He was in fact screening me a preview of my entire future, and I sat in that dark theater for exactly the length of the trailer and then I stood up and walked out, because I had seen enough to know I did not want to watch the rest.

People stay in these marriages because they treat the first cruelty as an exception to be forgiven rather than a preview to be believed.

They spend years waiting for the movie to become the trailer’s opposite, when the trailer was the honest advertisement all along.

I believed the preview.

That was the whole of my wisdom, and it fit in one morning: when someone shows you what the film is going to be, believe them, and do not buy the ticket.

Chapter 8 — Reputation