“Shorter,” I said. “Take it all.”

January seemed a fitting moment for fresh starts. It wasn't born from some halfhearted resolution or unfounded faith in the promise of a new year. It wasn't shoved in with a promise to swear off chocolate or set the alarm an hour early every Monday through Friday.

Why didn’t I follow my first impulse and bolt out into the night? If my boyfriend came home and hit me in the face, I would have left. Instead, he broke a lamp, smiling, while I begged him to stop. That smile terrified me. But he didn’t touch me, and all he said were the words I screamed at him when he stumbled into the room drunk for the third night in a row, turning them into questions.

When I was a small child, my grandmother took me to see The Elephant Man, a movie about Englishman Joseph Merrick. Joseph was born with severe facial deformities and was exhibited as a human curiosity in the late 1800’s. The depiction of Joseph Merrick shocked me, but not for the reasons it shocked others. For me, the shock was recognition. I knew Joseph Merrick. I was Joseph Merrick.