BRUISES FROM SILENCE

“Sometimes the violence looks like an apology you’re not allowed to refuse.”

Daniel likes things that close quietly—mornings, browser tabs, cabinet doors. A cybersecurity analyst who worships routine, he meets Anaïs, a poet-bartender whose charisma rearranges rooms. What begins as banter and green-scarf gravity tilts, almost imperceptibly, into something else: Alive? pings that turn into a leash, gaslighting that edits memory, intimacy timed as a “reset,” and a $2,000 sub-card that buys temporary peace.

As public scenes spill into Daniel’s workplace and the ledger of small injuries fills—slaps minimized, doors slammed, cash advances disguised as care—he tries to fix what love should never have to fix. When the cabinet slams one last time, he names what’s happening and chooses the hardest, quietest act: leaving. With the help of a friend who simply says I’m here, an HR ally who believes him, and a circle of men learning new sentences, Daniel starts the long work of recovery—reclaiming consent, rebuilding mornings, and turning silence from warning into shelter.

Told in taut, luminous prose, Bruises from Silence is a novel about coercive control, financial abuse, and the stigmas men face when they ask for help. It’s a love story gone wrong—and a survival story done right—about the ordinary heroism of making a plan, filing the paperwork, and opening a cabinet without flinching