I cancelled my Platinum card at 8:12. Eight minutes later, my husband was 𝕙𝕚𝕥𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 me.

The bank notification had been clear, showing a purchase of ninety eight thousand five hundred dollars through a travel agency, so I opened the app while standing in the kitchen with my coffee still untouched and saw flights to Maui, a boutique hotel, and a so called romantic package charged to my personal card, the one I had earned through my promotion at a large financial firm called Silverline Dynamics.

Brandon Keller walked in whistling like everything was normal, and when I showed him the screen he smiled casually and said, “It is our anniversary, Maui will be perfect and you are going to love it.”

I stared at him and replied slowly, “With my money and without asking me first,” and instead of explaining himself or apologizing, his expression hardened in a way I had never seen before.

He grabbed my hair, slammed me against the kitchen counter, and started kicking me while shouting that I had insulted him by canceling the card, as if setting a boundary meant betraying him and as if my entire role was to finance whatever he decided to do.