“Whatever you think is best, Sir. May I go and start getting the house ready?”
This was a gamble, but he still seemed distracted. I was rewarded for taking the chance when he kept texting and frowning at his phone, then waved me away in between texts without looking up.
“Yeah, get the fuck out of here. I don’t want to see you until I get back. Make yourself scarce, ugly.”
I slowly rose from my kneeling position, making sure the rice fell back into the tray. I walked slowly to the door and gently closed the large walnut pocket doors behind me. Just as the door was closing I heard him mumble.
“God damn Diego needs to go fuck himself if he thinks I’m paying all that interest to his cheating ass.”
I didn’t know who he was referring to, and I didn’t want to know. If everything worked out, soon I wouldn’t have to deal with any of this anymore. I made sure the door closed completely, then I shuffled as fast as my aching limbs and bleeding knees would allow.
I went straight to my childhood room. Looking around, I was reminded I had been happy here once. The baseball pennants and band posters of my teens were still on the navy walls, bringing back memories of family trips to concerts and ball games. The queen-sized bed still sported the plaid comforter I’d picked out when I turned fourteen. I smiled at the memories every time I came in here, which wasn’t often. I didn’t want Terrance to pay attention to this room. He didn’t know the secret it held.
I took the quickest shower I’d ever taken, tended my knees, then dressing in sweat pants and a tee I had hidden under the bed. I sat on the floor, back to the mattress, on the opposite side to the door and waited. My feet tapped on the carpet and my hands wouldn’t stay still, picking at a stray thread on the comforter. To pass the time and not go crazy with worry, I counted all the posters on the wall, then counted all the letters and numbers in them too. An hour later, I heard him come upstairs to get his packed bag. I made my body go still, barely breathing until I heard him go back downstairs and out the door. Looking out of the front facing window through the sheers, I saw his Bentley leaving through the security gate at the end of the driveway. As soon as he was gone, I could breathe again. It felt like my first breath in two years, clean and pure.
But then just as quickly, panic began to set in. I ran my hands roughly through my long dirty brown hair and asked myself the most important question of my life. Was I doing this? Was I really leaving?
I was pulling my hair so tight I actually heard strands break and felt the sting of some rip out of my scalp. The self-inflicted pain, as always, brought with it clarity, and the doubt faded away. Yeah, I was leaving the bastard. But before I left, I was taking everything back. He could have the house, but my father’s company and my family’s money was mine.
I stood up from where I’d been sitting, turned, and began to pull the bed from the wall. It didn’t take too much energy, but I was weak today from kneeling for hours and not moving. After five minutes, the bed’s massive wooden headboard had pulled away from the wall enough for me to get to my room. My secret hiding place. My sanctuary.
When I was little, my dad had told me this was my secret room and not to tell anyone it was there. He said if I ever needed to hide, then this was the place where I’d be safe from everyone and everything. He was right.
Over the last two years, when I had the rare opportunity to be alone, I had escaped to this room when it all got to be too much. But lately, I had been using it for another purpose.
Walking into the room, I sat down at my desk and turned on my pieced together PC. The base had been an outdated one out in my father’s old workshop, where Terrence never went. I added a few things to it by stealing components from the computer in the library. Terrence thought he kept buying faulty equipment. I would bear the brunt of his displeasure every single time something went wrong. The burn marks on my lower back were the worst, but it was worth it now.
I logged onto the web and went straight to work. Over the next few hours, I referenced the notebook where I had written all of Terrence’s financial information. I’d gathered it all from the garbage and from when he’d leave the computer logged into his various accounts.
I emptied and erased all of his domestic accounts, I knew he was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt from gambling, so there wasn’t much there. I removed his name from all of my family’s holdings and made notes that he was never allowed to be added back. I cancelled all of his credit card accounts and store charge accounts. And finally, I tracked down his hidden Swiss bank account and took every penny he’d stolen from my accounts and my family’s account and transferred it to my own new Swiss account I had opened a few months ago.
After all of this was done, I put a little money into a local bank account I’d opened online for myself a while back. I didn’t have an ATM card yet, but I could get one once I settled into a new place. I laughed out loud when I thought that I’d have my own money all to myself again, but after today, Terrence Lionell III wouldn’t be able to buy a stick of gum at the gas station.
When I was finished, I made a note of everything I’d done and all of the passwords I’d reset, then took the notebook and put it in my packed bag. I made very certain everything in my old room was just the way it should be, nothing to show there was a secret in there at all.
I took my bag and the few dollars I had been able to gather together for myself and walked out of my home for maybe the last time. I wasn’t sad. I was determined. I had someplace I needed to be this weekend, and no one, not even my demon of a soon to be ex-husband, would keep me from going. My little sister was getting married, and I’d be damned if I would miss it.
