Short Story Collection

Freedom

With her faded dress and worn shoes she knew she couldn't go. Leiana sat on the bed and looked down herself. Tonight was the big reunion, the one she had been dreading for weeks. Nothing else fit her, the weight she'd lost over the recent weeks had taken it's toll on her body and she was looking gaunt and ill.

Ever since she had accepted the invite her husband had made her pay. She didn't even know what made her accept it either, she didn't have any desire to see the people who bullied her at school. Although compared to her husband those girls looked like kittens.

A tear ran down Leiana's face, she knew she was running out of time to go, he would be back from his drinking session soon and she wanted to be gone by then, knowing he would have passed out drunk by the time she would return home it left her with a short break from the shit. Even a few hours made a difference, even if she got double the beating the day after.

Leiana took off the dress and put on her casual jeans with a baggy jumper. It wasn't as dressed up as she wanted to be but it was better than the dress. So much for proving she was different, better. Truth was she wasn't, in fact she was worse. No job, no children, no life. It had been this way since a few months after her wedding to Felix 5 years ago, when they first met she had a great job as a trainee accountant at a firm who adored her but he soon put an end to that. He didn't want children either so had himself fixed 3 days after their wedding and didn't tell her, apparently she didn't have an opinion on the matter. It was probably for the best looking at it now, imagine raising a child in this house, with him. She would have had to leave then and she couldn't do that.

Leiana grabbed her car keys and phone and put them with the invitation in her bag and left the house locking up as she did. Deciding to walk there rather than take the car, not only did it mean she could have a drink, it was a lovely night, balmy and not to walm. The warm breeze carcasses her cheeks as she walked down the road. For a few hours she could pretend life was good. Smile and put on a show for the people who had made her teenage years a misery. The last thing she wanted them to know was that her only achievement in life was to be someone else's punching bag.

Leiana heard to squeal of the car tires before she saw it. A crash of metal against metal, her blood ran cold. A crash..there had been a crash. She ran around the corner to see what was happening, to offer assistance. The Scene in front of her made her stomach turn and she vomitted in the path. The blue Volvo was upside down and crushed completely at the front, a body half hung out of the window, blood everywhere.

She knew the car, she knew the person, her husband. His body hanging out of the glass smashed window, she was scared to approach him, scared incase he was dead, scared in case he was alive. A man had beat her to it and was with Felix, she walked over slowly, dazed, confused.

The man took his jacket off and covered Felix with it across the face. It was then she knew that he was gone, he had finally drunk himself to death quite literally. She had told him to stop taking the car but of course it earnt her a slap.

Leiana dropped to the floor, the sense of relief flooded her. He was no longer her tormentor and she was free. She was sad for the old Felix, the one she fell for but she wasn't sad for the loss of the Felix he had become, the violent abusive man that had beaten and berated her for years.

She got up and started walking, she had a reunion to attend to after all.