When I pick it up, there are three missed calls from Papa.
One message.
Papa: Do not do anything foolish.
I almost laugh.
Too late for that.
Downstairs, the house is quiet. Mama’s door is closed. For one awful second, I think about waking her, but if I see her face, I might not leave. She’ll beg me to be careful. She’ll cry. She’ll ask me to wait until morning.
I cannot wait.
Morning belongs to my father.
Tonight is still mine.
I know the house better than his men do. They watch the front door, the driveway, the wide iron gate. They do not watch the side passage beside the old pantry because no one important uses it.
No one except a girl who used to sneak out at seventeen with lipstick in her pocket and rebellion in her blood.
The back door sticks.
I freeze.
Outside, one of the men coughs. I hold my breath and ease the door open slowly, until the gap is wide enough for me to slip through.
The cold, wet night air hits my face, and I breathe it in as my heart continues to race.
I move along the side wall, past the kitchen garden, through the narrow service gate hidden behind the bougainvillea. One thorn catches my coat. I pull it free too hard and hear fabric tear.
But I don’t stop.
Two streets away, I grab a taxi, my paranoia in full swing. I glance back over my shoulder while I wait, begging for it to hurry up.
By the time I slide into the back seat, I’m so anxious, I feel sick.
“Airport,” I tell the driver.
He glances at me in the mirror. “Domestic or international?”
“International.”
I sit low in the seat as we pull into traffic, clutching my handbag against my stomach.
For a while, the city passes in bright, blurred pieces. Shops are closing. Street dogs hang out near shuttered cafés. Men smoke beside parked bikes. Couples laugh beneath yellow light.
Normal people. Normal lives.
Not a father who posts guards outside his daughter’s house. Not a fiancé who leaves her for her stepsister. Not a woman running toward a country that no longer has any reason to welcome her.
By the time the taxi reaches the airport, I’ve stopped crying.
That feels like progress until I step inside.
The terminal is all glass and glare, too vibrant for grief. Families cluster around luggage carts. Businessmen move briskly past with phone chargers and expensive watches. A child criessomewhere near the entrance. Announcements echo overhead, calm and indifferent.
I lift my chin and walk to the international departures board.
