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I don’t think he ever had it in him to kill me.

At least not intentionally, without being on some sort of substance, or under something’s influence. I used to think it was because, in some pathetic way, he loved me. He just didn’t know how to show it, because this was how he was shown love. Now, I just think he is a coward. Somehow. if he did succeed in killing me, he would have to twist the story in which he was the victim. That’s how he always depicted himself. My side of the story wouldn’t matter, because I would be dead.

I looked up at his big brown eyes, ones I could never trust. I used to think they felt so much that you could never read their intentions. The truth was they were dead and manipulative, removed, that they didn’t know what to appear as.

I started to cough. My stubbornness tried to hide it, and muffle the sound and pain burning in my lungs. It was in disgusting representation of how I had gotten here, the facade I could survive the relationship and we were okay, even happy. I continued staring into his eyes, the lack of expression swallowed his whole presence. I knew some part of him enjoyed this sense of power over me, I rarely let him gave him an opportunity to consume it, to relish in it.

His fat fingers didn’t release, as if they were stuck like his gaze on me, superglued. He didn’t bear down his weight on me, nearly weighing double than I did. No, he just abused his strength he had that came hand in hand with his weight and Hispanic machismo.

Seconds passed, as this sick joke turned into a revolting experiment, slowly turning into a tragic headline, but I didn’t fight him. His earlobes hung red, like little cowbells his face parallel over mine. His chubby cheeks hung forward; even at eighteen his were already loose. I wanted out of the relationship, but like his chokehold on my neck, I wasn’t getting out of it unless he wanted me to. Unless he allowed me to. Some part of me thought the only way out at this point is death, whether it was his or mine.

But if it was his, his family would come for me. Much like him, their bloodline filled with toxicity and violence, they would torture me into insanity until I was able to sit at a round table with them and see their face in a mirror. I wouldn’t feel safe, I still wouldn’t be able to rest. Although suicide was always somewhere on my mind, my mother deserved better. So my only option to truly feel at peace felt like it would have been my murder.

The oxygen cut-off finally got to the point where I couldn’t control my expression; coughing, my body shook; my face felt hot as I was bursting for air. He let go. I coughed. I swallowed, I tried to compose myself. His mask slipped on, as he asked if I was okay. I nodded.

We switched as I climbed on him. Straddling him, like he’d done before to me. I, unlike him, used my weight to squeeze onto his neck. We had agreed to do this. I hated him. Barely aware of it at the time, but I did, resenting him, in the small times I did have my own thoughts to myself. He wouldn’t let me leave him, because if I did he'd overdose and I thought if you loved someone you don’t let them die. Somewhere in the maze of pent- up frustrations, he made his life feel like it mattered more than my own. Because I was the strong one I was the one who had to bear it all, pick up the pieces, carry both our weights. When he wasn’t trying to kill himself, he would get intoxicated, call me, at seventeen I would have to come to pick him up, take care of him while he would call me derogatory terms.

Those were the good days, the not scary days. The scary days were the ones where I didn’t see him and knew he was there. He would be able to tell me what I was wearing, who I talked to, when I left school. It was scarier not knowing where he was because I knew he was watching me. He would tell me about it whenever I got scared and ran back. He would say it in a loving way how he just wanted to protect me, how he knew my house as well as I did, my friends, as well as I did, my family, as well as I did. People don’t understand, you don’t get to leave. It feels like truly the only power you have is the one they give you, the small opportunities to strangle each other. All I thought about, holding onto his neck: were the scary days.

Yesterday, was a scary day, the previous two weeks were scary days; when I had broken up with him; when he would claim he wouldn’t live without me. Today, I had invited him over, groveling, because it was easier to be able to see your threat, it felt safer, knowing when he was going to attack, knowing it wasn’t in your head. You weren’t paranoid you thought there was a monster lurking in the shadow, he was there and he would tell me I was right if I came back.

I was so stuck and my hands stayed there when he started to cough. I was so scared this might be the rest of my life and my life wouldn’t end soon. I would spend the next few decades wanting to leave, getting too scared when I would, coming back only being a shell of the person the previous time I came back. Inescapably attached, too young, too scared, too POC to get help, too female to be heard, too gone to seek help. Even choking him, I always felt like I was the one not breathing. A small feeling growing that I could kill him and prison would be better than this.

But I let go.

Noa Lesche's short story, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" won third prize in the Ninth Annual Humanities and Sciences Writing Contest. Her personal essay, "States of Consciousness," won third prize as well in the Personal Essay/Memoir category. Noa is a junior in the Photography and Video Department at SVA. She spends her time divided between photography, film and writing. As a multiracial woman and LGBTQ+ member she tries to use any platform she has to draw attention to ongoing issues with her communities. She is currently working on editing her first novel in hopes of it getting published soon.