Have you ever tried breaking free from an abusive relationship, when the abuser lives in your house? I've done it, and it's rough; every step can falter, every step carries a risk. Even once you've finally admitted to yourself what you need to do, following it through takes all the resolve and persistence that has been stolen from you, worn away along with your self-worth. I started out as bravely and simply as I could, and just asked him to leave. He laughed in my face and got another beer from the fridge. At that point, if the damage is too great, many victims give up. If you're like me, you become even more desperate, dangerously brave now, and give your tormentor an ultimatum. There are a few ways this can go. In my case, he stared at me like I was an irritating fly, then ignored me and just kept on drinking; turning up the TV so it blared over my voice.
At the start, you still wanted to be fair, because he has property in the house. His pool table, his piles of shit in the garage, his beer fridge, his gaming consoles and his couch. You're a reasonable woman, and even though he hurt you, you still believe the man is a human being. He doesn't have the right to control you, like he thought he did, but he does have some rights to his actual property.
But he takes advantage of that too; it drags on and on, and one day it just gets too much. You serve him with a trespass notice, and when he doesn't leave, you call the cops. You know him well; he didn't really think you'd do it. After he's gone, you put everything he owns on the lawn and tell him to come and collect it before it rains.
At that invitation he comes back, and of course he tries his key in the door.
But you've changed the locks.
He rages, he paces. His face is dark red, and you finally, finally can no longer see any hint of the person you once cared about. He tries a window, but you had screens and deadbolts installed on those. Eventually he sits on the stoop and bangs the back of his head against the door, calling out your name and your daughter's name every once in a while. It stops hurting somewhere around the thirtieth time, just before the cops come and tell him to leave.
When he gets into a clumsy fist fight with them and finally gets cuffed and thrown in the back of the cops' car, you let the curtains fall back, and let seven years' worth of tears come.
You followed through. You walked to the end, and he's finally gone.
And you won't let yourself be trapped, not ever again.
The small office safe embodied Hayden's final act of petty abuse; he'd changed the combination right after I'd served him the trespass notice. Inside it was my passport, most of my savings, and my heirloom wedding ring. At least, I suspected the ring was still in there, since I could hear the box slide and bump into the wall when I titled the safe, but whether the money or the passport were still inside, I had no way of knowing. After trying every combination I could think of, I resigned myself to the fact I'd need to pay some exorbitant amount for a locksmith to open the thing - probably more than the savings I would retrieve as a result.
In frustration I posted to Facebook, asking if anyone I knew could recommend someone who could open a safe easily and cheaply, and to my surprise, one of my old friends messaged me about a contact and said to call her for details if I was interested.
"She's a complete weirdo, but she's really good," Tina said, after we skirted around all the things I didn't want to talk about. "She can basically open anything, from a locked iPhone to a bank vault, you name it."
