going to do whatever he could to make sure nobody ever saw it….<\/p>\n PART 3 For the first time, I understood that I was allowed to choose. I just didn’t understand yet how many choices had already been made for me. The car … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5610,"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5605\/revisions\/5610"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nexttaleus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Click Here to continuous Read\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b Full Ending Story\ud83d\udc49PART(4): He Reached for My Keys\u2014Then the Doctor Finally Drew the Line<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"