He does not break you.

He teaches you to break yourself, so that his hands stay clean and you cannot even locate the injury, because it is coming from inside your own mind in your own voice.

I had been doing his work for him for months by the time of that party — finishing his sentences about my inadequacy before he could, apologizing for my own exhaustion, shrinking myself to fit the small, gray outline he had drawn around me.

And the strangest part, the part I still marvel at, is how fast it reversed.