He loved me in pieces

They say love can heal. But his love? It was a wrecking ball—ripping through me until I was nothing but shards scattered across the cold floor. He loved me in pieces. Not whole. Not fragile. Shattered. And I let him.

I met him on a rainy Tuesday, the kind of day when the world is soaked in gray and silence. The café smelled like burnt coffee and broken dreams. He sat alone, eyes dark as storm clouds, carrying a secret that could swallow me whole. I thought I could save him. I was wrong.


At first, his love was intoxicating—like fire on skin, hot and alive. He whispered poetry in a voice thick with danger, his fingers tracing lines down my spine that made my heart tremble and my blood run wild. His touch was both gentle and fierce, like a blade wrapped in velvet.


I thought I was lucky, the one who saw past his brokenness. But I was just another shard he could bend and break.


The cracks in him soon became cracks in me.


The first time he slammed a door in my face, I blamed the rain, the day, anything but him. When his fist crushed my wrist, I told myself I’d deserved it—some invisible crime I’d committed. When the knife appeared—cold, silver, pressed to my throat—I realized love could be a weapon. But I stayed. Because he loved me. Or so I told myself.


His love was a twisted maze of violence and passion, a dangerous dance where every step was a gamble. One moment, he held me like I was the only thing in the world; the next, he tore at the edges of my soul, pushing me to my limits.


I learned to love the silence after the storm—the brief peace between his outbursts. It was like holding my breath underwater, waiting for air, waiting for the end.


“I’m sorry,” he whispered after the worst nights, voice cracked and trembling like a man drowning in his own guilt. I believed him. I wanted to believe him. Belief became a double-edged sword, cutting deeper than his fists ever could.


He didn’t want me whole. He wanted the broken parts—the pieces no one else could see, the ones he could own, control, fracture again and again.


One night, the violence spilled over completely.


The city was asleep, humming softly under a blanket of darkness. I thought I was safe. But he exploded like a thunderclap, rage consuming him whole. Glass shattered. Walls shook. And I was caught in the crossfire of a love that had become a battlefield.


He grabbed me by the hair, dragging me across cold tiles like I was nothing but a rag doll. His breath was ragged, eyes wild and hungry. “You’re mine,” he growled, a promise and a threat twisted into one.


I fought with everything I had—punching, kicking, screaming—but his grip was iron. The pieces of me shattered under his hands like broken glass, each fragment sharp and bleeding.


Then something inside me snapped—not the part he loved, but the part he never wanted me to see: the part that refused to break any further.


With strength I didn’t know I possessed, I twisted free, grabbing the knife from the counter. It caught the kitchen light, glinting like cold justice. I pressed the blade against his wrist.


His eyes widened—not with fear, but with a twisted admiration, as if he’d never imagined I could fight back.


“You love me,” I whispered. “But I love myself more.”


The silence was thick, suffocating. He backed away, bleeding but alive. I stood there, trembling, pieces still sharp but holding together for the first time.


I saw him then—the man behind the violence—fragile, broken, lost.


I didn’t call the police. I didn’t run. I walked out into the rain, leaving behind the fragments of a love that had never existed.


---


Days passed. I pieced myself together slowly, stitching the edges of my shattered soul with every breath. The bruises faded, but the scars stayed—reminders of a love that almost destroyed me.


I learned that loving yourself after being broken by someone else was the hardest thing to do. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t easy. But it was necessary.


His love was a nightmare disguised as a dream. He loved me in pieces because that’s all he was capable of loving—brokenness.


But I wasn’t broken anymore.


I was whole.


---


Sometimes, when the rain falls hard and the night feels too quiet, I remember the shards—the knife, the glass, his voice whispering promises that were threats in disguise. But I no longer fear them.


I survived.


I loved myself in pieces—and in the spaces between, I found strength.


---