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Because that’s what I’m good at.
Three minutes can sometimes be a life changing amount of time. It can feel like an eternity when you’re waiting for two pink lines, but when you’re rushing around your former home trying desperately to stuff the most important items you own into a garbage bag, three minutes is nothing.
I skip the phone charger and laptop, too. Those I can replace. I don’t want to buy a new computer and new cables, but I can.Grab only the most important things, Scarlett, I whisper, trying to keep myself calm. Growing up, my mom was always talking to herself and it took me being an adult to realize that was a self-soothing technique, and I hate that like her, I need it.
“The photo album, your passport and social security card, then the jewelry box. If there’s time, clothes,” I hum the orders to myself as I fly through the apartment, padding down the hallway, fingertips dragging along the wall as I bounce from one spot to another. In the small office, I push junk around in a drawer, my mind moving so fast I skip past my file twice. Sweat beads and slides down my spine, and beneath my arms, my t-shirt clings to my damp skin. “Breathe, you’re fine,” I remind myself, knowing I’ve already wasted a precious minute I don’t have.
I didn’t want to cut it this close. But he stole my key and it took me much longer to get inside than I’d planned. I finally convinced the apartment manager to let me in, but that left me with less than five minutes.
He has come home for lunch at the same time every day for the last two years. Despite the fact that there's one huge change in his life—me leaving—I still expect him to be home for lunch.
That’s why I need to get my stuff and get the fuck out.
I freeze in my tracks, arms above my head clutching a storage box in the office closet. From the open window, more than a soft breeze drifts in. Pins and needles warm the back of my neck, and I twist to face the dirty torn screen, listening intently. “Your wife lost her key. I let her in, I hope that’s okay, Sir.”
I hate that he’s referred to me as his wife.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I let the box topple to the floor and grab one of the albums out, shoving it deep inside my garbage bag before hooking it around the corner, down the hall to the bedroom. Panic has my head flying from side to side, desperate to locate my music box. I keep all my favorite jewelry there but truthfully, it’s the box I want. I got it from my mom when I was a little girl, and she got it from her mom. It’s one of the only things that means something to me anymore.
The front door swings open, slamming against the drywall, making the entire apartment shudder. I look to the dresser, where my things used to sit, spaced out nicely on a glass tray. That is, before we got into an argument last night and Pete swept his arm along the surface, sending all of my things across the floor. My perfume shattered. The room smells overly floral and sweet, it’s acrid and I’ve never felt so sick. I leap across the bed, dragging my bag with me. With one hand, I feel around under the bed, then run my arms beneath the heaps of clothes but I can’t find it. Heavy footsteps stalk down the hall, toward me, and that’s when I know… I’ll never get it back.
“You couldn’t even make it 15 hours without me,” he sighs, his voice unwavering and calm. It’s so eerie to be with someone so full of anger and hatred, and have them be so fucking calm. It’s terrifying, because he’s done and said some of the most cruel things to me while wearing the same stoic expression he’s wearing now.
I hold up the bag. “These things belong to me.” I refuse to let my arm tremble the way it wants to. The way my spine is already shaking. I wouldn’t say I’m brave, but I left last night. After two hours of screaming and fighting and being held to the wall and made tothinkabout my actions.
I won’t go through that again.
I left, and I intend to stay gone. But these are my things, and he doesn’t own me. Or my things.
Not anymore at least.
When he was gone yesterday morning, a few of my colleagues from Crave helped move me out. He came home shortly after they left and caught me trying to leave. That’s when he stole my key.
“Those things are inmyapartment, so I disagree.” He stalks toward me, his gaze searing me so intensely that my stomach sours, my mouth grimacing with sickness.
How did I get here?How did my judgment become so clouded that I let myself be with a monster for so long? Why did it take me years to leave? Why am I so weak?
I swallow around the vomit, around the emotion, around the self-loathing and pain. Holding the bag to my chest with both hands, I leap across the bed as he approaches, and without a second look back, I run.
I run as fast as I can until I’m out the front door, my bare feet taking the cement steps two at a time as I fly downstairs. With the sun burning my eyes, I tip my face toward the apartment, my feet cooling in the grass. My chest heaves with adrenaline and my whole body trembles with… relief.
I didn’t get the music box but I got my documents. I got a photo album. That’s better than nothing, and that will have to be my big win.
I got out, and that’s all that matters.
He appears at the railing, leaning over casually like he isn’t the most terrifying human. The biggest monster. The slickest thief. “You’re acting like a fucking idiot, Scarlett,” he says casually, shaking his head from above.
All I had to do was get downstairs, where people are. Currently oblivious people, but we both know he won’t say or do a single fucking thing if people are around. Because he’s one of those monsters that exists just for me.Onlyfor me.
I see the moment he realizes I’ve effectively silenced him.
A vicious grin travels across his face and he disappears. A moment later he returns, my music box in his hands. The fading pink flowers along the back make my heart race. That box is important to me. It’s special. Just seeing the aged print and dark spots on the edges where I held it for hours as a young girl—tears well in my eyes.
“Pete,” I call his name, but his gaze never leaves the box. He lifts it in the air, far above his head, and that’s when he finds my eyes.
Still wearing a cruel smile, he lets go. I scream but for what, I’m not sure. The box is old, and while that means it’s made well, it also means it’s been man-handled for the better part of forty years. It’s rickety, and as soon as he releases it, I know it’s gone.
