I was falling. The wind ripped the scream from my throat and sent it spinning behind me like a ribbon. Below, the Lagos lagoon stretched wide and green, an immense eye watching my descent. Above me, the helicopter’s belly churned with angry blades. My husband, Marcus, leaned out of the open door, his face small, hard, and carved as if from stone. Just moments ago, he had shoved my shoulders with both hands—a push so deliberate it felt planned. All this because I had let out a tiny, humiliating fart, which he claimed humiliated him in front of the pilot.

The pilot had laughed kindly, but Marcus went silent. His hand gripped my wrist as he yanked the door open. “You dirty embarrassment!” he hissed, and my body went weightless. The world spun, and in that spin I saw it all: the sloshing lagoon, the black stripe of the Third Mainland Bridge, and boats like silver pins scattered by a careless tailor. My braids whipped across my face, the strap of my life vest loose because Marcus insisted I didn’t need it, pressing against me uselessly.

I tried to inhale, but the air felt like stone. I was falling. Then something deep inside me—what my mother called the stubbornness of our blood—took over. Breathe. Think. Choose. I flung my arms wide like a scorched bird, chest to the sky, palms open. The fall slowed slightly; I could feel the drag. I kicked my legs and turned toward the helicopter. For a split second, our eyes met. He wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t sorry. His mouth curled in that same twisted half-smile, the one he wore when a waiter messed up or a child cried near him. The curl that said, “I am better than you.”

Then, like a flicker of God’s mischief, I saw it—a yellow rescue line dangling loosely from the helicopter’s side, leftover from a morning beach shoot. It swung lazily, beckoning me. I reached and missed. The line brushed my knuckles and slipped away. Time broke open, and in that gap, I remembered how I got here.

Two years earlier, I met Marcus at a fundraiser in Atlanta. If you had been there, you would have seen us: his suit dark like midnight, my dress the color of ripe mango. He charmed the room with smooth, heavy compliments that melted like butter on warm bread. When he laughed, everyone laughed. When he frowned, wallflowers leaned forward. He told me he admired my work with community gardens, and I laughed, not knowing what that meant, but liking it anyway. My friends liked him. Auntie Sad liked him.

When he flew me to Nigeria to meet his extended family, the aunties pinched my cheeks and praised my home training. Everyone said he had matured, that the wildness of his twenties had washed off like rain on a tin roof. But the truth surfaced early. He disliked my loud laughter in public. “People are watching,” he’d whisper, as if joy required a permit. He pinched my elbow if I reached for extra suya. “Portion control,” he murmured, smiling at the waiter as if it were an inside joke.

He corrected the way I greeted elders, tied my scarf, and even said “tomato” instead of “tomato.” He wanted to refine me because the world respects a refined woman. Sometimes gentle, sometimes not. One evening, a storm hammered the roof while I burned the jollof, leaving the bitter crust everyone pretends not to like. Marcus tasted it, set down his spoon, tapped the table twice. “Careless,” he said. “Do it again.” When I suggested something else to eat, he slapped the counter near my hand, making the pots tremble. “Do it again.” He never hit me but hit everything around me.

The first time he left marks on my arm was after a gala in Lagos, over a joke I whispered to one woman. He smiled for the cameras, kissed my cheek, then squeezed my arm until white flashed behind my eyes. “You don’t know when to stop,” he said. “You make me fix you.” I told myself the pain was small, love required work, and I was safe because he didn’t hit my face.

When he proposed, my mother cried into her scarf. “Maybe this is your door to the next room of your life.” I hoped she was right. I wanted that room—light, soft chairs, windows that opened easy. I made rules: no jokes he disliked, no loud laughs, no second helpings. Peace is small, like salt added to a plate. But peace cannot live where fear eats.

On our first anniversary, Marcus booked the helicopter. “Lagos is ugly from the ground and beautiful from the sky,” he said. I said I was scared. He said, “Courage is like any other muscle. Let me help you strengthen it.” The day was hot and clear. The lagoon glittered like a pot of pepper soup under the sun. I wore the red dress he chose and a light jacket; the pilot warned the air at altitude could be sharp. Marcus had me take the seat near the door. He buckled me in himself, tugging the strap once, twice, and I thought it secure.

We rose. The city peeled open beneath us. The pilot shouted cheerful facts over the headset. I pressed my knees together, trying to pretend amusement, but fear fluttered in my stomach. Then, quick as a match flick, my body betrayed me. A puff escaped. The pilot laughed kindly. Marcus did not. His face went blank, like a screen dead of battery.

He unbuckled my strap with a clean pull. Fingers sure. Leaned close; I smelled his cologne. “You are a stain,” he said softly, only I could hear. Then he opened the door and shoved. I fell. Back in the bright scream of the present, the rescue line swung close, as if the wind had changed its mind. I reached, caught air, caught nothing. Auntie Sad’s proverb echoed: the river that forgets it started as rain will drown itself. I am rain, I told myself. I can spread. I can choose where to land.

I kicked toward the helicopter, not away. I needed that line. Proof. Even in terror, proof pressed into my mind like a prayer. Marcus would clean the mess, cover his tracks. “I slipped. I unbuckled myself. The rope brushed my arm. I laughed.” But there it was.

I flung my body at the rope again. For a heartbeat, coarse fibers rasped beneath my fingers. The line slipped. Below me, the lagoon waited. Above, Marcus leaned further out, camera under the fuselage aimed down. Proof, my mind whispered. A hot, bright anger ignited. I kicked again, violent, awkward, willing air itself to bend.

The line swung back, slower. I reached with everything: hands, arms, stubbornness of my blood. My right hand closed around it. It burned, tore skin, held. My body jerked; the world snapped taut. The helicopter shuddered. The pilot shouted. Marcus finally sounded surprised. I wrapped the rope around my wrist, as my grandfather taught me with goats at market. His face changed.

He reached for a safety blade, aimed at the rope. “Let go,” he said. I lifted my bleeding left hand, gripped the metal skid. The blade came down like a dark bird. Pain, ice pressed into flesh. The rope slackened. I dropped. Water closed over me like a cool, quiet shroud.

For a moment, I lost everything: helicopter, Marcus, my own name. Panic tried to claim me, but the lagoon refused. Fish darted away like silver secrets. I kicked, up and down, understanding a language of survival. I breathed when I could, swallowed when I couldn’t, tasting salt, metal, fuel, algae.

The pilot had cut the engine. The helicopter sat like a beetle ashamed on the wind, blades still. Voices above: pilot shouting, Marcus panicking, a cameraman cursing. Someone threw a life ring. I swam, shoulder aching. My fingers slipped over scum and rubber. The pilot grabbed my arm with a force that twisted fear in me. Hands closed around the ring like a small moon, hauled me toward the skid.

On the skid, Marcus stood, a statue losing marble. His face wet—not from the lagoon, but fear, rage, or both. His eyes searched mine for shame; finding none, he turned away. Wrapped in a blanket, I heard the pilot call for an ambulance. An older woman kept saying steady things, slowing my heart.

The next day, antiseptic and murmurs woke me. News had spread. Auntie Sad arrived, concern and pride in her face. “You did it,” she said softly. “You survived, and now we fight.” I nodded, feeling the flash drive in my pocket—the proof I held.

Days passed. Trial preparations filled every moment with tension. Marcus would fight, but I had the truth. The flash drive could bring down him and his network. In court, reporters flashed cameras as I recounted the push, the fall, the fear, the survival. Marcus’s lawyer twisted my words; I stood firm. I had survived. I would not be silenced.

The verdict came swiftly: guilty of attempted murder. Cheers erupted, but I knew the battle was just beginning. The table was powerful, dangerous—but I survived. My story became a rallying cry. I would not let fear rule me. I would choose truth, even against shadows.

Walking out of the courthouse, sun on me, hope bloomed. I was no longer a victim—survivor, ready for the world. The fight was far from over, but I had the strength. My name echoed, a symbol of resilience, a testament to truth. I would never stop fighting.