The ticking clock accented the deep snores from beside her. She listened intently, making sure his breathing was deep and natural. Minutes passed. Then an hour. Then two. She worried he was faking it, that he could feel how frantically her heart pounded against the mattress, or sense her body lifting off the bed, inch by inch. If he woke up, she’d say she needed to use the bathroom. Would he believe her? Or would he reach into his nightstand and pull the trigger this time?
Slowly, ever so slowly, she rose from the mattress and transferred her weight to the wood floor. She maneuvered around the bed carefully, avoiding the creaky spots, then through the doorway, down the hall, and into the dining room. Beads of sweat gathered at her hairline while she negotiated each step with the floorboards. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. All she needed to do was get her purse, leave through the back, and pray to God that her old Chevy started despite the frigid temperatures.
But she’d forgotten about the glass.
A ragged shard sliced into her heel. The pain made her head spin–or maybe that was a side effect of colliding with his fist earlier. Gritting her teeth, she dropped to her knees, reached back, and plucked out the glass without looking. There she waited, limbs trembling, as she listened for any signs of movement. All she could hear was her own ragged breathing. Get it together, Shawna.
The glass had been her fault. They were eating dinner when a coworker texted her about covering a shift at the Pizza Palace. The coworker happened to be male.
Jake heard the ding, grabbed her phone from the table, and immediately saw red. “I KNEW it!” he had spat across the table. “Who the fuck is Thomas? Huh?!” The more she tried to explain that it was nothing, the angrier he became. “So apparently I have to follow you into work, too?!” Before she could reply, there was a flash of movement, intense pressure, and everything went black.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been out. When she came to, he was sitting at the table, scrolling through her phone and taking long pulls from a whiskey bottle. He never gave her phone back, but it didn’t matter. There was no one left to call. They’d all given up on her over the four years she’d been with Jake. They couldn’t understand why she kept going back, and they were tired of trying to help her see reason. And she was tired of trying to explain her reasons.
“I’m so sorry, babe. My family really messed me up, you know? I’m gonna do better, I’m gonna try harder to be the man you deserve,” had been Jake’s standard line early on. It soon morphed into, “Who’s going to love a slutty college dropout? Do you even know what everyone says about you? You’re lucky I stick around!”
After a while, she believed it.
When the dizziness had mostly subsided, she crawled to the kitchen. Gripping the counter’s edge, she eased herself back to standing, slid her feet gently into her only pair of shoes, grabbed her purse, and opened the door as if dismantling a bomb. The bitter winter air bit right through her thin pajamas, but she couldn’t risk getting her coat from the front closet. Snow swirled through her disheveled hair and crunched under her feet; she winced when the sound of the doors unlocking echoed down the alley. She decided not to risk shutting her door all the way.
“Please,” she whispered desperately, turning the key in the ignition. It started on the first try. Thank you. Her sweaty hands clutched the steering wheel as she backed slowly out of the driveway, only turning on her headlights after she was down the block.
She wasn’t sure where to go. There was only $30 in her purse, but she’d need some of that for gas, so a motel was out of the question. She wasn’t sure how her mom would react to her showing up unannounced at 3:00 A.M., especially since they hadn’t spoken for over a year, but she had no other options.
Goosebumps pricked her skin as she finally let herself feel hopeful.
Until headlights appeared in the rearview mirror. Her stomach dropped. It could be anyone, she assured herself. After all, she’d been so quiet, so careful . . . and he’d been so drunk.
The lights glared brighter. She tried focusing on the road, taking deep breaths to settle her roiling stomach. She was beginning to regret taking the back roads. The highway would’ve been safer. More visible. “Please, please, please don’t let it be him. Please, God. Please.” Tears stung the back of her eyes. Her teeth chattered from the force of the fear creeping up her spine. A long, loud honk emitted from the vehicle behind her. She looked in the mirror.
The truck was so close now that she could see the driver. “No, no, no. This can’t be happening!”
He was all over the road, swerving between the two lanes, when he clipped her bumper. She yelped and reflexively pressed the accelerator to the floor. Her wheels lost traction for a moment, long enough for Jake’s truck to make contact again.
The impact hurled her little car off the road, over the ditch, and headlong into a tree. There were no airbags to cushion her head when it slammed into the steering wheel, spraying blood and teeth all over the windshield. She gasped for breath. Through the ringing in her ears, she heard the truck door close. Unsteady footsteps stomped towards her.
This is it, she thought, moving her hand instinctively to her belly. “I’m so sorry, little one. I should’ve just stayed,” she choked. She closed her eyes and envisioned what he or she would’ve looked like. A tear slid down her cheek just as a gunshot pierced through the night air.
Surrounded by the timber and cornfields of a rural Iowa town, S. L. Stark is following her dreams by conjuring up nightmares in her stories. When she’s not challenging readers to delve deeper into the dark corners of our very existence with her own writing, she prefers to get lost in others’ books. Her degrees in English, social work, and creative writing allow her to channel a diverse knowledge of human nature into the creation of unique narratives. Stark finds grounding in the love of her husband and three daughters, creating a delicate balance between fiction and reality.
If you want to keep EDF around, Patreon is the answer.
