“I will.” It’s a promise I can’t afford to break.
I hang up before my voice betrays me. Then I move. Because if I stop moving, I’ll start thinking again.
And thinking is where fear grows claws.
* * *
I quit my job first. No drama. No explanation. Just a quiet conversation with my manager in the diner’s back room, the smell of bleach and old coffee hanging in the air.
“I’m leaving,” I say.
He frowns. “But I wanted to promote you.”
“I can’t.” I force a small smile. “Thank you for giving me a chance.”
He looks like he wants to argue, but something in my face stops him. He nods once. And just like that, one more thread snaps.
Next is the SIM. I stare at my phone for a long moment before I pull it apart. This little rectangle has been my safety and my panic and my last link to the life I ran from.
I remove the SIM with the tip of a paperclip, hands steady. Then I break it. The crack is tiny. Satisfying. Final. I buy a burner phone with cash.
I close my bank account the next morning in person, heart racing the entire time like someone might appear and say I can’t. Like someone might demand a reason I’m not ready to give.
No one does. The teller smiles and hands me my balance like I’m just another person with a normal life.
I cash it elsewhere. Cash only after that. No trail. No trace. No name tied to anything that matters.
I pack my life in the same small bag I’ve been living out of since the night I left Marco. Underwear. Jeans. Two sweaters. Chargers. Toiletries. The pregnancy test goes into the trash. Not because I don’t want the baby. Because I don’t want evidence.Because I don’t want to look at it anymore and feel like my life is something that can be decided by ink.
I buy a bus ticket at a station two neighborhoods away from mine, on a route with three transfers and a destination small enough to feel like a hiding place. I pay in cash. I give a name that isn’t mine. The man behind the counter doesn’t care.
The bus smells like worn fabric and stale heat, like bodies carrying too much in silence. I choose a window seat. Of course I do. Habit. Control.
I press my forehead lightly against the glass as the city slides past. Buildings. People. Streetlights. A coffee shop on a corner I’ve never walked into. A woman laughing with her friend like the world hasn’t ever tried to hurt her.
My hand finds my stomach again. Protective. Instinctive.
Mine.
The landscape shifts as we leave the city behind. Concrete softens into trees. Roads stretch wider and emptier. Billboards disappear. My chest is tight, not with panic exactly, but with the weight of what I’ve done.
I’m not running from him. Not really. I’m protecting what I chose. A piece of a night that didn’t feel like punishment. A piece of a man whose hands asked permission. A piece of myself I didn’t think I’d ever get back.
The bus hums beneath me, steady and relentless. I blink hard and refuse to cry. Because tears feel like surrender, and I’m not surrendering. Not now. Not when there’s a heartbeat inside me that will need me to stay strong.
I lean closer to the window, voice so quiet, no one could ever hear it. “It’s just us now,” I whisper. My palm presses flatter over my stomach, like skin and willpower can shield the baby from everything. “I’ll keep you safe.”
Outside, the city disappears behind us. Ahead is unknown. Smaller streets. New name. New job. New walls to hide inside.Freedom and loss and hope twisted together so tightly, I can’t separate them.
I let the bus carry me forward.
