Her Escape

Chapter 5

Maybe One Day

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." Theodore Roosevelt

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Who the hell would have thought it was going to be this hard coming up with a believable lie for why my wrists were bruised. Here I was on a Sunday night, lying awake in bed at midnight raking my brain for some sort of explanation.

So far, all I had was I slammed my hand too hard without realizing it, my hand got caught in the door, and my favorite – my imaginary boyfriend tied me up because I like rough sex.

All jokes aside, the last one was the most believable out of them all. 

"Ugh," I groaned in frustration, flipping over on my stomach and burying my face in the pillow. I thought moving across the country meant I could finally stop lying. That I could finally breath and stop living on edge all the time. Of course, that was bullshit because my entire life had become a fucking lie.

The only aspect of myself I hadn't altered was my eye color. Everything else was a fucking lie.

Deciding that when Chase did inquire about my little outburst on Friday – because we all know he will, it's fucking Chase we're talking about – I would just stick with the rough sex lie.

Although Ben had no problem putting his hands on me and roughing me up when he was in one of his moods, sexual assault was never part of that. The physical assault in of itself was traumatizing enough and I still flinched to this day when strangers get too close, but he never raped me.

Sure, we had sex plenty of times and I wanted to gauge my eyes out during, but after a while, you get pretty good at masking your disgust. The desire to take the nearest pillow and smother him with it can quickly turned into fake moans of pleasure because if even anything seemed off, he wasn't going to hesitate to beat the crap out of me again.

Ben was my first. Outside of him and reading romance novels, I didn't know much about sex. Apparently it's supposed to be this great intimate connection between two people, but if you ask me, it's disgusting.

Thrust. Thrust. Bam – we're done.

Like I said, disgusting.

I think I finally fell asleep some time around 3 AM, but it could have been later. I could still hear the neighbors from across the hall yelling at each other, and the muffled sounds of the TV from the next door neighbors. It didn't bother me too much, but it wouldn't hurt to get a moment of peace and quiet around here.

..........

The next morning when I woke up, I was more on edge than usual. It took me longer to get ready, and I almost missed the bus.

What if he decided to fire me? Or worse, what if he decided to tell someone about what he saw? Those thoughts plagued my mind the entire forty-five minute bus ride to the gym.

At exactly 8:57 AM I pushed against the glass door and noticed Catherine was already there – mopping the lobby. When my eyes landed on her, I stalked up to her and grabbed the mop from her – no hello or good morning. "What are you doing?" I asked incredulously.

"Mopping?" She gave me a strange look, reaching to grab the mop back from out of my hands, but I was quicker.

"Are you crazy?" I demanded. "You're like eight months pregnant. I told you I would do all the physical activities."

"I swear to God, not you too!" Catherine rolled her eyes, throwing her hands up exasperated. "I'm pregnant, not disabled!"

"Since you're pregnant," I smiled sweetly, keeping a firm grasp on the mop. "You can take your pregnant ass and sit down."