A Hidden Danger

Hurt

Marigold

Cliché. It's a word that almost everyone knows and understands. The word congers up unique pictures or situations depending on the person. I was always one of those people you pictured negative things that were cliche. I would see the ridiculousness of things in the simplest of situations, but then again my life seemed to be surrounded by the clichés.

What the doctor had told me had surprised me. I had been married for four years and not once had I gotten pregnant. We had been trying because that was what both our families had been expecting of us. I always found it weird that they wanted us to have a child when we had not been married very long. But who could argue with parents like ours?

Truthfully, I didn't want to have a baby right off. I had barely known Marco when we married. The marriage was something my parents had wanted. I wasn't about to argue with them. I had grown up knowing that I could go against them. I don't remember what made me feel that way, but something happened. I can't remember anything from before the age of ten. Even at that age, some things are foggy and it hurts my head sometimes to think of them. If someone ever brought that time up, I just came up with some kind of convincing lie to cover it.

Sometimes I would argue against something that I felt was wrong and all it would earn me was a slap to the face. And it was always my mother who would do it, but on my father's behalf. After the second slap, I never talked back or questioned them again. There was the voice in the back of my head that told me it wouldn't be a good idea to do it. The looks my parents gave me only confirmed that thought.

So when I was twenty-five and had graduated with my Master's degree is social work, my parents informed me I would marry Marco Camilleri. I had met Marco at various points in time all throughout my life. His father was my father's client. My father was supposedly the best lawyer in town and so he had his pick of clients. The Camilleri's were the wealthiest family in the city and surrounding areas. It was one of the selling points my parents had tried to use in order to get me to marry Marco. I could have cared less about money, but to them it was all that was important. So important that they put me in a loveless arranged marriage.

Marco was the epitome of the perfect Italian man. Standing at five foot eleven inches, he was tall, but not overwhelmingly so. His black hair was always cut short and styled perfectly. Marco spent plenty of time at the gym, so his lean physic was muscular and strong. But the thing that drew most people in were his gray eyes. They looked back at you like they were staring into the depths of your soul. Sometimes I had thought he was some kind of soulless entity that was put on earth just to unnerve people. The man was an enigma, but he was my husband. Unlike a lot of men today, Marco was free of tattoos and piercings. He looked like the perfect GQ model for office life.

I entered Camilleri's Inc. and walked up to Marco's secretary's desk. Gabriella was a middle-aged woman who had taken me under her wing the first time we met. She gave me little tidbits of information about the man I had married. She was a gem of a human being, and I was thankful to have met her.

"Gabriella, is he in his office?" I asked.

"I think so, dear. He was here before I arrived and I haven't seen or heard from him this morning." She said, smiling at me.

"I have a surprise for him, so don't call ahead for me." I said with a giggle. I may have not loved my husband, but there was an affection for him. I wanted to make things work for us.

I walked down the hall toward his office. Something in me was telling me to take it slow, that I shouldn't just open the door and yell in surprise. A sickening feeling washed over me and it was something that I had been feeling for weeks. I stopped at the door and saw that it was cracked open, allowing me to see inside. And what I saw was the biggest cliché of all time.

Marco was there pants around his ankles balls deep in my best friend, Regina. Well, best friend may be a bit of a stretch. She was one of those girls that belonged to the same circle as mine and Marco's parents. Growing up, she was the girl that my parents wanted to foster a friendship with. Over the years, we had built what some would call a friendship, but I only ever saw it for what it was, a task. My parents dictated everything in my life outside of school, so I never really had friends that I would have considered real friends.

"Marco! Please faster!" Regina called out. I heard Marco make a strangled sound kind of like a growl, and then the sounds of his pounding picked up.

"I love you, Regina!" he pants out.

"Why won't you leave her then? I love you so much more than she ever could."

"Regina, you know your family isn't high enough in the organization. I only married her because of the status her family holds. Don't worry Baby I'll only ever love you." Marco calls out.

The two of them are so lost in their pleasure that they never notice me. I turn myself around before I make a scene and head back to the desk.

"Gabriella, he seems to be busy. Don't tell him I've been here. I want to surprise him with something, so mum's the word." I said, placing a finger over my smiling lips.

"Oh, of course." She said, smiling.

"If no one has told you lately, thank you. You're always so kind and work very hard at what you do. You're a gem Gabriella."

Most who would have seen me after this would have thought me uncaring that my husband was having an affair. My face was calm, and I looked like I was just taking a stroll. On the inside, though, it hurt like a bitch and I couldn't reconcile that. I knew I didn't love Marco, but his infidelity hurt me. I couldn't explain it.

I don't remember the ride home. I can only think of the plans that I had to make. I would not put my child through living with parents who didn't love each other. I didn't want them to grow up thinking it's normal to not be faithful and to only be with someone because of their station in life.

I was going to break the cycle and get out from under the hold that my parents and Marco had over me. I knew I was going to become someone I could be proud of. I wanted to be someone that my child would be proud of.

Once I reach my home, I started working on the plan I had formed. Marco had given me a two thousand dollars a month's allowance. That was money that I could spend on whatever, since my clothes and things I needed for everyday life came out of the household budget. So other than a few presents and things, I had spent none of the money. After almost five years of marriage, I had amassed around one hundred thousand dollars.

For whatever reason, Marco had always insisted that he gave the money to me in cash. Looking back, I can see where he was trying to keep from having a trail of money that lead anywhere. Cash was easy to cover up, whereas a credit card would have records.

I went to the bedroom and started packing. I had enough clothes and things that I could sell to keep me in money for a while. I grabbed a few suitcases and plastic totes to pack the things I would take with me. I grabbed the clothes that I knew wouldn't attract much attention and would fit for a while. I filled the totes with the designer shoes, purses and jewelry that I knew I could sell. By the time I finished, I had packed three suitcases and four totes. That would be all other than my cash that I would take to start my new life.

I called for a taxi and then set my wedding rings and phone on the table. I wasn't about to keep anything he could track me by. I wanted a clean break. I looked around the house I had been living in and wondered if I had really ever felt like it was home. I couldn't say that I felt like it had been. If anything, it was like some kind of detention center where I could come and go.

The taxi pulled up, and the driver helped me load all my stuff into it. I told him to take me to the nearest car rental place in the city. California sometimes felt like one large city to me, but right then I was thankful for it. More people meant it would be easier to blend into a crowd.

We arrived after a few minutes of driving and the taxi driver waited patiently for me to get a rental. I wanted to go off the grid, and I knew I wouldn't be able to do that easily. I lucked up when I saw the young girl working at the desk. I had a plan, and I knew it would work perfectly with her.

"Excuse me. I need your help."