All Chapters of Pennies for Him, Freedom for Me: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

Presley Quinn came home with his suit jacket slung over one arm and a shopping bag in his hand.I recognized it right away. It was from that luxury brand, the same one as the necklace Vivienne Ashford had posted on her Instagram.He walked in, saw that I was awake, and barely looked up."Oh, you're home."Then, he seemed to remember something. He quickly crumpled the bag and shoved it into the trash, as if he were terrified I would catch a glimpse of it.He slipped off his jacket and loosened his tie, his tone as casual as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened."Our department had a dinner tonight. One of the interns got a full-time offer, so we stayed a little late to celebrate."He walked over to the fridge and pulled the door open.Inside was a box of cherries, which a friend had brought over a few days ago. I hadn't been able to bring myself to eat them yet. Presley reached in, pulled them out, checked the price tag, and then turned back to look at me."We didn't s

I sat there in the silence, not moving a muscle for a very long time.After a while, I picked up the glass of cold tap water and the bag of bread crusts and threw them both in the trash.Then, I pulled open the bottom drawer of the TV console. Inside was a blue hardcover notebook, old enough that the corners had worn down to bare white.Presley and I had bought it together in our first year of marriage. He said that if a marriage was going to last, the finances had to be crystal clear.From groceries to utilities, down to a single roll of trash bags or a pack of tissues, everything had to be meticulously logged so neither of us would take advantage of the other.At the time, I thought he just valued healthy boundaries, and I didn't see anything wrong with a 50-50 split.What I didn't realize then was that his version of equality was nothing more than a one-sided reign of micromanagement and deprivation directed entirely at me.I flipped the notebook open. The very first page dat

It was Presley. He'd gotten home, found me gone, and the messages came pouring in one after another."Is the divorce agreement for real?""Are you upset about money? Fine. We don't have to split expenses anymore. You can manage all the household finances from now on, okay?""Natalie, talk to me!""Where on earth are you?"I kept my head down, reading through every single message as they popped up, finding the entire thing unbelievably ironic.Even now, at this point, Presley still thought what I cared about was money.He thought I'd walked out over that one cent, over the necklace, and over the fact that he wouldn't loosen his grip on the wallet for me.But he never once understood that what I was done with had nothing to do with who paid for what. It was the fact that his heart was so violently skewed in someone else's direction.I locked my phone and didn't reply to a single message. My pale, hollow reflection stared back at me from the car window.All of a sudden, it felt

It was a winter day in Norwell, and the city had gotten one of its rare snowfalls.I'd just walked out of the office with my assistant beside me, going over the next day's schedule, when the security guard at the door glanced toward the street and said quietly, "Ms. Vaughn, I think someone's here for you."I followed his gaze.A man was standing at the bottom of the office steps. He was wearing a wrinkled coat, his hair was a mess, and he had an unkempt stubble.There was a layer of snow collecting at his feet, and he'd lost a noticeable amount of weight.I stared at him for a couple of seconds before I realized who it was.It was Presley.He caught sight of me at the same moment. His eyes instantly reddened, and he practically stumbled forward, lunging up the steps."Natalie—"I stepped back on instinct, but he got his arms around me before I could move away.He held on tight, his arms trembling, as if he were terrified that I'd vanish if he loosened his grip."Natalie, I f

After that night, Presley disappeared. He stopped coming to the office, and he stopped showing up outside my apartment. The security guard told me he'd seemed to have vanished overnight.I simply nodded when I heard the news, as if I were listening to gossip about a stranger.Sometime later, I was on the phone with a former colleague from back in Bayton, and she brought him up in passing.She said that after I left, Presley had seemed to go off the rails. He cut things off completely with Vivienne, then quit his job and spent his time tracking down anyone who might know where I'd gone.At first, Vivienne thought her moment had finally arrived. She'd shown up at his place and started cooking for him, hoping to weasel her way in.Instead, he kicked her right out.She burst into tears, demanding to know what happened to wanting someone emotionally stable and low-maintenance.Presley stood in the doorway and delivered a single line. "Do you really think you're in the same league as