Chapter 5: What More Can You Take Away From Me? Pt. 2

Hey sis,

Welcome back. Before we dive into this chapter, let’s talk about empathy. You know, that magical ability to step into someone else’s shoes and feel what they feel. It’s like being an emotional detective, but instead of solving crimes, you’re solving misunderstandings.

Empathy is what turns a story from words on a page into a beating heart. It’s what makes you cry at movies even though you know the dog that got hit by that car in the final scene is going to be fine (hopefully). It’s what stops you from yelling at baristas when they spell your name “Indonisa” instead of “Indonesia”

So, as you read this chapter, soften your lens. Let the words land gently. Read as if you’re listening your sister tell you a story—because in many ways, that’s exactly what’s happening.

Enjoy the journey.

For months, I lived in a haze. Life didn’t feel real anymore; I was drowning in sadness and grief. I had always been independent—since I was 14, I’d had a job. Working gave me a sense of purpose, a reason to be social, a way to feel like me. So as soon as the doctor re-cleared me, I made the decision: I wanted to go back to work at the Applebee’s right across from our apartment complex.

Cipher, on the other hand, was moving in the opposite direction. He was slacking off at work—showing up late, calling out, half-assing everything. He’d go on and on about how miserable he was at the car dealership, how he wasn’t a “square” like me, how working for someone else wasn’t in his “spirit.” (Translation: I don’t like responsibility).

So when I told him I wanted to go back to work, his eyes lit up like he’d just won the lottery.

“That’s a great idea! You love working. You can work, and I can stay home with the baby. Plus, I can get back to my music career. You need to get out of the house anyway,” he said, before casually adding, “You look like shit.”

I should have been offended. But honestly? I didn’t even care. This was my chance. My escape. A few hours away from him every day—time to breathe, time to remember who I was. Maybe even make some new friends. Maybe life would finally start to feel normal again.

And for a little while, it did. Aside from pumping in the bathroom a few times a day, I was basically back to being Indo! At work, I felt free, alive, safe.

But of course, that didn’t last.

Cipher quickly became frustrated with Baby A. She refused to take a bottle, cried nonstop, and—shocker—just wanted her mama. Instead of figuring it out like, oh I don’t know, every other parent on the planet, he decided his best course of action was to show up at my job, baby in tow, multiple times a day, screaming through the restaurant like a full-on emergency siren.

My manager eventually pulled me aside. “We need to talk. Uh… so… your fiancé and baby? Yeah,. It’s disruptive.”

I was humiliated. Again.

“You can’t keep showing up to my job like this,” I told Cipher, trying to set the tiniest boundary.

And just like clockwork, he flipped it on me.

“You have responsibilities,” he spat.

“You think just because you got this little bullshit job, you get to neglect your family? Nobody gives a fuck about this stupid job. You don’t even make good money.”

“You’re lucky you have a man like me who’s willing to let you go to work and stays home with their child. Most men don’t do this! Most men don’t give a damn about their kids or their baby mothers. You should be grateful.”

There it was. The belittling. The gaslighting. The never-ending cycle of making me feel like nothing while I was literally keeping everything afloat. Paying all the bills, buying all the groceries, making sure he had his precious weed, sacrificing everything to keep him comfortable—while he was out here pursuing a rap career that was never going to happen.

And yet, I never talked down to him. I never made him feel small. I supported every dream he ever had, no matter how ridiculous. But I had finally had enough.

Enough of the insults. Enough of the emotional manipulation. Enough of using my job as an escape from the place that was supposed to be my home. I decided it was time to reach out to my parents. Time to be honest. Time to say, I need help.

When I finally mustered the strength to talk to my dad, his response blew me away.

“You can move into the basement,” he said, plain and simple. “It’s two bedrooms, perfect space for you and Baby A. No rent—unless he’s coming with you.”

I had an out. A real one. A way to leave.

And that’s when I made the biggest mistake—I told Cipher.

In hindsight I wish I had just disappeared. No warning, no explanation, just poof—gone. I wish I had known then what I know now about going no contact.

Oh, and speaking of no contact—let’s pause for a quick lesson, sis.

Going no contact with your abuser means cutting off all communication—no calls, no texts, no social media stalking, no “checking in to see if they’ve changed.” Nothing. It’s like putting up an unbreakable wall, and for a damn good reason.

At first, it feels impossible. Painful. Heartbreaking. You’ll tell yourself, Maybe I should explain just one more time. Maybe this time, they’ll understand. Maybe they’ll finally apologize.

Spoiler alert: They won’t. They never do.

Abusers thrive on access. Just the slightest connection is enough to pull you back in. Going no contact isn’t about being petty—it’s about survival. It’s about reclaiming your peace, your sanity, your life.

Come on sis—if someone made you feel like nothing, why would they suddenly start treating you like something? If they’ve shown you repeatedly that kindness, compassion, and empathy aren’t in their nature, why expect change now? You deserve more than empty promises and cycles of pain. You deserve peace.

I know it’s easier said than done. Trust me, it took me nearly a decade to get here. For a while, going no contact feels like withdrawal—you may miss them, crave closure, or feel guilty. That’s normal. But over time, you’ll see it for what it is: a door to freedom. The longer you stay away, the clearer everything becomes.

You are not alone. You deserve peace. And you can break free. 💜

When I told Cipher I was leaving, his reaction was—looking back—so predictable.

“Yeah, run off to your daddy!” he scoffed.

“He never wanted us together from the start. Just another Black man trying to break up a Black home. You think you’re gonna take my kid from me?

You can go, but she stays. She’s my child.”

And then, like clockwork, came the tears.

“Don’t do this to me. Don’t do this to our family.”

I should have walked out that second. But I hesitated. And Cipher saw that hesitation. He cornered me in our bedroom, blocking the door, refusing to let me leave.

“We need to fix this,” he pleaded. “I can be better. Let’s move into your dad’s place together. Let me prove it to you. I’ll go back to work. I’ll quit smoking. I won’t do those things to you anymore—I swear, I’ll control myself.”

Those things.

The things he refused to name. He was still the same, even in these moments. Tiptoeing around the truth… the FACTS! The things he did to my body, to my spirit. Things he knew were wrong but would never admit to.

The promises poured out of him, one after another. He said exactly what I needed to hear in that moment.

And little by little, his words worked.

It didn’t happen overnight, but after days of relentless guilt-tripping, Cipher won. I convinced myself that maybe, just maybe, he was right. That leaving would be selfish. That I’d be robbing my daughter of the chance to grow up with her father.

I thought about my own parents, about all the sacrifices my mother made to keep her marriage together. I told myself I owed it to my daughter to do the same.

So I stayed.

And that decision—one made out of guilt, fear, and the desperate hope that things could be different—would change everything.

After moving into my dad’s basement, for a brief moment things almost seemed… settled. Cipher was back at work. He wasn’t smoking and he wasn’t violating me anymore. He had slipped back into his sheep mode– doing whatever was needed to keep the peace.

But peace with Cipher was never real. It was more like a PAUSE from the ciaos. It was always temporary.

It didn’t even take 90 days before Cipher was back to his old ways. Upon moving into my parents basement my father had only two simple rules: No smoking in the house. No parking in the driveway. That was it. But to Cipher, rules were just challenges—meant to be broken, tested, ignored.

The first few times, my dad let it slide.
Then the warnings started.
And finally after too any warnings it all fell apart. My father had finally had enough and he snapped.

One day I pulled up to the house, and my stomach instantly dropped. Cipher’s car was parked right in the middle of the driveway—again.

I rushed to the door to confront Cipher but when I opened the door, and the stench of smoke hit me like a wall. My heart pounded.

“How many times do I have to tell you that you can’t smoke in here! And you need to move your car NOW” I snapped. “My dad is going to be furious!”

Cipher barely looked up, lounging on the couch like he had no worries in the world. “I can do whatever I want, I pay rent. I’m sure your dad has smoked before. He’ll be fine.”

Something inside me fractured. The sheer disrespect. The way he dismissed me, the way he disregarded my father’s home like it was his to ruin. Ignored my voice like it held no weight. But worst of all? He intentionally put our entire living situation at risk—risked my home, my security, my relationship with my family that I was working so hard to repair—like it meant nothing. Like I meant nothing.

“You know what… you need to leave. Pack your shit and get out” I said.

That’s when he said something that made my blood run cold.

“That’s against the law. I’m a resident. What are you gonna do? Call the cops? They’ll tell you—you can’t make me leave.”

Before I could respond, there was a knock at the door.

It was my father. I didn’t need to see his face to know he was furious. And the worst part? He wasn’t looking at Cipher. He was looking at me.

I had let this happen. I had invited this chaos into our home. And now, my father—the man who had always done his best to protect me—was forced to step in.

Now before I tell you what happened next, I need to make something very clear: I love my mother, and I love my father—I wouldn’t trade either of them for the world. They loved me the best way they knew how, and they did their absolute best to guide me. The truth is, I grew up incredibly privileged—almost entitled. I never truly wanted for anything, yet I took so much for granted. I was ungrateful, selfish even and I take full accountability for my part.

You might think my dad overreacted to Cipher’s disrespect and disregard for his rules, but please, try to see him with gentle eyes. This is a man who lost his 17-year-old daughter to someone nearly a decade older—a man who had to watch, helplessly, as I was groomed and manipulated. A father who did his best to accept the painful reality of his daughter’s life while carrying the weight of his own heartbreak.

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Now remember sis, gentle eyes!!!

To be completely transparent with you, sis, the rest of that day is a blur. My mind shielded me from the full weight of what unfolded because, honestly, it was too much to bear. But what I do know, what I’ll never forget, is this: At some point, things got physical between my father and myself. When I stepped in to protect Cipher, I was the one who got hurt.

The man who raised me, the man who loved me more than anything in this world, the man who was supposed to protect me—was now someone I feared.

Now to be clear sis, I am NOT condoning how this situation was handled. I know for a fact that my father feels the same exact way! It was wrong on so many levels!

I realize now that it wasn’t that he wanted to hurt me—it was that the tension, the betrayal, the pure weight of everything we’d been through in those few years of chaos, had built up to a breaking point. He was angry. Furious, even. But not just at Cipher. He was angry at me. For letting it go this far. For letting myself stay in a relationship that was slowly suffocating me. For disrespecting him and his home. For choosing him—Cipher—over family, over my own well-being.

I felt the sting of my father’s hands, his voice raised with a force I’d never heard before. The pain of his anger was undeniable. The sharpness in his words. The disbelief in his eyes. It was all too much.

“I’ve watched you give everything to this man, and he’s done nothing but tear you down. You think you’re protecting him? You’re killing yourself for someone who doesn’t give a f*ck about you.”

I couldn’t hear my father then. My father—my protector, my rock—was now someone I didn’t even recognize. I felt lost.

The weight of that moment—that collision of love, anger, and despair—still lingers. But at least now, I see it for what it was: a cry for help. A desperate plea for me to wake up.

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And Cipher? He ran.

Like a scared, helpless rodent- he bolted—hiding himself, leaving me to face the storm alone.

My mom begged my dad, her voice raw with desperation, but even she couldn’t extinguish the fire burning in him. When she finally pulled him away, they left—and I was left behind. Shaken. Bruised. Devastated.

As they left I knew that this was the last time I would see my family. The air felt suffocating, thick with unspoken words, betrayal, and disappointment. In the blink of an eye, everything I had fought so hard to rebuild was gone. Again.

That day, the house was quieter than it had ever been before. Baby A didn’t cry once. It was as if, on some deep, unspoken level, she knew that her mom was teetering on the edge.

Later that evening, once Baby A was asleep I stood there, my heart pounding in my chest, as I confronted Cipher. My voice trembled with the weight of everything I had been holding in. “Why didn’t you protect me?” I asked, the words slipping out like a fragile thread, too weak to hold the tension between us. I searched his face desperately, hoping for even the slightest flicker of remorse, something that would tell me he cared, that he had any trace of empathy for what I was going through. But all I saw was emptiness.

His answer was crippling. “I’m not risking my life or going to jail for anybody. Be realistic, I would have hurt your father and then what?.”

Oh, be realistic? That’s rich. Because realistically, if Cipher had just followed two simple rules, we wouldn’t be in this mess! But did I say any of that? Of course not sis! I had no fight left in me. No energy to argue or fight with a man who thrived on destruction. I just wanted it all to be over.

I was nothing more than a shield to him—something to stand between him and the consequences of his own actions. How could I expect him to protect me from the world when he wouldn’t even protect me from himself?

The reality was stifling, and every bridge had been irreparably burned.

I swallowed my fear and met his gaze, my voice barely above a whisper. “We have to leave. We need a plan—fast. My dad’s going to evict us. We have nowhere to go.”

Cipher barely reacted. His voice was eerily calm, too calm. “We’re not going anywhere until I say we are. I’m pressing charges on your dad for assault, so he won’t be able to evict us. And when I get enough money together…” He paused, like this had always been the plan. “We’re moving to Florida.”

Just like that, the last shred of control I had left was gone.

Chapter 6: Alone At Last.
Launching 3.21.25