The Saviour’s Tax: The Final Breath

CW: Mental health, substance abuse

I. The Stranger in the Hallway

They don’t tell you that when a White Knight saves you, he might eventually send you a bill. They don’t warn you that some rescuers only pull you out of the fire so they can keep you in their own private cage. The first lesson I learned—the one I am still swallowing like glass—is this: the price of "free" help is often your soul.

I stand in the dim, grey light of the hallway, leaning heavily on my cane. The air in this house is thick, smelling of old wood, stagnant laundry, and the suffocating scent of stale energy drinks. I watch the shadow move against the peeling wallpaper and I find myself whispering a question that feels like a haunting: “Have we met before?”

I met the boy who became this shadow in 2008. He was a month shy of eighteen, a creature of the digital age, fueled by the blue glow of LAN gaming centres. Back then, my life was a wreckage of bad choices and even worse men. When he stepped in to rescue my belongings from a volatile ex-boyfriend, I saw a hero. In my gratitude, I handed him the deed to my life. I married that boy, believing I had finally found a harbour.

But the man standing there now—the one who has spent the last three months engaging in a campaign of "handsy," unwanted touches—is a stranger. He targets the sexual spots he knows I guard; he waits for the moments I am most tired to press his skin against mine. And when I say no, when I reclaim the territory of my own body, he doesn't apologise. He throws the tantrums of a thwarted child. He becomes visibly annoyed, his demeanour darkening into a cold, silent punishment that fills the house like poisonous gas. He has become a soul-sucker, and for too long, I have been the willing feast, convinced that my hunger was merely "loyalty."

II. The Crime Scene of 2015

To understand the rot in this house, you have to look past the damp walls and see the crime scene beneath the floorboards. You have to see what I saw in 2015.

I walked into our bedroom—the same bedroom where I now lay my head in fear—and found my "best friend" naked, straddled on top of my husband. She didn’t jump. She didn’t scramble for a sheet. She stayed there, pinned to him, an image of absolute betrayal that scorched itself into my retinas. And then, he delivered the lie. He looked me in the eye, with her still straddled over his lap, and said:

“It’s not what it looks like. I was just getting her lipstick out of the car.”

It was a lie so absurd it felt like a second physical blow. When someone’s lie is an insult to your intelligence, they aren't just hiding a mistake; they are testing your capacity for self-delusion. They are checking to see if you will set your own reality on fire just to keep them warm. I left him then. I chose myself. For two years, there was a beautiful, terrifying silence. I was free.

III. The Predator’s Patience

But in 2017, the fire came back. Not a house fire, but a biological one. Complex Regional Pain Syndrome—CRPS. It took my legs. It incinerated my career, my independence, and my very identity. I was a ghost inhabiting a body that felt like it was being dipped in acid. And like a ghost summoned by my agony, Husani reappeared.

He didn’t come back for the "whole" Isabella. He didn't want the woman who could walk away. He came back for the broken one.

In 2018 and 2019, he lived with me again. He claimed he couldn't bear to live with his mother, Evelyn. He played the "family" card, and I was stupid enough to believe it. I supported him. I paid for his food, his habits, his existence, all while I was still trying to learn how to navigate a world that had become a series of obstacles and pain scales. By the time I lost my own home in 2022, the trap was set. He offered me a room in his house. I thought it was a circle of grace—a return of the support I had given him.

I didn’t realise it was a long-term investment in my dependence.

For three years, I have lived in this rotting, moldy prison, feeling like a guest on a ticking clock. His mother, Evelyn, is the warden. She periodically threatens to kick me out, ensuring I never feel stable enough to heal. Even as recently as April 2025, when he claimed to be "overwhelmed" and threatened to take his own life, I was the one who scraped together the means for a Queensland holiday. I paid for the flights and the bed to save his life, while he was busy meticulously dismantling mine.

IV. The Mirror and the Nice Guy

Then I met Mic.

Mic is what the world calls a "nice guy," but to me, he was a revelation. He didn't pity me. He didn't look at my struggles and see a burden; he looked at my eyes and saw a woman. Through Mic’s respect, I finally saw the ledger for what it truly was. A real friend doesn't keep a tally of your weakness to use as leverage later.

Husani thinks I am the debt. He plays the martyr to anyone who will listen, spinning a tale of the "crippled ex-wife" he so graciously took in. But the balance sheet says otherwise. I am the one who wiped his six-thousand-dollar personal debt. I am the one who covered over ten thousand in rent and supplies when he lived off me. I am the benefactor of his life.

The White Knight didn't save me. I bought the armour, the horse, and the castle. He was just the one wearing the suit.

V. The Final Anchor: A Sacrifice of Love

And then there is the heartbeat at my feet. Lamb.

He is eleven years old now, a soul made of white fur and unconditional devotion. But his body is failing him. Cancer is blooming through him like a dark, invisible garden. Arthritis has twisted his hips, and a dodgy leg makes his walk look like a prayer for rest. He has good days where he remembers the boy he used to be, and bad days where the pain mirrors my own.

For years, I stayed because I couldn't house him anywhere else. I stayed because I couldn't bear to watch him die, and I couldn't bring myself to be the one to end him. Lamb was the chain Husani and Evelyn used to keep me here. They knew I wouldn't leave him. They used my love as a leash.

But the final lesson of independence is the hardest one: Sometimes, to save your life, you have to leave your heart behind.

It was either end my own life or walk out that door. When the vet confirmed Lamb was at the end of his road, a terrible, beautiful release washed over me. I love him more than my own breath, but leaving him here is the only act of mercy I have left. This is his home. These are his smells. To drag his aching bones into the chaos of my flight for survival would be an act of selfishness, not love.

Leaving him with Husani is my final payment. It is the only debt I truly owe. I cannot stay in this prison to watch him die, and I will not let the "lipstick" lies be the last thing I hear while I mourn him.

VI. 2026: Choosing to Breathe

“Are you real?” I ask the reflection in the cracked bathroom mirror.

The woman looking back is pale and worn. She is the very picture of burnout, a ghost who has spent ten years being haunted by a man who claimed to be her protector. But 2026 is the light at the end of the tunnel. It is a level of hope I haven’t felt since before the fire in my nerves began.

I am leaving the tantrums. I am leaving the wandering hands that seek to claim what was never for sale. I am leaving the "lipstick" lies and the moldy walls that have been my prison. I don’t know where the road goes; life has no guarantees, simply the risk of every new inhale.

But as I walk out that door, I am no longer the feast. I am no longer the debt.

I am Isabella. And I am finally, truly, real.

I love you, Lamb. But I’m choosing to breathe.