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“How was the funeral?” she asks.
“Hard,” I reply, not wanting to lie to her ever.
“I wish I could have been there for you. I wish I—”
“I understand why you weren’t,” I cut in. Although I hated the reason why. Her asshole husband would never allow her to leave Heathens Hollow. Not even to support her sister and help with a family death. There is never a reason to leave him. Ani is to forever be by his side unless he wants to go off and drink and do drugs with his buddies.
“How’s Apollo doing?” she asks.
Should I tell her that he may want to kill me. He may want me dead. The rest of the Godwins do. “I think he’ll have a full recovery,” I say instead.
“I have news.”
Please tell me you’re leaving your husband. Tell me he’s finally done something that went too far and you’re asking for a divorce. Please let this be the call where you ask for help and allow me to get you out of that awful situation. Let it be a call of sanity. Of reason.
“I’m pregnant,” she announces.
I swallow down a deep sigh that struggles not to erupt from my body. “Are you sure this is what you want? Are you sure—”
“Of course I want the baby!” she interrupts.
“I’m not talking about the baby. That’s amazing news,” I quickly clarify. “Of course it is. I just mean… Are you planning on raising the baby with him?”
“He’s the father, Daphne.” I hear her sigh, but I’m not sure it’s directed at me or the fact that my question is only reminding her of the turmoil she’s had inside her since finding out she’s going to have his child.
“You could come here. With me. We can raise the baby together. Ani, you don’t need him.”
“You and I both know it’s not that simple.”
“But it could be.”
There’s a long pause and then she asks, “What do you mean when you say we could raise the baby? What about Apollo?”
I don’t answer right away. I don’t know how to respond or what the answer even is. Ever since the accident, I feel like I’m a blind woman feeling my way through a maze. Things aren’t so black and white as they were before. Nothing makes sense anymore. Nothing is clear.
“Are you finally divorcing him?” Ani asks.
“You and I both know it’s not that simple,” I parrot her earlier statement. “Besides, it’s not about Apollo or Mark. This is about the baby. You and I could do this. We don’t need anyone but us.”
There’s a long pause. Silence on the other end. But silence is good. Silence means that Ani is thinking about the offer. She’s considering what her future would look like if she broke away from her abuser.
“He’d never let me go.”
“We won’t ask,” I say, not wanting to lose the conversation but already feeling her slipping away to her life of acceptance.
I hear Mark’s voice in the background. “I need to go,” she says in a low tone. “But I wanted to share the good news. I’ll try to call in the next day or two.” She hangs up the phone before I can say another word, but it’s not something I’m unfamiliar with.
This is how our conversations go. She uses the hidden cell phone I gave her when her husband’s not around. Our conversations are quick, secretive, and always end with me wanting to rush to her far away tower and save her from the monster.
There’s a knock at my door. “Housekeeping.”
It seems I’ll never get used to the fact that high-end hotels like this turn down the bed for you. Not wanting the nightly service, I open the door to send them on their way.
“Thank you, but I won’t be needing your service tonight,” I say with a welcoming smile, but pause when I sense something is off.
The housekeeper appears afraid. She looks at me with wide eyes and a pale face. My heart stops for a split second, unsure what can make the woman look the way she does.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
