Let Me Down, the new memoir by Callie Rae O’Reilly is out today, published by ECW Press. It is the “vivid and vulnerable account of an abusive relationship”, by the co-founder of the Apostrophe Podcast Company; the home of some of Canada’s most popular podcasts, including Under the Influence and We Regret To Inform You.
To mark the release, the publisher has provided CR with an excerpt to share with our readers. First, though, here’s the synopsis:
At 18, Callie’s encounter with Reed, a brooding and arty student four years her senior, begins a youthful infatuation, a casual “thing.” But as their relationship deepens, what once seemed like innocent passion soon morphs into a cycle of manipulation, control, and violence.
Callie shares the complexity of falling in love with someone who also hurt her — emotionally, physically, and sexually. Through her clear-eyed storytelling, she grapples with the blurred lines of consent, shame, and trauma and explores how these toxic dynamics seeped into every corner of her life. Her process of extracting herself from Reed’s universe reveals the psychological toll of abuse that doesn’t always leave visible scars but is no less damaging.
Let Me Down provides a candid reflection on the realities of modern relationships, highlighting issues like gaslighting, revenge porn, and the impact of social media on survivors. With delicate intimacy and literary sensibility, O’Reilly’s memoir charts the complex and nonlinear path of self-acceptance, healing, and reclaiming one’s life from the lingering effects of trauma.
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Chapter 8
I now believe certain people are brought into our lives for a reason. I met Blake on one of my first days at school studying media production. She previously studied textiles before switching majors. I’d just switched universities. Blake was unlike anyoneI’d ever met, and from the moment I saw her, I was fascinated. She had long, jet-black hair, icy-blue eyes, and a low, smoky voice. Every day, B would march into class with unflappable confidence wearing a head-to-toe black gothic outfit. She had a nose ring, and wore heeled Dr. Martens and leather pants. One day she showed up to class in a crop top that said send nudes, belly button ring prominent. In theory, she was terrifying. But the moment we started talking, I was struck by her kindness and warmth. She was smiley and bubbly, a fascinating and unique contrast to her hardened exterior (but don’t be fooled, she’ll kick your ass).
Although we were only a couple of years older than our class-mates, we felt miles away. They were living in residences and going out to campus bars. We lived downtown and our lives existed entirely off campus. Blake and I quickly became close friends in class, and one day as we were leaving school, she asked where I was headed.
I told her, “I’m just going home.”
“Where do you live?”
I told her the intersection.
“No way — what building? Logan, my boyfriend, lives in that area. I’m heading over there, too,I’ll walk with you,” she said in her signature rasp. I told her my address and she lit up, “Stop.That’s his building!”
That day as we walked home, Blake and I got to know each other a little bit more and she invited me to come up to her boy-friend’s apartment and hang out with them some time.
She told me, “Next time we have a party or something, you should come. I’ll text you. Bring your boyfriend.”
Cameron was another new classmate of mine, an aspiring music producer with spacers, tattoos, and a leather jacket. He was sweet, slightly unsure, and thirsty for approval, as much as he tried toconceal it with piercings and messy hair. I never batted an eye at Cameron. With Reed around, everyone else felt young and tedious. In one of our classes, Cameron and I were assigned into a group project. I winced a bit when I heard our names called out one after the other. In my life, this small ripple could easily become a tidal wave.
Later that week, I was in Reed’s bright blue bedroom. We sat as we always did, me at the head of the bed, knees up, my back against the wall. Reed at the foot of the bed, bare feet flat on the ground, surfing his laptop. I watched the back of his head, occasionally taking off his hat to run his hands through his thick hair. We were comfortable in our shared silences, long past the early months when every moment screamed to be filled. I was happy just to be swallowed up by his world. He eased the pain of my brain.
I was still struggling to trust him. I couldn’t stop my eyes from scouring the bedroom for signs of his infidelity. I hesitantly peered over the side of his bed, between the mattress and the wall, searching for proof another girl had spent the night. My stomach filled with dread each time I moved the blankets or glanced into the garbage can. I really lost my mind the time I found a blonde hair. I didn’t say anything. I told myself: Stuff comes inside from outside. Bringing it up would only push him away just a couple more inches. How closely could I monitor my boyfriend before he decided I wasn’t worth the loss of all freedom? How crazy had I become, and when had I lost every ounce of my confidence?
That particular afternoon, Reed and I were in a good place. We’d been more stable — relatively speaking — with no sizeable incidents for a few weeks, though the memory of his heavy body on top of mine was never far from my thoughts. Every night I climbed into bed next to him or he told me he loved me, my brain would flash to that night. The confusion of what he did grew every day, slowly taking up more space inside of me, pushing on my ribs, constricting my breaths. I’d bury my face deeper into the warmth of his neck and do my best to push it back down. If I didn’t let myself think about it, it didn’t have to impact our present. It didn’t have to be us. And yet, even as I did my best to forget, it was ever-present, relentlessly weighing on my upper back.
I got a text from Cameron. Hey, hey! We should get started on the assignment. When can you meet? I responded, Hey! Yeah, we should. Do you have time to get started on some research first? One minute later, Cameron texted back, Anything for you.
I glanced up at Reed still at edge of the bed and deleted the conversation from my phone. This was just how Cameron talked, but Reed wouldn’t see it that way, and I knew what it could mean. Although it had been a few weeks since Reed scared me that night, there’d been countless disappearances spurred on by various things he didn’t like. Some lasting fourdays. Reed weaponized his disappearances — they were strategic punishments. Painful and cutting. It felt as though he looked for reasons to punish me and this text from Cameron would fit his flexible criteria perfectly.
I closed my laptop and stood up from the bed.
“Where you goin’?” He asked, without looking up from his screen.
“I’m gonna shower quickly. I have class in about . . . an hour.”
“I’ll walk with you, if you want,” Reed said as I undressed.
“That’s nice. Thanks. We need to leave in thirty,” I closed the bathroom door behind me.
But a few minutes later, I was met with a completely different version of my boyfriend. Immediately sensing the air had frozen over, through mounting panic and still in a towel, I asked Reed, “What’s wrong?” But he shrugged me off. Although I was used to his unpredictable, taxing moods, it still always hurt and painted everything just a little bit darker.
Soon after, we made our way down the fire escape.
It took a block of walking in silence until finally, eyes still focused forward and expressionless, he said, “So what’s going on with you and this Cameron guy?” His voice was vaguely amused, proud of the trap he’d so gleefully laid out in front of me. A sharp zap ran through my every nerve.
“What are you talking about?” I tried to play it off, but the blood had already left my face.
Reed spun around on his heels. I stood frozen. I had class, it was my first semester, and I was still new. But if I let him go now, he’d most likely disappear and turn his phone off, which always sent me into a self-harming spiral landing me at my therapist’s office with fresh damage hidden under my sleeve. I didn’t know where he went on those days, but I had a feeling I wouldn’t like it. So, I went after him. A choice that put him ahead of my class, my life, and myself.
I followed Reed back up the fire escape, and as the door closed on the sunny day outside, a veil of darkness fell over us both. Once safely out of view, he said, “You deleted the conversation from your phone.”
“You went through my phone?” I shot back.
“Why did you delete it?” He pressed, tone intensifying.
“Why are you looking through my phone?” I snapped. He took two angry steps toward me.
This time, he wrapped both hands around my throat and launched his body forward, throwing me backwards by my neck in the apartment’s small hallway. I flew into the wall, hitting the back ofmy head on the edge of the moulding of his bedroom door. Pain shot down my neck, and I struggled to think. Reed held me still, hands grasping my throat, with eyes full of rage. Reed was now an unrecognizable version of the person I slept next to, the one who drew me cards with hidden messages, the one I once trusted with my body. With one toss of that body, I was inside of Reed’s apartment with a stranger. A stranger who had me by the neck.
I wanted to run into the bedroom and close the door, where no one could see us for what we really were. We were alone, but still, being thrown around in the middle of the apartment felt wrong. We weren’t behind our closed door, guarding the secret. We had something big to hide.
There was no escaping it now. There were no excuses left to make: I was in a dangerous relationship. And this time, I was also in physical pain. Immediately after hitting the wall, the backof my skull began to throb. I thought my head had most likely split open. Pressure mounted to my brain as Reed held my throat. When Reed finally released his grasp, I grazed the back of my head and checked my fingertips for blood. Thankfully, there was no blood, just the pulse of my racing heart pounding up the back of my skull. I looked him in the eye and said, “Why did you just do that? Do you think that’s okay? You cannot do that, Reed. I don’t deserve this.”
I don’t remember him saying much at all.
As my body began to ache and my heart began to slow, I still had no intention of leaving him. The thought never entered my mind. If anything, I felt as though the handcuffs had just been tightened a little bit more. The more complicated it got, the tougher it was to walk away. In my experience, whether they’re good complications like a shared apartment, shared history, and shared love, or bad complications like these dark secrets, the more complicated it is, the more unfathomable it is to leave it behind. In that moment, I never considered leaving him, nor did I want to.
It’s a difficult thing for me to understand now, and yet, I recognize that girl and her choices. Profoundly confused, she was beginning to lose hope.
Soon after releasing me, Reed picked me up in his arms, took a few steps to the corner of his bedroom and lay me down gently onto his bed as if I was fractured glass. He disappeared to the kitchen and returned a moment later with an ice pack. Placing both hands behind my head, he gently guided it back down onto the cold sting of ice. I lay in shock, overwhelmed by the magnitude of what just happened. The back of my head throbbed, and I heard nothing but the sounds of my own breaths. I felt the need to quiet them, as if any sound made the moment real. Made us real, this day real, the suffocating reality of our relationship real.
I texted Blake: I’m not coming in today. Not feeling good. Can you let me know what I miss? And skipped the rest of my classes, too shaken to focus and too consumed by Reed and me to leave us, even for a few hours. Inexplicably, the desire to stay close to him was overpowering. He shattered me and now he was the only one capable of fixing me. No one outside of Reed could bring me back to life because only he knew the truth, rendering anyone else empty and useless. The one thing worse than the bleak realization he would most likely do it again would be having to face that thought on my own. Instead, I stayed in the false safety of his bed-room, cocooned in this world only we knew existed.
The next day, Reed gave me a handmade card and a present from my favourite clothing store. “I know I can be a difficult asshole,” he said as I wrapped myself in his blankets, my body instinctively shielding itself. “I love you. You are all that is good in the world. I just forget itsometimes.” He told me, eyes glued to mine. I hoped for the promise that it would never happen again, but it didn’t come. Maybe he knew it was one he couldn’t keep.
Although his actions screamed that I deserved to be punished, that his anger was warranted, I could still see a misty outline of my true self through his thick fog of rage. Reed’s behaviour was a reflection of him and his demons, not my mistakes. Deleted text messages didn’t warrant hands around my throat, so an apology would never leave my lips. Not after that.
Still, I relished being treated like porcelain even if it only came after being carelessly thrown around like rubber. Reed rarely took care of me like this, rarely made me feel like I was something to be protected. Suddenly, I held the power. For a brief time, I didn’t fear him disappearing; he was trying to hold me tight. It was now that I felt most loved. How could I possibly consider leaving?
My knowledge of domestic violence highlighted broken bones and black eyes. I thought of dangerous men as large, angry, loud, and violent, screaming insults and insecurities. I imagined victims crying and fearful, but I had yet to shed a tear in front of him. It was somehow lost on me that this quiet, artistic, trusted lone wolf was hurting me in the same way as those who suffered black eyes. Because these things escalate. And one thing was clear to me even then — things were escalating.
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Callie Rae O’Reilly’s Let Me Down is out today, published by ECW Press.
Civilian Reader 