On DV: The Day I said "Enough."

⚠️ Trigger Warning: Contains graphic depictions of domestic violence, emotional abuse, and physical assault. Proceed with caution.

The story really starts in 1990. By the end of this, you’ll probably hate one of us. I’m hoping it isn’t me.

My sister was in the city to have her first baby. The whole family was buzzing, but being fourteen and turning fifteen, I had to play it cool. Big deal. Everyone has babies. Truth was, I couldn’t wait to get to that hospital. I wanted to meet my brand-new niece and see my older sister, the closest thing I’d ever had to a real best friend.

(Names may have been changed to protect the innocent, spare the traumatized, and keep the criminally unhinged off my doorstep. Or maybe not. If you recognize yourself here, that’s between you and your god.)

I dressed like the average offspring of a Jerry Springer poster family: beat-to-crap spandex rocker jeans, Peter Pan Getaway boots, a ratty ’80s jean jacket, bleached-blonde frizz hovering around my scalp, makeup that would’ve made Debbie Harry proud, and accessories that screamed dime-store pimp. Street-smart, sure. But still just a kid.

Mom and I were having a rare week where we weren’t at each other’s throats. We’d even shopped together for a diaper bag stuffed with gifts and weird little comforts for our newly minted mom. (She wasn’t my sister from my mom—she was from Dad’s first marriage—so we usually only crossed paths on holidays or the occasional super-special weekend.) This trip meant everything. I was even one of the first people she told she was pregnant. At our brother’s wedding, of all places.

I’m setting the scene on purpose. You need to understand how a kid who thought she knew every street rule still fell right into the trap of circumstance.

We finished last-minute shopping and headed for the bus stop. That’s where it actually began.

Two stops in, two hyped-up teenage boys boarded. One was my height, scruffy. The other was tall, wire-thin, with a wild mane of bright red hair. They jostled, swore, laughed, and quickly realized we were watching. Every time Mom or I glanced their way, one of them hammed it up: a grin, a shove, a ridiculous gesture.

The redhead was the loudest. Not my scene. I sighed, rolled my eyes, and mentally added them to the “please never again” list.

They disembarked a few stops before the hospital with the same chaotic energy they’d brought on. The driver exhaled. So did half the bus.

Inside the lobby, I asked Mom if I could grab coffee to take upstairs. She went to the front desk for the room number; I headed to the canteen. Guess who was already there? The same two boys. This time, one was shoving the other around in a hospital wheelchair.

They spotted me, dissolved into laughter, and I responded with a heavy sigh, an eye roll, and a dramatic hair flip. I grabbed my coffee, met Mom at the elevator, and muttered that the bus fools were in the building. She actually laughed. “Oh well, maybe it’s your destiny!” she said—right as the doors opened on the next floor to reveal the wheelchair and the same giggling idiots waiting to get on, apparently also going up.

Finally, we all stepped out. They went left; we went right. Relief.

We reached my sister’s room, but she was gone. A nurse said she was down for tests, but we could wait. Not long after, she walked in with that careful, post-labor stride new moms all have.

Hugs. Overlapping voices. Rapid-fire updates. Then—

That laugh. The one I’d already decided I hated.

Oh, God. No.

Wheelchair squeak. Footsteps. They walked right into the room. Mom and I froze. The boys collapsed into each other, gasping with laughter, performing like clowns. My sister blinked, confused, then smiled.

“Oh, hey! I’d like you both to meet my boyfriend, Gerald, and his cousin, Bobby.”

Gerald gaped at his own name, bowed with an exaggerated “How DO you DO?” Bobby sobered slightly and nodded. “Ma’am.”

It was the first quiet note in a very loud life. And it turned out to be a preview.

The scruffy one stayed a laid-back country kid, though eventually became one of the heaviest chronic pot smokers I’ve ever known. The loud one never learned to lower his voice. I’ll skip ahead here—you don’t need the filler, and it doesn’t change the core of this.

My sister and Gerald eventually split. But somewhere in between, whenever he came to Saint John, he’d drift into my spaces. Our grudging banter slowly hardened into something unbreakable. We became closer than blood. Defensive. Loyal. Gerald was a troublemaker, a thief, a user, and a walking cautionary tale. But he always respected me. Always had my back when the city’s gossip turned sharp and the alleys got cold. We were street-forged. Thicker than family.

I fast-forward through years that don’t need retelling. The good, the bad, the ugly. I’d taken a two-year hiatus from men, women, intimate relationships of any kind. I wasn’t sexually active. I didn’t date, make out, or commit. Drunkenly, I may have necked with a few drag queens or tiny lesbians while out on the club scene, but my sex life was strictly PG, and I was proud of it.

Two years is a long stretch when you’re young. By then I was twenty-five, and the celibacy had started to wear thin. I kept thinking about putting down roots, finding a place to settle my ass and just exist. One night, I went out with my girl Tina to a shitty little pub on Union Street.

Karaoke queued. Beer taps running full.

At some random, unexpected moment, I turned around and saw him coming through the door. That shock of red hair—now cropped short and tidy—and that bowlegged, popping strut. I would’ve known it anywhere. He hadn’t seen me yet, so I casually walked over and slid up beside him.

(In my best dramatic movie star cowboy voice)

“Hey  there, stranger. What brings you ’round these parts?"

He turned, blinked, recognized me, and his face cracked open like a struck match. Beaming, he threw his arms around me and started yelling to anyone who’d listen, “Hey there! My baby sister, what’s shakin’, little girl? Man, you’re a sight for sore eyes!”

And so it began.

We danced. We sang. We drank and reminisced.

Over the next few weeks, we started hanging out whenever we could, which quickly turned into four or five hours a day for a little over a month. He told me he’d been hooked on crack for a while—that’s why I’d lost track of him. He was in recovery now, clean for nearly a year. He preached about being a changed man, about how different things would be. I swallowed it whole. I was so proud of him for manning up. Oh, but little did I know.

One night, I don’t know how or why, we were dancing and it just happened. Our eyes met, and for some godawful reason I’ll never understand, we kissed. The whole night blurred into a dreamlike haze of alcohol and adrenaline. I won’t get into the gory details; I’ll just say that by the next day, he’d already informed me we were an item. Fully, completely.

I wasn’t sure about it. A strange apprehension sat in my chest, but I trusted him—more than anyone knew, far more than I ever should have. Within a few weeks, it all came out: he was awaiting a court date for serious charges. Credit card fraud, theft. It just sucked. He told me he had to go to Fredericton for sentencing; he couldn’t get the venue changed, and he already knew it meant jail time. He wouldn’t be coming home for at least a few months. He told me all this the morning he left.

We talked about how we’d stay in touch. We swore to stay together. Promised that together we could move mountains. The usual rehearsed vows.

Turns out I was just really fucking dumb. He went away, got sentenced to four months, and didn’t even do two.

I think I saw it start shortly after his release, while he was still in the halfway house. Little odd expressions when we talked. A sudden worry about what I was doing at home, all alone, without him. He was fully released on Christmas Eve and came straight to me; he had nowhere else to go. His attitude was unbearable. You’d think after time away, missing his “great love,” finally landing in a soft bed with a warm body, he’d be in a great mood.

He wasn’t. He was cranky, picky, impossible to please. By the next morning, though, he was himself again. Maybe it was just adjustment. I’ll never fully know.

New Year’s Eve, we had plans. Our usual tavern run: two pubs across the street from each other, plus one I hated up on the corner. A toss-up which was his favorite watering hole. He got falling-down hammered and got thrown out of all three.

At one point, he screamed that it was all my fault. I’d stolen his friends while he was away. What the fuck had I said to make them hate him that way?

Chasing him through the pouring rain, I was near tears, trying to explain that he’d just had too many, that we should go home and sleep it off.

He flipped. “I don’t know what the fuck you did, but they all hate me! Go back the fuck inside with all YOUR friends, CUNT!”

He shoved me into a plate-glass storefront with enough force to rattle the windows on the upper floors. I’m still surprised the glass didn’t shatter when I hit it. I just crumpled to the ground—in shock, disbelief, past even tears.

He ran. He fucking ran.

I picked myself up and chased him into the alley he’d disappeared into. He was sitting in a puddle, crying. I reached for him, and he slapped at my hand. That’s when I actually started to cry, to howl, “Why, Gerald? What did I do? Why did you shove me into that window, and why did you just try to hit me?” He just stared. Then realization seemed to flood over him, and he cried harder.

“Oh my god, baby, I’m sorry. Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I was so stressed, I didn’t even realize what I was doing. You’ve got to believe me. Oh my god, baby, please forgive me…”

And I did. Right there, I fell to my knees and held him. We sat in that muddy puddle and cried together.

Eventually, I got him up and we went looking for the girl crashing at our house that night—some friend he’d made in the halfway house. I can’t even remember her name. She was sweet, just a little knocked off-kilter by life. After we found her, we made our way home, but he started grumbling, complaining, excusing what he’d done as if I’d somehow caused it. I hadn’t. I knew it right then. I should’ve left him that night. I didn’t.

The next day, he had absolutely no memory of any of it. I don’t think he would’ve believed me if others hadn’t witnessed the whole bloody thing. They told him in the following days, and he acted ultra-sweet for a few months afterward. The girl who’d been there just looked at me with fear, like she’d seen this shit before. She gave a quiet, sad commiseration and never stayed in touch with him after that. We only saw her once or twice more.

Over the next two and a half years, things became worse. Much worse.

It reached a point where he’d criticize my clothes, my hair, my makeup. I couldn’t go out without him. He didn’t like guests unless he’d approved them first and was home to supervise. Phone calls, coffee dates with old friends, shopping without permission—all deal breakers.

He was steadily sinking deeper into the bad kind of pot culture and spinning more elaborate excuses. I hated the weed most. It was while he was high that he turned paranoid and irrational. Weed was his trigger, just like it had been with my mom. Weed meant someone was getting beaten. Often. And most always, it was me. I’m not saying it does that to everyone, but for some people, it’s literally like handing them a loaded gun.

Some people are just too broken right out of the gate.

There was a short breakup during that time because I’d finally thought I’d had enough. I’d been engaged to him, and then he went to his brother’s house and nearly cheated on me with some druggie chick he didn’t even know. Not just a casual user either. She was hardcore. Mainlining. Scary, scary shit.

That wasn’t the catalyst, but it was damn close.

We’d had a squabble, and he openly smoked weed directly in my face. I have a severe allergy; I couldn’t smoke it if I wanted to—I can't breathe and I break out in hives. He’d also admitted to doing coke again, in a bar bathroom with his older sister. That was enough for me. Or so I thought.

With him yelling in my face, shoving closer, calling me names while confessing to everything he’d promised was in the past, I was thinking about everything I’d given up for him. All the nights I’d cried myself to sleep while he was just being himself. I snapped.

I snatched his bag of weed and tossed it out our third story window, then I jumped on him and screamed with pent-up rage. I lost my ever-loving mind. I remember swinging my whole 110-pound frame at him, wanting to claw his fucking eyes out. My dear friend Sean stepped in that time and saved either Gerald or me, or both. I don’t know, nor do I really want to.

That short split was even scarier, though.

I got death threats when I ventured outside. His friends, our local thugs, would scream at me on sight. I got phone calls in the middle of the night. Shit thrown at my windows. Garbage left in my outer hall.

One night while I was out, he confronted me. A bartender locked down the tavern because Gerald was acting so scary and cracked out. A friend offered to sneak me out the back while the bartender and two other huge guys I knew stood guard at the front to distract him so I could escape. More calls. More threats. Gerald’s "psycho" ex-girlfriend—one of my closest protectors—moved in to help me. She was one of the few people in the world he’d never talk back to. She’d have killed him. Seriously.

Dumb, dumb, dumb. The split didn’t last.

Partly because I was conditioned by then. Partly because I genuinely thought someone was going to kill me if I didn’t take him back. It started out almost nice, but was back to the bad old days within a few weeks. The old rules crept back in. The old accusations. He went through my wallet and purse regularly, looking for something to ding me with.

Another New Year’s celebration. We went out together. I didn’t even want to, really, but there was no option.

Gerald was brazen and disrespectful. He rolled joints openly on the dinner table in a drug-free home after I’d explicitly asked him not to. Earlier that night, he’d ditched me at my friend’s house for hours while he went off to “say goodbye” one last time to his dealer and his precious, precious fix. You need to understand - I'm not anti-cannabis - I'm anti-whatever the fuck he was while using cannabis.

By that time he was up to about an ounce a day on slow days, not counting all the other shit piled on top that I only found out about later. I planned to suffer through the night and wait until he was less jacked up to tell him it was finally, truly over. I was past the point of pretending I could hold on.

We went to the tavern anyway. Some guy dumped a drink in my lap for no reason. Gerald got in his face, and the whole place broke into a brawl. Five big guys jumped him. It was a mess. Bar staff broke it up, threw the others out, and tried to get Gerald to sit the hell down.

He wouldn’t. He went out after them, and the place got locked down.

The silence outside swallowed the whole block. We heard every bit of what was happening out there. The five guys got him. Hard. Thumps. Blood-curdling screams. Back-and-forth hollering. Then complete silence.

It felt like an apocalypse for blocks. The deepest quiet I’ve ever heard on any night in this city.

After the bartender deemed it safe, I slipped out and went looking for him. All I found was a pool of blood, broken glass, and the obvious remains of one hell of a fight. I was near hysteria. I couldn’t find him anywhere. I honestly believed they’d killed him. Later, I’d learn the only reason he wasn’t dead was that they thought they actually had killed him, and they all ran off.

A friend convinced me to go home and wait. If he was going anywhere, that’s where he’d head. I found him already there, in the bathroom, his jaw sitting on his chest. Literally.

I woke my neighbor and begged for a ride to the hospital. The diagnosis: torn esophagus, blood in the lungs, severely bruised ribs, massive fluid on the skull, multiple concussions, a few small skull fractures, jaw broken in three places, busted nose, front teeth completely gone.

I couldn’t leave him now. Not like this. I had genuinely planned to end things the next day. I really meant it, too.

So I spent the next six weeks waking him for meds, spoon-feeding him, cleaning the wires in his mouth that held his face together. I bathed him, shampooed his hair, made him liquefied pureed meals, and slept an average of maybe three and a half hours a night. I bought him a Nintendo console and games. I ground his pills between spoons so he could swallow them without choking. I was a full-time nurse while still raising my young daughter. Yes, she was there the whole time. Thankfully, she never saw a single sign. He was careful on purpose, I think, because he knew she’d tell her father, and Sean would’ve killed him on the spot.

But then the day the wires came out of his face, it all started again.

All of it. Sometimes worse.

He’d get drunk and high. He’d hold a knife to his own throat, pin me in my chair, and act like he was going to slash it over me. He said it was all my fault. That I’d ruined him, made him hate life, made him crazy. He said my abuse made him feel worthless. “Why couldn’t I just fucking learn?” Yeah. Really though. Why couldn’t I? I ask myself that every fucking day.

There was a night in there when I was mourning the anniversary of my father’s death. I decided to hell with Gerald and went out for drinks and a chat with a dear old friend I’d recently reconnected with. We’d also just gone back to our old jobs on the same road crew, so we had a lot to talk about. It wasn’t entirely a recreational “buddy” date. Our job revolved around the club scene; that’s what we did. It was reasonable to chat over drinks, especially since we might’ve had a contract coming up at the very place we chose to visit. We went to a clean, somewhat classy club—classier than Gerald’s usual haunts, anyhow.

That night, Gerald started in on Tommy, my old friend. Said I was only using my father’s death as an excuse to get out on the town and whore around.

Yeah. That didn’t end well. He took a sucker swing at Tommy. Tommy could’ve killed him. He caught Gerald’s arm, spun him around, put him in a chokehold, and told him to settle the fuck down. When Gerald did, Tommy let him go. Diffused. For the time being.

Seven months after the beatdown that nearly killed him, it all finally did come to a head for me.

We were out yet again. Some girl I knew picked a bathroom fight with me over nothing. Her boyfriend used to work the same roadshow I did—and still did. He’d told her I’d tried to make a move on him. I hadn’t. He’d hit on me, I’d shut him down in front of everyone, and I had about fifteen witnesses who’d swear to it.

She wouldn’t take it. She sucker-punched me. My nose split, and blood poured down my front like a busted pipe. I was so stunned I just looked down at the blood pooling on the floor at my feet and said, “Well, fuck.” That must’ve shocked her enough to freeze her in place. Another woman grabbed her and hauled her out.

They pulled me from the bathroom, marched me front, and shoved me behind the bar. Four people started doing some kind of crazed, drunken first-aid routine while I sat completely dazed. Through the ringing, I heard the guy—my former crewmate—yelling at Gerald and the rest. I couldn’t do shit with bar staff and concerned regulars buzzing around me, a giant ice pack already wedged to my face, so I shoved them off and went to see what was happening.

Another scuffle in the lot. Gerald swung at Al. Al swung back. Al dropped Gerald on his ass in front of the whole crew, sparking a wave of cheers and jeers through the yard and alleys. Gerald climbed back up. Al took one last swing, and his ring split Gerald’s cheek.

Al and his idiot posse bolted when someone mentioned the cops. We headed home, but not before the mama bartender swiped Gerald’s face with a whiskey-soaked paper towel, trying to sanitize the cut, I guess.

We finally jumped in a cab. I thought the whole mess was over.

On the ride home, we drowned ourselves in nervous laughter and “why I oughta” bravado. It meant nothing. We were laughing. As soon as I got inside, I stripped down to my black hot pants and a camisole, barefoot, and pulled off my jewelry.

The phone was blinking. I picked it up to check the messages.

A drunk man’s voice slurred through: “Oh, baby, you looked real hot tonight, glad I got to see ya, wish we’d had more time, damn baby you looked fine.” I didn’t recognize it. (In hindsight, I’m certain it was Al from the bar. He had my number from work. Nobody will ever know for sure now—he was murdered in 2024, likely over something exactly like this. That was just who he was.) I laughed it off, handed the phone to Gerald, and told him some drunk had dialed wrong.

His face went stony gray. He listened. Then he flung the phone and turned to me.

He said I was fucking around. Asked if that was my boyfriend. I was stunned. What the holy fuck? I told him I had no idea who it was, but it wasn’t enough. He shoved me backward into the fridge. I made almost the biggest mistake of my life. It very nearly cost me my life.

I slapped him.

He roared, cleared the entire table with one swipe, and started screaming accusations. I was crying, gasping, while he blindly swung, knocking things off counters, off walls, everywhere. He shoved me this way, then that, telling me he was through with me.

He said I was going to die.

One final shove put me on my back in front of the kitchen cupboard by the sink. Next thing I knew, he was straddling my chest, arms pinned at my sides, hands locked around my throat. He was screaming, “You’re gonna die, bitch, I’m gonna fucking kill you, tonight you fucking die.” And I felt myself shutting down.

Things went dark. Slow motion. He was smashing my head against the floor and the cupboard while choking me and screaming. Somehow, I don’t know why, I remembered to play dead. I’d read stories of people going limp to frighten attackers into letting go. I did it. I went completely still. Closed my eyes.

It worked. He let go.

I lay there for a few more minutes. Through a fringe of bloody eyelashes, I watched him grab a heavy office chair. In a split second that felt like a lifetime, I took a chance. I rolled. Somehow, I was on my feet. I just started running. From the corner of my eye, I saw him realize I’d moved. He roared again, aimed the chair at the window, and I fucking ran.

Out the door. Down the stairs. Up the street.

I was covered in blood, broken glass, snot, and tears.

I made it to the boys’ house just up the block. Sean and Tommy were both home, but it was the middle of the night. I beat on that back door until my hands were raw and bruised, and Tommy jumped out of bed and opened it. I collapsed into his arms, screaming and crying. Later, he would tell me that I was so busted up he didn’t even realize it was me at first.

Let me be clear: I didn’t leave my daughter in the line of fire. She was already at Sean and Tommy’s for the weekend, and as I’ve said—he never laid a hand on her. Never.

Seven neighbors and my landlord had already called the police. They assumed a gang fight had broken out, especially after hearing him scream, “Tonight you fucking die.” Within minutes, three squad cars and a paddy wagon rolled up to my building.

I didn’t go back. I couldn’t. It took nearly another month before I could force myself to return and face the wreckage.

The police forced Gerald out that night. This time, he didn’t come back.

My larynx was so badly bruised it took three weeks to get my voice fully back. For a week and a half, I couldn’t even sit up without help—the bruising covered me. My nose, already broken earlier that night, had swollen into a hard, inflamed mass. It mostly healed, but I still see him every time I catch my reflection. My front teeth were cracked, a few molars chipped. Some cuts took nearly two months to heal. To this day, I carry the scars across my body like a map of that night.

I didn’t press charges. I know I should have—for myself, and for anyone else he might target.

The female officer who took my statement practically begged me to file. I refused. (Her male partner stayed quiet once he took in the damage.) She actually teared up when she saw the welts on my throat from across the room. When they asked why I wouldn’t file, I laughed—a bitter, ragged sound through hot tears. Did they really want to see me again? Next time, it’d be from a morgue slab. I knew exactly who he was, and I knew the kind of people he ran with. No, thank you. I was lucky to walk away with my life. That had to be enough. That, and my word. These words.

Victim Services didn’t cushion the fall. They made it clear: speak to him again, even in passing, and they’d come for my daughter. The representative treated me like I was somehow to blame—and said as much outright. They made it clear they’d strip me of everything if they caught wind of me even being civil to him on the street.

No worries there, I told them. I didn’t want to look at him again, let alone share a beer. Years later—fifteen, to be exact—I briefly entertained a sliver of civility. I thought I’d moved past it. I hadn’t. I haven’t. Apologies are bullshit when they’re laced with blame and fueled only by a desperate need for absolution. It’s a way to offload the guilt, pass it to the next victim, and convince themselves and everyone else that a muttered sorry fixes everything. It doesn’t.

It is a very big deal. It’s a fucking massive deal. But this is what I carry with me: I promised to tell the world exactly what happened. I promised never to hide from it. I swore my story would be told, and that I’d stand beside anyone—man, woman, or child—who survived needless violence like this. I promised it would never happen to me again. Your body, your life, your truth—they belong to you. No partner, no friend, no lover, no spouse gets to erase you. Not now. Not ever.

That’s the shape of it. Believe it or don’t. I know what happened. I carry it. And in the end, that’s the only thing that actually matters.

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