the evidence is on the floor of the hair salon

According to our hair stylist, my grandma and I resemble each other.

I got my haircut yesterday. All the split ends are chopped off. We both have short hair now.

My grandma lives with us now because of my grandpa’s anger.

My parents decided she couldn’t live in that house anymore. I think I was always worried about her.

When I lived with them in my final semester of college I was caught in more than a few one-sided arguments. I did my best to diffuse them every night over dinner.

I had never told anyone that I used to think my boyfriend and I were just like my grandparents. They both loved him.

I was usually only his verbal punching bag in private. No one at that dinner table - the four of us - would have understand the problem.

Two men who make messes and two women who walk behind them to clean up. Denial is a full-time job.

Two women meet in secret, covered in scrapes and bruises, to patch each other up. And we apologize to our friends for the behavior of the men we’re with.

We had to tell lies about them.

"He's not that bad - I'm actually the problem" or "I was the one who started it"

It's easy to tell lies when you don't have to make them up yourself. I was fed these words. I was just his parrot.

My grandma said she was scared of him. My mom had to explain to both of us that this isn’t normal. How she’s never been afraid of my dad.

I know what it feels like to be scared, to stay up all night in fear, to be yelled at for not coming to bed.

I learned how to make myself cry until he apologized because that was the one time he held me.

60 years is so much longer than 5. It’s hard to swim to the surface when you’re drowning in water that’s deeper.

The sunk cost fallacy. I know it too well. I’ve done this long enough not to waste it. I can fix his mistakes. I can look past them. I am a bitch and it is my fault. I’m worthless, I’m useless, and he’s perfect because he once was. I can change it, I can fix him - it became my mantra.

I became tiny, so he could fill up the space, so he could be loud. Until my voice completely disappeared and I could no longer speak his lies at all.

The snipping sound of the hair-cutting shears is crisp like the air in October. I watch the damaged hair fall like dead leaves. I smile at myself in the mirror.

I am just like my grandma and we both have new haircuts.