He Spent a Year Paying a Doctor to Write Down a Fragile, Unstable Version of Me That Didn’t Exist — So When He Finally Set Me Aside, the Whole World Would Believe I’d Simply Come Apart on My Own

“Please,” I whispered.

“Help me.” “Do you want me to call the police?” he asked, glancing at the hall.

“Right now?” “First,” I said, “help me get out of here.” Because I understood something in that moment that Gabriel did not yet: that the clinic was the trap, that the record they were building of my “fragility” was the weapon, and that if I stayed one more night as Christian’s fragile, medicated, tucked-away bride, every hour would become another entry in a file designed to make me unbelievable.

I could not fight from inside the story he was writing about me.