What was slipping away...

I replay what happened; sometimes the memory pops into my vision and plays involuntarily, sometimes I choose to review it.

I am drawn to recall a certain moment again and again. There was so much that happened in that moment; so much that could have possibly changed the outcome, for better or worse. That moment still looms like a suspended bubble in my mind, yet that moment is what actually brought the anvil down. It changed everything for me; or maybe it didn't. I will never know, because it happened so fast.
But I guess it might have gone differently if, in that split second, a different decision had been made. I guess I might have been able to forgive. And I wonder then if that would have been the right thing to do as well...because I would have been waiting for the next time.

He had me in a headlock, he was hurting me and scaring me, and I was screaming for help and fighting desperately to get away.
His sister wouldn't help, and I was feeling more frightened...it was as if she was waiting for something else to happen.
In that moment that he decided to let go, or I wrenched free (I will never know), in that moment that it took me to swing around and launch a pathetic smack at him, in the moment it took me to try and defend myself by telling him to NEVER DO THAT TO ME AGAIN, EVER, and in that moment that I then ran for the door to run away, and then....
...in that moment that he then took me down again, harder this time and more angrily, while charging himself with the crime of not having done this to me sooner.....
...in that moment where he then folded me to the floor like a straw...
...in that moment that he heard me lose air and my voice....

...choices were made.

A conscious choice was made to...do it again.
It might have gone differently.
Perhaps not, as it happened so fast. But I wonder.

In that moment, all that was difficult between us then became impossible.
What was worth saving, became no longer worth the risk.
What was once speculative, then became in-my-face-true.
What was somewhat scary, then became terrifying.

What was slipping away, fell like a stone.

He made a choice, in a split second.
He made it twice.

I have choices about my future. I get to make choices about my boundaries and I need to make choices for my safety. I get to decide these things.

Now if only I could get someone else's head out of his [expletive removed] faraway planet, we would all be moving forward, really. Not just pretending.