Beloveds,
i met him on the steps of Montego Bay Community College when i was about to turn 18.
he was handsome. confident in a way that pulled me in immediately. he asked for my number and didn't take no for an answer — which i now recognize as the first sign of who he was. i just didn't see it yet.
i called him the Roller Coaster. because that's what ten years with him felt like — constant motion, never actually going anywhere.
for a decade — on again, off again — i gave him the best years of my twenties.
he was manipulative in ways that were slow and surgical. he used my one mistake — i cheated on him once, early on — as leverage for years. turned it into currency. spent it every time he wanted something from me.
what he wanted was dark. degrading. things i won't detail here, but that i detail in full in the book — because other women need to know what coercion looks like when it wears the face of someone you love.
he hit me once. i went back.
he was seeing another woman the entire time — from the day we met to the last day we spoke. she thought they were soulmates. he told me the exact same story.
i gave him $500USD of my own money once — every cent i'd saved. he convinced me it was a loan. i never saw it again. If i could invoice him for everything he took from me over that decade, i'd be a billionaire.
the final straw wasn't dramatic. there was no single moment. i just — finally — had enough. i cut him off completely. and i haven't spoken to him since.
the roller coaster stopped. i stepped off.
the full story — ten years of manipulation, coercion, the women he was running simultaneously, and the moment i finally got free — is in Book 3: The Decade I Gave Away.
or if this is the post that makes you want to read all of it — the full collection is available as a bundle - Speak, Mamacita: Seven Stories of Unsilencing Trauma.
A portion of proceeds from the Speak, Mamacita series supports The Sanctuary Foundation, launching November 2027.
next week: 🦊 The Fox — the man i married to escape myself.
Talk Soon,
Santana Chevel 🌹