Chapter 3: The Cameras
I started buying hidden cameras the week after he broke my glasses.
I told him I needed new ones because I had “accidentally” stepped on them. He didn’t ask questions. He just took money from my purse to pay for them.
While he was out one afternoon, I went to an electronics store two towns over so no one would recognize me. I bought two small wireless cameras that could record both video and audio. They were expensive, but I used the emergency cash I had hidden in an old cookie tin.
I installed one camera in the living room, hidden inside a decorative vase on the shelf. I put the second one in the kitchen, behind the curtain rod above the sink.
Every night after Michael went to sleep, I would take the memory cards out and copy the files onto an old laptop I kept locked in the basement. I also started keeping a written journal, documenting every incident with dates, times, and descriptions of what he did and said.
I recorded everything.
The nights he grabbed me by the throat and shoved me against the refrigerator because I wouldn’t sign the house over.
The times he forced me to sit at the kitchen table and sign documents while I was crying.
The way he would stand over me and say, “You’re useless. You should have died with Dad.”
I saved every single file.
Some nights, after copying the videos, I would sit in the dark basement and watch them. Seeing myself being hit and threatened made me feel sick. But it also made me more determined.
I wasn’t going to let him win.
I endured the beatings for almost a year. My body was constantly sore. I lost fifteen pounds from stress and not eating properly. Some days I could barely get out of bed.
May you like
But I kept collecting evidence.
Because I knew that one day, it would be the only thing that could save me.
