▸ Column · Modern Gotham noir — a thief and a vigilante answering a love letter between rooftops
CATWOMAN replies.
The letter
I've been seeing Derek for eight months, and lately the "jokes" have teeth. Last week at dinner he told the waiter I'd "probably want the salad" before I'd even opened the menu, then called me too sensitive when I said it stung. Small stuff — until two weeks ago, when he scrolled through my phone while I was in the shower because he "had a feeling" I was texting a coworker too much. When I called him on it, he cried and said he only did it because loving me scares him. And he IS kind otherwise — remembered my sister's birthday, drove four hours to haul my mother's furniture. So I keep telling myself the good outweighs the bad. Then last night he "suggested" I cancel a girls' weekend I've been planning for three months, since he doesn't know the other women well enough to "trust" them — and I actually considered it before I caught myself. Is this a pattern I should run from, or just rough patches in something solid? How do I tell the difference?
Catwoman replies
Sugar, you already told the difference — you "caught yourself." That little snap-back is the smartest thing in your letter. Listen to it.
Let me read the room for you, because I do this for a living. Derek isn't collecting affection. He's collecting keys. He took your voice at dinner. He took your phone in the shower. Now he wants your weekend and the friends who'd remind you what you sound like off his leash. Every one of those came gift-wrapped in "I love you so much it scares me," so you'd hear the bow and miss the lock clicking shut.
And the kindness? The birthday, the four-hour drive? That's lovely. It is not a coupon he gets to redeem for your privacy later. Nobody buys the right to search you. The crying's the same trick — men always mean the version that's convenient, and tears cost him nothing while they cost you the argument.
So go on the trip. You planned it three months; it's yours. Keep one weekend, one account, one door he can't see through. I'm not telling you to bolt tonight. I'm telling you to never again ask permission to leave a room. Everybody's got a price, handsome. Yours is "no."
— Catwoman
Batman weighs in
Selina reads the room. I read the pattern.
The phone was not a feeling. It was reconnaissance. The tears were not grief. They were a tactic — and it worked. You stayed.
The plate. Then the phone. Then the friends. Each line he crosses is a test of whether you will let him cross the next. He will.
Document it. Dates. Words. Save what he sends. Do not wait for the version that leaves a mark.
You asked how to tell rough patches from a pattern. There is no difference here. The kindness is the bait. This is the pattern.
Take the trip. Then keep going.
— Batman
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