Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 73960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Decision made, I crushed one arm to the backpack I had slung across my chest to keep it from bouncing against my body and making any sort of noise. I’d already kicked off my shoes on the back porch. If I was careful, I could get into the car without making a sound until I turned over the engine.
And with that, before I could let myself think myself out of it, I flew forward over the pea gravel that lined the flowerbeds to keep the weeds down, then across a few yards of lush lawn, the soft blades a nice break for my sore soles, then onto the warm paver driveway.
I threw myself into the car, ducking low, and locking the doors.
I hadn’t driven a car in six years.
Or was it longer?
Time was getting harder and harder to hold onto, just sand sliding through my hand as I desperately tried to hold onto it.
But I’d at least been in one of these cars before, so as soon as I saw the fob sitting in one of the cupholders, I knew all I had to do was press the break and then the push-to-start button.
And just like that, the car purred to life.
I didn’t hesitate.
I threw it into drive and drove off.
Not flooring it, not until I was out of the driveway anyway. Because, amazingly, no one came out to stop me.
Oh, they would be coming. I had no doubt about that. Raúl would never let me get away. Or get away with making a fool of him. So they would come. In force. Combing every neighborhood and city until they found me.
Which was why my first stop involved grabbing hair dye, makeup, and scissors.
But I didn’t dare stop for long enough to put them to use yet. I drove for another two hours before I abandoned the car behind a busy restaurant, then took off on foot, not knowing if the cars had trackers, and not wanting to risk them getting to me faster than I could at least drastically change my appearance.
I locked myself into a filthy gas station bathroom where I stood in front of the mirror, looking at the me I’d always known for the last time, with my wavy strawberry blonde hair, and my freckled face, and my big gray eyes, all of which made me look younger than I was.
Raúl liked the innocent look. I’d been so naive about what a red flag that was.
It was why he’d never let me dye my hair or wear makeup. And I was allowed to cut my hair, but only under his supervision, and the hairdresser was threatened with the loss of her hands if she took more off than he said she could.
On a disgusted sigh, I reached back to part my hair up the back, pulling the strands forward, quickly twisting each side into braids, then reaching for the scissors I’d picked up.
It didn’t matter if it wasn’t even.
I wasn’t going for perfect.
I was going for drastically different.
Exhaling hard, I snipped the long locks into a long bob that skirted my shoulder. Then, since there was no going back, I did the same on the other side.
I gathered up the hair and tossed it before going for the box of dark brown dye, mixing, and pouring it all over my head.
I’d never dyed my hair before.
And I hadn’t been prepared for how different I would look, how strange it would feel to look in the mirror and see someone who was not quite me looking back.
By the time I was done, I had dark dye staining my arms, neck, and a couple of dots on my face since washing all that out under a bathroom sink with just an empty bottle to use as a shower head had been a lot more complicated than I’d anticipated.
But it was done. That was all that mattered.
I set to work on the makeup with clumsy fingers and only a cursory knowledge of how to use any of it.
In my childhood home, makeup had been considered prideful and, therefore, sinful. In my ex-husband’s home, he’d seen it as “whorish.”
And then Raúl had been too controlling to let me experiment.
So I was working off of random snippets I’d caught on commercials or TV shows. Which meant that my mascara had smudged all over my eyelids, my liner was a lot more raccoonish than I’d set out to do, and my dark lipstick looked like it was bleeding outward off my lips. We weren’t even going to talk about how lopsided my brows looked.
But it was different.
Different was all that mattered, not good.
I lifted the liner one last time, pressing a beauty mark up on one cheek, masking a distinguishing dimple I had there.
By the time I changed into a pair of linen shorts and a tank—clothes Raúl would never let me be caught in outside of the confines of the master suite—I wasn’t sure I would even recognize myself if I saw me on the street.