Chapter 3 - The Quiet Isolation
Elena called her closest friend, Sofia, from a café across town.
“I think Derek accessed my accounts,” she said.
Sofia remained silent for several seconds.
“Do you feel safe in that house?”
The question surprised Elena.
Derek had never seriously injured her. He had never openly threatened her life. Yet the answer would not come.
“I don’t know,” Elena admitted.
Sofia encouraged her to stay at her apartment for a few days, but Elena no longer had the apartment. Derek had persuaded her to end the lease after their wedding.
When Elena returned home, Derek was waiting in the entrance hall.
“Where were you?”
“Having coffee.”
“With Sofia?”
Elena stared at him.
“How did you know?”
Derek held up their phone bill.
“I saw the calls. She doesn’t respect our marriage.”
That evening, he asked Elena to block Sofia’s number. When she refused, he accused Sofia of trying to turn her against him.
Marlene supported him.
“Some unmarried women cannot stand seeing their friends happy.”
Elena began speaking to Sofia in secret.
Soon, Derek found reasons to criticize Elena’s other relationships. Her sister asked too many questions. Her former colleagues were jealous. Her clients were taking advantage of her.
The world outside the mansion became smaller.
Inside the house, Elena was constantly watched.
Marlene entered rooms without knocking. Derek checked Elena’s messages and called it transparency. When Elena changed her phone password, he did not speak to her for two days.
The punishment was not always shouting.
Sometimes it was silence.
Sometimes Derek would cancel dinner plans without explanation. Other times Marlene would invite guests and introduce Elena as overly sensitive.
“She struggles with pressure,” Marlene once told a group of women while Elena stood beside her.
Everyone looked at Elena with sympathetic smiles.
It was a carefully built trap. If Elena objected, she appeared unstable. If she remained silent, the lie became believable.
Late one night, Elena looked at herself in the bathroom mirror.
She barely recognized the exhausted woman staring back.
She whispered the question Sofia had asked her.
“Do I feel safe?”
May you like
This time, the answer came immediately.
“No.”
