The Trust

Chapter 21: Run

I sprint along the coastal trail, calves and lungs burning. Soon the pain fades and there is only calm. The brilliant blue of the sky and ocean shimmer in the bright sunshine. I run every day now, rain or shine. It helps me to keep my head from spinning off my shoulders.

Everything is collapsing all around me and I know I'm not completely through the fire yet, but something has turned over inside and I have clarity. I know what my path is now.

Clive love-bombs me with texts and calls but I silenced my phone for the past few days. Annoyed, I finally picked up last night to get him to stop.

"Please don't tell Audrey. Not yet," he begged. "Don't ruin her trip, she's looking so forward to it." As if this mess was my doing. I agreed we would both break the news to her when she came back from her school trip to France, mostly to get him to shut up and leave me alone.

She'd been talking about the trip to France since the school year began, and it was a hard no from me at first — that is, until "the money" came along. Based on Rob's announcement, I put the whole trip on credit, all $4,000 of it, telling myself it was an investment in her education. She nearly knocked me over with a jumping hug when she found out and I laughed with her, overjoyed that I could make her this happy with the extravagant trip.

That was weeks ago when I was confident that hundreds of thousands of dollars would soon be in my bank account. I should be sick about it now, the debt I'm in is astronomical. But I feel calm about that too. I have no idea why or how, but it feels like everything will work itself out.

Clive arrived to take Audrey to the airport, and we faked like everything was OK in front of her. She was too excited and distracted to notice he'd been out somewhere else the night before. I didn't know where he went, and I didn't much care. He took some of his stuff with him, I couldn't wait for him to get the rest of it out. I was done.

Audrey knows I hate airport goodbyes, so I hugged my girl in the kitchen telling her how much I'd miss her. She was bouncing with anticipation. "Stay with the group and be careful," I said. She rolled her eyes at me but blew me a kiss before bounding out to the car, letting the screen door bang on her way out.

"Thank you for this. It's kind of you after what happened yesterday. I don't know what came over me." Clive hung his head and examined his hands.

"Just have your stuff out of here by the time I get back," I said, lacing up my sneakers. "And leave your keys under the mat."

"What about our deal? You won't tell anyone we're splitting yet. Right? Because if your family knows, or anyone else in town, Audrey will know. I'll move out, I'll do whatever you want. But wait until she gets back to break the news to her – we'll do it together. In the meantime, no one else must know."

I gave him a disgusted look.

"You don't sound worried about Audrey at all. Scared everyone will find out you put your hands on me? How do you think my family will react to that? Are you worried about their judgement? Clive the great and mighty academic, nothing but a common thug who roughs up women."

"You look alright to me," he said, his voice icy smooth.

I pulled up the sleeve of my t-shirt to show him the ugly bruises on both my arms, the fingerprint-sized blue and green spots where his fingers dug into my flesh. At least he had the decency to turn away.

"Proud of yourself, are you?" This time, he didn't meet my eyes.

"I'm not proud of what happened. But you pushed me to it!"

I was suddenly so tired of this man. "I told you we'd wait and tell Audrey together when she gets back, I'm not about to ruin her trip. No one else needs to know our business. That's my end of the bargain. Yours is, you'll move out fully today and you won't fight me on this divorce, for Audrey's sake. Right?"