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I wouldn’t make him wait long, but I would make him wait. A game, of sorts, that I knew I wasn’t likely to win with each passing day, but one I still played. To let him know that he hadn’t completely cowed me, that my spirit wasn’t broken.
I washed my hands, scrubbing at a bit of marker from the coloring we’d been doing before we’d been interrupted. Judah, mostly just bright slashes of color all over the pages. Me, images of a smaller house. Where we would both be safe. Before I colored over the whole thing with black, removing any traces of my hopes, of my plans.
My gaze flicked up to the mirror.
I was still me.
Kind of on the tall side, with my lob of brown hair around my square face with my full lips and slightly golden undertone to my skin. Makeup wasn’t accessible to me, since I refused to have to ask for it, so there was no mascara to darken the lashes around my brown eyes, no lipstick to make my lips stand out more.
It was me.
Yet… not the same one I’d been looking at before meeting Warren.
It was there in the tightness around my eyes.
In the weight I’d lost because I was often too nauseated to eat. Especially now that Judah was weaned, and I wasn’t being force-fed by Warren to produce the exact right ratio of nutrients for the baby.
I was a shell of my former self.
And I was looking forward to a day when I could look in the mirror and see the old me.
Or, rather, the new me—because I could never go back now—but happier, less stressed.
My son deserved that version of me.
And I was going to give it to him.
I was just biding my time.
Casting a glance toward the door, I reached into my drawer in the sink cabinet, finding the little razor blade I’d carefully pulled out of my disposable razor before disposing of it in an old tampon box.
I had two of them.
One in my bathroom.
And one in Judah’s.
Carefully hidden, but easy to grab.
For exactly this purpose.
Grabbing and tucking it in a pocket on days when Warren was taking me somewhere with him. To use on him, if this was it. The end. The day he was going to finally get rid of me because I’d outlived my usefulness.
I’d just managed to pull my hand back out of the pocket when the door flew open.
“I don’t have all fucking day, Claire.”
God, I hated how my name sounded in his voice.
I was starting to hate my name, period, because of him. Enough that I would find myself sitting and fantasizing about new names.
Carmen.
Clara.
Cassidy.
I figured C names would be the best bet. Familiar. Easier to remember.
