The Passenger Princess
The city always looked different at night. The neon lights blurred into each other, bleeding over the wet pavement, turning the streets into a restless, humming dream. I liked watching it all pass from the passenger seat, face against the glass, tracing invisible lines across the skyline with my fingertip. The streets were empty, save for the glow of flickering billboards and the occasional flash of headlights in the rearview mirror. I liked the quiet. So did he.
His fingers tapped against the steering wheel in rhythm with the techno. The bass thumped, rattling through my bones – the kind of music that made it impossible for me to think. A beer bottle sat in between his thighs, condensation pooling onto the fabric. He swallowed loudly.
He never spoke when he drove, never asked if I wanted the music turned down, never thought to ask if I was tired of the circles we made around the city. We never went anywhere, just orbiting in loops around his thoughts. I knew better than to interrupt. So, I sat still. My hands were folded neatly in my lap, pressed together as if I were in prayer.
I learned that stillness was best.
I caught my reflection in the glass, limp strands falling straight down past my shoulders.
I didn’t curl my hair today- I knew he’d notice. He always noticed. His fingers would reach for the ends, twisting them as if he could reshape them with just his touch. “You forgot,” he’d say, disappointment softening into something almost tender. Straight hair made me look severe. Harsh. Unapproachable. I was supposed to look soft and delicate, like something worth keeping.
But he never raised a fist.
I noticed my hands, fingers skimming over my wrist, tracing the ridges of bones I didn’t remember being there a year ago. My wrists looked smaller now, my knuckles sharper. I’d never been thin before, but I was now. He liked me smaller. He would pinch my waist with a smile, index and thumb forming a noose of implication. “You’re beautiful,” he’d say. Then without hesitation add, “You’d be breathtaking if you toned up just a little.”
So, I ate less. Drank water and let it sit in the pit of me, a stand-in for sustenance. I counted calories like a prayer, shaved myself down to something barely there. It was never enough. I was never enough.
But he never raised a fist.
That’s what I told myself when I wrapped my fingers around my own wrists, pressing against the ghost of his grip. He never raised a fist, so it wasn’t abuse. Love. That was the word he’d use. He pressed it against my skin like a balm, like a brand. “I love you,” he said when he made me erase myself. “I love you,” he breathed when he plucked my voice like a feather from my throat. “I love you,” he sighed as I disappeared beneath the weight of him, of us, of everything I wasn’t allowed to be. He never left a mark, so there was nothing to see. But bruises bloomed in places no one looked. Beneath the skin, where marrow turns to silence, where a heartbeat is a whispered apology for existing.
He had rules. Some spoken, some not. I learned them all the same way a child learns to tiptoe around a sleeping beast. No black (it was too severe). No red (it was too bold). Pastels were best. Soft colors. Quiet colors. No talking to strangers. No talking too much. No texting without him knowing who. No making plans without asking first. He monitored my phone, read my messages, erased the ones that made him uncomfortable. He curated me like he curated his techno playlist. Trimmed my sentences. Adjusted my tone. Watched my face carefully when I spoke, waiting for the moment I said something that didn’t align with the version of me he had built.
But he never raised a fist.
I didn’t talk to my mother anymore. I wonder if she knows where I am, if she knows what’s happening. If she lies awake at night wondering why I don’t call. Does she realise the messages don’t sound like me anymore?
She used to ask questions, too many questions. ‘Are you happy?’ ‘Are you eating enough?’ ‘Why do you sound so different?’ He didn’t like that. He’d stand too close when I answered the phone, his presence coiled around me like ivy. My answers became rehearsed, stripped of detail – polished into something smooth, something safe. I became an echo of myself, someone she couldn’t quite recognize.
If she pushed too hard, if I hesitated for a second too long, his fingers would curl around my wrist the moment the call ended. Thumb pressing against my delicate bones as he’d say, ‘She’s trying to turn you against me.’ And I would shake my head, force a smile and let him search my face for doubt. He always found it. And then he would make me delete the messages. Erase the calls. Strip away any lingering trace of a life outside of him.
Now, she barely calls. Maybe she already knows. Maybe she stopped waiting for the girl she raised to come back.
The blaring horn of an oncoming car brought me back to the moment; splitting through the heavy beat of the music, the harsh white headlights pierced my eyes. My heart sunk. He didn’t notice. His grip on the wheel was loose, one hand slipping slightly as he reached for the bottle between his thighs. The car swerved just enough for my stomach to knot.
“Are you sure you want to drive like this?” My voice came out small, barely audible over the music.
He didn’t answer. He took another swig instead, the scent of alcohol thick in the air between us. Something felt wrong. More than usual.
I tried to swallow the rising panic, but it sat heavy in my throat. I felt like a cat cornered in a room with no exit, nerves frayed, every muscle tense.
“I think I want to go home.”
His grip tightened on the wheel. He let the silence stretch, let the tension thicken until the air inside the car felt suffocating. His lips pressed together, the muscle in his jaw twitching.
“You’re ruining the night,” he muttered, fingers flexing. “We always drive.”
I should have stopped there. Should have let it go. But something inside me cracked, something small but deep, a hairline fracture widening beneath the weight of everything I hadn’t said.
“I want to go home,” I said again, firmer this time.
He exhaled sharply, shaking his head. “You don’t want to do this.”
I reached for the door handle.
He grabbed my wrist.
Hard.
The car jerked slightly, swerving in the lane before he corrected it. His knuckles were white, his fingers pressing into my skin like iron. I tried to pull back, but he didn’t let go. His grip tightened, his breath sharp and uneven.
“You’re thinking about leaving again.”
It wasn’t a question.
And in that moment, I knew that he knew. Knew that the version of me he had sculpted was starting to erode. Knew that I had been slipping away, piece by piece, conversation by conversation, deleting my browser history, keeping my bag packed beneath my bed.
His grip on my wrist burned, his nails biting into flesh. “Where would you even go?” His voice was different now, deeper, darker, laced with something I had never heard before, something untethered. “You think you can just walk away? Just leave? After everything?”
His grip wrenched me forward, closer, so close I could smell the beer on his breath, so close his presence swallowed every inch of space I had left.
“You’d be nothing without me.”
The fear crawled up my spine, ice-cold, clawing, relentless. My pulse roared in my ears. I opened my mouth, but no sound came.
And then, for the first time, he raised his fist.
