Chloe Wallace needs a new start. When she lands in Washington, D.C. she hopes for the best. Finding a new job, meeting new people, and living a normal life away from her abusive ex-husband.
She moves into the Capital Plaza Apartments, right across t...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
CW: Descriptions of domestic violence and sexual assault.
I read this chapter over at least fifty times before I hit publish. I'm super nervous to write this, and I hope I did my boy right. Please vote and comment! <3
"I'm no prophet. My job is making windows where there were once walls." - Michel Foucault
chloe.
I left him in the dead of night.
While he was at work, I packed a bag with all the essentials, including the emergency cash that I'd stashed away and hidden.
Fifteen thousand dollars.
It wasn't going to get me far, but I couldn't look at another black eye in the mirror and think, you must have done something to deserve it. I couldn't lie there while he raped me again and think, this is normal, this is something women just deal with.
It's not fucking normal. None of it was fucking normal.
So, I drugged his nightly whiskey and waited.
It took him forty minutes, and twenty-three seconds to pass out.
Then, I left. A plan six months in the making. I got the painkillers from a doctor, saying I'd hurt my ribs in a minor fender bender. I didn't even tell my friends I was leaving— not that I had many. Dean said the only friend I needed was him.
Over the course of two years, he beat me so badly I lost two teeth, part of the vision in my left eye, suffered seventeen broken ribs, along with breaks in my clavicle, both wrists, and he fractured my skull. The physical wounds have healed, but the emotional ones remain gaping and infected.
I don't know how much of my own blood I've spit into the sink.
Every person has their breaking point. If I didn't leave, he was going to kill me. He controlled the way I dressed, the way I talked, what I watched on TV... nothing about my life was mine.
I'm determined to start over. I won't be someone's prisoner.
I pull my hair into a chaotic ponytail to get it off my face as sweat trickles down my back. The place is fully furnished, just like the ad promised. Except for a bed. I've ordered one, so I guess I'm sleeping in the living room tonight.
There's a dark leather couch that looks expensive, an oak bookshelf, shiny hardwood floors, and dark teal walls. It's a cute one bedroom with a small kitchen, a little pink and white bathroom, and it has a balcony.
The best part? It's 2700 miles away from Dean.
I was a California girl, but now I'm going to have to get used to a brand new city.
