My brain splinters into fragments, each one offering a solution to this problem but none of them viable. Maybe I can hide. I stagger back a few steps and inch toward the bedroom window, yanking the curtain aside with shaky hands.
His patrol car is parked right out front.
Fuck.
He’s not supposed to be here. For years, he’s worked the same shift, rarely coming home during his lunch.
Panic claws its way through my stomach.
The bedroom door is closed, but there’s no other escape route. Maybe he won’t come in here. I consider hiding beneath the bed, but if he finds me while I’m lying on the ground, I’ll have no fighting chance. At least if I stay upright, I might be able to run.
His footsteps come closer, and sheer, panicked terror freezes me in place. The last time I tried to escape him, I couldn’t leave the house for weeks afterward, my body covered in blotchy purple bruises and my spirit broken. If he catches me now, it will be a hundred times worse. I won’t make it out alive.
The floorboards creak right outside the door.
“Brielle?”
He’s here. He knows I’m here. Shit. I left the bag by the door.
A shadow breaks the sliver of light beneath the door.
What the hell do I do?
I hold my breath, and the bedroom door opens.
Joel stands frozen, as do I, as we stare each other down—me in terror, and him with a range of emotions flitting across his expression in rapid succession. Shock, confusion, suspicion, anger.
“Where the hell have you been?” he demands.
“I—um, I just...” I trail off. What the hell could I possibly say? There’s no lying my way out of this one, no pretending to be the docile wife who doesn’t know what’s happening. I’ve been away for almost three months now.
“You what?” Joel crosses his arms over his chest, staring me down with growing rage brewing in his eyes.
I take a step backward but lift my chin. “I left.”
“No fucking shit. Where? Who were you with?”
Of course he wouldn’t askwhy. No, that would involve a critique of him and me explaining why I was unhappy. He doesn’t give a damn about that. He simply wants to know if someone else took ownership of the woman he deems his property.
But I’m done with hiding, with appeasing men who don’t deserve my attention, much less my obedience. No longer will I be a woman who makes myself smaller to fill the roles others carve out for me.
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell Joel in a firm tone as I take another step backward. “I left because I couldn’t handle being here for another second. We’re better off without each other, and I think you know that too.”
He scoffs. “Do you know how fucking embarrassing this has been for me? Having to make excuses about why my wife has disappeared after slitting her wrists? My reputation has been under fire becauseyoudecided you’d rather go off gallivanting who-knows-where, soIlook like an idiot who can’t even keep control of his wife.”
“That’s the problem. You want control over me, and all I’ve ever wanted from you is love and acceptance. You couldn’t even give me that. You tried to erase every piece of me that didn’t fit the caricature you had imagined for a wife. I became a shell of myself who was too afraid to live.”
His face reddens as his fury grows. “I gave youeverything—a nice house, money for good food and clothes, a life where you don’t have to work. When we met, you barely had enough money to feed yourself, let alone do anything with your life. Hell, yourparentsdidn’t even give a shit if they ever saw you again once you left. You’d be nothing without me.”
My heart races at the familiar sight of him clenching andunclenching his fists at his sides. I take another small step back.
“That’s the problem,” I say, even as my hands shake and my heart pounds. “You never even asked me what I wanted. I’d rather be broke and happy than provided for and miserable.” He rolls his eyes, as if my use of the word “miserable” is some melodramatic overstatement.
“You don’t know what you want,” he sneers.
“I do,” I say calmly. “And I’m leaving again. For good this time.”
“Like hell you are.”
