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AMALIE
Over the next week, I make plans to leave. I tell myself with every small thing I do that I haven’t leftyet, that I can still change my mind, that it’s not too late. That I can forget all of this, and go back to living the life I was always told I was born for. That I can decide tonotbe afraid of my husband, and the possibilities of what he did before.
I manage to hide the diary again, back where I found it. The stress and anxiety worsen my pregnancy symptoms again, and I use that as an excuse to avoid David touching me, wondering every time if this will be the moment when he decides he’s had enough of indulging my whims and takes what I know he must want. I can feel the way he looks at me when we’re eating meals together or sitting in bed, the tension constantly running through him, and I wait for the moment when he explodes. It feels like there’s an unspoken truce between us, although not one that we arranged or agreed on. It’s almost as if we’re each waiting for the other to step over some unknown line, and throw our marriage back into turmoil—and it’s almost worse than fighting, because I never know what that line is or what will tip us over.
That, too, drives my sense of urgency to leave before something happens that will prevent it, before I get caught. I have my first appointment with the doctor David wants me to go to in Providence in two weeks, and I use that as my marker—as the point in time by which I know I need to be gone.
All of the little rebellions that I practiced with Claire, what seems like a lifetime ago, come in handy now. How to slip away from my security after the board meetings that I go to over the next two weeks, so I can go to one of three pawn shops where I managed to find and sell some of the jewelry I’ve collected over the years. I’m grateful, for once, that I’m not sentimental about my family—I can only imagine how my mother would feel seeing some of her jewelry handed over to sit behind glass, sold for far less than it’s worth. I collect the cash day by day, taking out small withdrawals from the credit card that David gave me—not enough for him to think anything of, but enough to bolster the small savings that I’m collecting. I hide the money in the closet, behind my clothes in my dresser, anywhere I can think of that David won’t bother to look, and day by day, I try to think of how I’m actually going to pull this off. How I’m going to disappear, and how I’m going to hide when he inevitably tries to track me down.
The truth is that I don’t have a good plan. I don’t have much of anything beyond the fact that I know I can’t use my real name or any kind of card that can be tracked. I don’t know where I’m going to go, except that it needs to be far from Chicago or Boston. I can’t leave the country without a passport or identification, and I don’t know anyone who could make me falsified documents. It’s never been more clear to me how thick the bars are that cage the women in my world—but I’m determined to not end up like Bria.
I’m determined to keep myself and my baby safe, even if I have to make it up as I go.
I plan to leave two nights before my appointment. I slip away to the library that afternoon, looking up the closest bus station and writing down the directions on a slip of paper that I tuck into my purse. It will be a long walk, but if I go at night and after David is asleep, if I’m quiet and careful, he won’t know I’m gone until the morning. And by the time he’s managed to track down where I’ve gone, hopefully, I will have managed to slip onto another bus, another train—until I’m far enough away that I can disappear.
As for the rest of it—how to survive without identification or a social security number or anything like that in a world that relies on it—I tell myself I’ll figure it out when the time comes. For now, all I can focus on is getting away—and doing whatever I need to in order to ensure David’s guard is down when I do.
He picks up on my mood at dinner, the night I plan to leave. We’re sitting with takeout from the Italian place that he brought home the first night I was here after our wedding—a coincidence that I try not to think too much about—and I push my bolognese around my plate, unable to even touch the half glass of wine that David didn’t fight me on tonight. My stomach is in knots, and no matter how much I tell myself that I need to hide my anxiety, I can’t seem to entirely pull it off.
“What’s wrong?” David sets his fork down, looking at me with an expression that tells me he might finally have had enough of my aloofness for the past two weeks. “You’ve been acting like I’m going to bite you since we talked while you were having your bath that night. I’ve left you alone and given you space, but this is exhausting, Amalie. What’s going on?”
I bite my lip, forcing back the retort that I want to let slip out.You’re exhausting. Our life together is exhausting.I want to tell him that and more, to let everything I’ve been keeping inside for what feels like so long now, but I can’t. I can’t risk it, and so instead, what comes out is the truth and not, all at the same time.
“I miss you,” I whisper, and David’s eyebrows go up before he can stop himself and mask his surprise. I reach over, almost impulsively, and brush my fingers over his wrist. “I miss—”
“I think I know what you miss.” His voice sounds faintly hoarse, and I see his fingers flex against the wood of the table, his gaze flicking down toward the end of it as if he’s remembering what he did to me there. I see him swallow hard, his gaze darkening as he looks at me, and then suddenly, he stands up, pushing his chair back as he reaches for me.
For a brief second, as he pulls me up out of my seat and kisses me, I forget that I’m doing this to placate him. I forget that this is supposed to be a means of making him think I’m his, to distract him so that there’s no chance of him suspecting that I might sneak away tonight. His mouth is warm and firm on mine, his arm going around my waist as he kisses me with the urgency of a man who has been waiting for this, for even the slightest hint that I want him. The realization of that, of the thin thread of self-control that he must have been hanging onto, makes me feel weak with desire, my body sinking into his as his mouth devours mine.
“Upstairs,” he whispers, backing me towards the doorway, our dinner forgotten. His hands are gripping my waist, his lips brushing against mine again and again with every step, as if he can’t stand to stop kissing me. As if nearly two weeks of deprivation, after he’d fucked me nearly every night of our brief marriage, has been almost too much to bear.
The stairs feel impossibly long, as if there are far too many between us and the bedroom. He shoves the door to our room open, leaving it halfway ajar as we move back towards the bed, and I feel a sudden, unexpected pang at the thought that this is the last night.
My last night with him—not just here in this room, but if all goes to plan,ever. The last time I’ll touch him, kiss him, and the last time he’ll do the same. I wonder, as his hands slide over me, dragging my shirt up over my head as his mouth finds the hollow of my throat, if this isn’t what I think it is. If this is a betrayal, rather than an escape.
I feel certain that he’ll never forgive me if he catches me, either way.
David’s fingers undo the clasp of my bra with swift dexterity, dropping the garment to the floor along with my shirt as he kisses a path down between my breasts, cupping them in his hands as his tongue slides over my nipple. “These were beautiful when I first saw them,” he whispers hoarsely, teeth grazing my sensitive flesh as I gasp. “But like this—”
I’ve gone up half a cup size since I realized I was pregnant, my chest fuller and more sensitive than before. David’s mouth sliding over the curve of my breasts, his lips fastening around one nipple as his fingers toy with the other, sends jolts of sensation over my skin. I run my fingers through his hair, the ache between my thighs building, and I remind myself that I’m supposed to be doing this for reasons other than my own pleasure tonight.
I want him so satisfied that he passes out, so thoroughly sated that he has no reason to suspect me of anything. I’m tempted to let him continue to focus on me, to drive me wild with pleasure, but I force myself to fall to my knees instead, sinking down in front of him as I reach for the button of his pants.
“I want you in my mouth,” I whisper, and once again, it’s somewhere between the truth and not. I can’t let myself be swept up in how much Idowant, or I’ll forget what it is that I’m doing here. I’ll lose my resolve, and then what happens?
I might meet the same fate that Bria did. It might be my name that the next woman finds, wondering what happened.
Even that thought isn’t enough to stop me from wanting him, now that we’ve started. I hear David groan as I slide my hand against the thick ridge of his cock, slipping him free and wrapping my fingers around the base. He breathes my name as I press my lips against the slick head, tongue lapping up the salty taste of his arousal, his fingers tangling in my hair. When I wrap my lips around him, sliding my mouth down the rigid length, the sound he makes is half-choked with need.
“Your mouth feels so good,” he breathes, his hips twitching forward with the effort to not thrust into my mouth. I’m startled by how gentle he’s being, the lack of demands, the way he seems entirely willing to let me be the one in charge.Did he miss me that much,I wonder,that he’s happy just to have me touching him again?It doesn’t fit with what I’ve known of him before, and I feel that flicker of fear again, the paranoia that I’m being set up somehow.
I take him as deeply as I can, feeling his swollen head rub against the back of my tongue, trying not to wince at how hard the wooden floor is against my knees. All I can think about is how to make it as good for him as possible, sliding my tongue over the ridged veins, around the edge of his cockhead, against the soft skin beneath as I suck—all the things that I know by now drive him closer and closer to the edge.
“God,cara mia—” His voice is thick, his accent rasping as he suddenly pulls free of my mouth, startling me. “I need to be inside of you. I need—”
He pulls me to my feet, his mouth crashing down on mine again as he guides me towards the bed, his hands feverishly plucking at the remainder of my clothing and his. We end up on the bed with me stripped bare, his shirt hanging open, and his cock hard against his belly, his eyes dark with desire as he pins me back against the pillows. “I want you,” he breathes, his lips pressing hard against mine, and I know what he wants to hear in return.
“I want you, too.” I don’t have to lie. Idowant him—my entire body is taut with it, the slick wetness between my legs sticky on my thighs, my blood throbbing in my veins. “I want—” I can’t quite say the words. They catch in my throat, and I push at his chest, urging him onto his back. It only takes him a second to realize, and his eyes widen. For a moment, I think he’s going to refuse, that he’s going to want to be the one in charge, as he so often is. It’s always him atop me, pinning me against the bed, the table, bending me over whatever surface is at hand. I don’t think I’ve been the one on top since Ibiza, when I still barely knew what to do in bed.
