Owl

Owl had always been a quiet girl. Even as a child, she spoke in hushed tones, her voice barely above a whisper, as if afraid of being too much. She had been given the name Owl by her mother, who thought her large, dark eyes resembled the birds that watched the night with silent wisdom.

But wisdom is a cruel thing when it comes too late.

She met Jacob when she was nineteen, and for a while, he was the kind of man she thought would save her. Strong, with hands that felt solid and reassuring when they held her own, eyes that promised something like devotion. It wasn’t until the wedding night that the first bruise bloomed on her skin like an unwanted flower. She had spoken too loud, laughed at the wrong time, said something that made him turn to her with that slow, simmering anger she would come to know too well. He hit her once, then again, then held her afterward, whispering apologies into her hair. She had never been hit before. She thought love might mean learning to forgive.

It wasn’t long before he started locking the doors. At first, it was small things—an extra bolt on the bedroom door, a key he always kept on his belt. Then it was the windows nailed shut, the back door padlocked. Owl didn’t leave the house alone. Ever. He told her it was for her own good, that the world outside was dangerous, that she belonged to him. She wanted to believe him. It was easier than believing the alternative: that she had been trapped.

When she became pregnant, she thought it might change things. That maybe, with a baby in the house, Jacob would stop seeing her as something to be controlled and instead see her as a mother, as a person again. But the violence didn’t stop. It got worse. He didn’t like how slow she moved when she was carrying, how exhausted she was. He didn’t like that she could no longer keep the house spotless, that sometimes, she fell asleep sitting up. The first time he forced himself on her while she was pregnant, she bit her lip until it bled just to keep from crying. The second time, she stopped fighting. It was easier that way.

When she gave birth to her daughter, Wren, Owl felt something inside her crack open. A flood of love so deep and fierce it nearly swallowed her whole. She swore she would protect her. She swore she wouldn’t let Wren grow up in a cage.

But promises are fragile things.

Jacob was careful. He never hit Wren, not directly, but he made sure Owl knew what would happen if she tried to leave. He told her he would take Wren from her, that no court would believe a woman like her—isolated, jobless, with no proof beyond the bruises she never dared to show.

The night Owl finally ran, it wasn’t for herself. It was for Wren. She waited until Jacob was asleep, the house locked up like a fortress, and she took a knife to the back door, sawing through the wood until she could pry it open. She ran barefoot through the yard, clutching Wren against her chest, running until she found a neighbor’s porch and banged on the door so hard she thought her hands might break.

The police came. Jacob was arrested. But it wasn’t the end.

The court hearings were worse than she imagined. His lawyers painted her as unstable, unfit, a woman suffering from paranoia. They said there was no proof that he had kept her locked up, no proof of his abuse beyond what she claimed. She sat in the courtroom, hands shaking, as they dissected her life, made her into a hysterical, untrustworthy woman. Jacob sat across from her, dressed in his best, his expression calm and confident.

In the end, they gave him custody. He had a steady job. He had a home. He had no criminal record, just accusations that could not be proven. Owl was given supervised visits, but the first time she saw Wren after the ruling, Jacob leaned in close, whispered, “If you try to take her again, you’ll regret it.”

Owl shattered.

She stopped eating. Stopped leaving her tiny, one-room apartment. She woke up screaming at night, the ghosts of Jacob’s hands still pressed against her skin. She drank when she could afford it, just enough to quiet the noise in her head, but nothing ever truly silenced it. The only thing she could hear was Wren’s laughter, fading more and more with each day she spent away from her.

The breakdown was inevitable. One day, she walked into the courthouse, barefoot, wearing a dress that hung loose on her too-thin frame, and demanded to see her daughter. When they turned her away, she collapsed onto the floor, weeping, screaming, tearing at her own skin like she could carve the grief out of herself. They called the paramedics. They sedated her.

She woke up in a hospital bed, the walls white and blank, the scent of antiseptic thick in the air. The doctors told her she needed help. That she was a danger to herself. That, if she ever wanted to see Wren again, she needed to get better.

But how do you get better from something like this?

How do you heal when your body remembers every blow, every whispered threat, every locked door and stolen night?

How do you live when the only thing that mattered is gone?

She didn’t have an answer.

So she closed her eyes and let the hospital swallow her whole.