For the next couple of hours, they went over and over all the details Val could remember, piece by piece, as she tried to get the whole story straight, and, most importantly, to figure out what would be helpful for eventual prosecution. This was tricky because they needed to be very careful. If Mari knew too much, she would be the prime suspect when they found Val’s body.

Val recalled how they met, their first dates, and how caring he was. She had fallen head over heels for him.

Like most young adults, they were all working, moving to other cities, some even starting their own families, so Val and Mari slowly drifted apart.

After a while, however, not meeting stopped being a matter of scheduling. Instead, it became: He didn’t want her to go out; he felt lonely; he wanted them to be together; she was a whore who was seeing other men. That was the first punch. Val swore that there was nobody else; she had eyes only for him; and he was the only one she loved. After that, the abuse became obvious. Her friends turned into acquaintances, and whenever she would visit her family, he was with her. He just loved her too much!

Many people tried to intervene and convince her, but slowly, seeing their failure, they eventually gave up. After the first miscarriage, she went to the police. She must have done something to provoke him, they said. A couple of months later, she went again to file a restraining order. The judge granted it, but her ex owned the town. He was so charming, and it was such a small town. She couldn’t expect him not to leave his house to avoid running into her. Young love, they even called it.

Val continued her story. There were so many warnings, so many chances to stop this from happening if someone had listened to her and done something. Not the empty promises, not the male camaraderie.

“I had finally left him. I told him I didn’t want to be with him, and I was moving away. I was back with mom for a few weeks to get my things and figure out where to go. He called me that day, from a new number, since I had blocked his old one. He was very calm and understanding. He apologized profusely and said he’d been an idiot, that he knew he’d hurt me. He seemed so real. I felt that this had been the person I’d fallen in love with. That person was still in him. He told me he had accepted that I was going to leave, but he wanted to see me one last time, to say farewell and not part in resentment. To be honest, I wanted, I wanted to feel that he couldn’t control what he’d done to me, that it was all because of his upbringing, that he was not a monster protected by the likes of his own. Also, I was afraid of what he might do to my mom and gramma once I left. So, I agreed to meet him.”

Despite Mari’s silence, Val could sense she was quietly listening to her story. So, she took a deep breath and continued. This part was going to be the hardest.

“We met right after noon. The day was quite nice, but only a few people were out and about. I remember that we stopped by the mini market to buy cigarettes and ran into Sofia, the hairdresser. Yes, she saw us both, and we discussed the weather and told her we were going to the beach,” Val added, anticipating Mari’s question.

“There was nobody on the beach, except a few people kite surfing, but they must have been too far out to see anything. We sat down and started talking, quite politely and pleasantly. I was fairly happy; I remember thinking how mature we were. The next second, though, he started blaming me for the miscarriage, adding that the baby was probably not even his, accusing me of being a whore… and he just snapped. I was trying to reason with him, but he became that person I guess he knew to keep under control and unleash only when it was just the two of us.”

Val stopped for a second to let this sink in for both of them. She knew what was coming, her mind was clear now, and she knew that saying it out loud would make it real. She needed to do it.

“I tried to run, and I tried to yell, but I only managed a drowned-out gasp. He punched me a few times in the ribs and left me gasping for air, and then he choked me with his own hands. I remember looking at him and knowing that was it. Like in the movies, I always believed that you see a short film of your life when you are dying, but I didn’t get that. Maybe because I didn’t die… I was killed.

The weight of the words lingered in the air, and neither of them dared to break the silence.

If they were going to get justice for Val, and maybe even others, they needed to be able to carry the weight of the words and shout them if need be. Val had not died; it had not been a passive action. She’d been killed; she’d been murdered for daring to take back her life. She’d been murdered for being a woman. She’d been murdered by a man who, if he couldn’t have her, nobody else could. As so many others, in all other places, she’d been a victim, not only of a man, but of a society and a judicial system that worries more about not disrupting the status quo than educating the perpetrators and accomplices and protecting the victims.

They cannot tell their story themselves, so we tell it for them. All the Marianas, Alejandras, Javieras, Brunas, Lindseys, Despinas, Ammas, Zahraas, and more; all the mothers, sisters, aunts, friends, grandmothers and granddaughters across the world, every year, we carry the burden in our hearts and the responsibility in our heads to fight for justice and fight for a system that truly treats us all as equals.

Source: The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed