Chapter 8

Chapter 8

LINA

You couldn't run without money. This was the simple uncomplicated truth of life, whether I liked it or not.

I thought about Lily. She had sent me that photograph last night out of care, out of loyalty, because she was still the same person who had made me her friend, immediately in the first week of starting university life all alone.

 I knew that if I had asked her, if I could crash at her place. She would accept it quickly, take me in and make upn her spare room for me, and pretend she didn't notice when I cried because that was the kind of  friend she was.

But Lily lived in a studio flat with a futon in the sitting room because she was twenty-four and paying her own rent and building her own life and I loved her too much to make myself her problem indefinitely. And she was not equipped to help me have a baby. She barely had room for herself.

And as her friend, I was not going to make her life miserable just to prove a point.

I thought about working. I had a degree in my name, one that I earned through countless sleepless nights and visits from Damien, who always came with a lunch box, waiting outside my class, leaving all the girls squealing of how lucky I was, but I knew he only came because of his grandmother.

I had gotten my degree, which was the same year I had gotten married to Damien.

 My degree was in communications, which was broad and a little vague and not immediately lucrative, but it was something that I could start and earn money doing.

I reached for my phone again and opened the notes application, because I needed to put things down before I forgot about it.

*Options*, I typed.

Then I sat there for a while, looking at the word.

Find a job. That was the first. That had to be first because everything else depended on it. Find something I could start quickly, something that paid a living wage, and figure out accommodations around whatever I could earn.

 I had enough knowledge as  Damien's wife to know this was going to be a complication because I have been photographed too many times as Damien's wife and would be easily recognized if one looked hard enough.

I could change my name back. Rodriguez. I had not legally changed it at the wedding, it was more of an error but right now I was seeing it as my lifeline. On all legal  papers,  I was still Selina Rodriguez. That was something.

I kept typing.

*Talk to someone legal.* I didn't know anything about how divorce worked in practical terms. I knew it was expensive and I knew it could be drawn out  and I also knew when one had more money than the other, it tends to go in the favour of the richer person.

 But I also knew that courts generally had provisions for people in my exact situation, a financially dependent spouse with no independent income, and that there were legal aid organizations and pro bono practitioners and I was going to have to find one of them before I did anything that could be used against me.

I typed: *don't take large cash withdrawals. Keep records of everything.*

I didn't know exactly why that second instinct was there, but it was a logic  felt right, and I trusted it.

*The baby.* I added that last, then stared at it.

I had not gone to any doctors, all the doctors I knew were working for Whitmore and any information from me would definitely bounce back to my husband and his grandmother's ears. And with a baby that Damien didn't want, I didn't want to even imagine what he would do.

I added: *look up independent OB. Free clinic if needed.*

I sat there on the bed for a while, looking at the list, then looked at the half-packed bag.

I couldn't leave tonight. I had known this for a while since I started packing. I was not ready. I did not have anything to my name.

I was going to have to be patient.

I was not good at patience. But I was going to have to learn.

I unpacked the bag, arranging everything to be in its normal position before Damien would return, he knew when things were not in their normal places and I didn't want to answer any questions tonight from him.

I stood in the middle of the room when I was done, looking at everything that appeared unchanged and was not.

The front door opened downstairs.

I heard his footsteps in the foyer, heard him set something down, and heard the small sounds of him moving through the ground floor, dropping his case or keys, pulling off his tie, probably running a hand through his hair. I stood very still, listening to him the way I had been listening to him for two years, reading his movements the way you read the weather symptoms, trying to determine what it would turn out to be. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

"Selina?"

His voice was not harsh. It wasn't the voice he used when he first assumed I was stalking him in the cemetery, this was quieter, the tone of someone who had had a long day and was tired.

I looked at myself in the mirror above the dresser. I looked worn and a little hollowed out and anyone staring at me wouldn't be able to see that I had almost run away tonight.

"I'm upstairs," I called back. My voice came out steady, which shocked me.

I heard him start up the stairs.

I turned away from the mirror.

Whatever he was about to say to me, I was going to listen to it, and I was going to stay very calm, and I was not going to give him anything he could use. And then I was going to figure out a solution to get myself and my baby out of his life.

I heard him reach the landing.

I turned to face the door.