Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Which was how I knew that he would never notice some bills going missing.
So for about two months, I would wash, take, and hide money.
On top of that, I started very carefully stashing a few items of clothing for myself in the bathroom, where Ben wouldn’t see them. As well as some palmed handfuls of Edith’s food.
I hadn’t been ready to go the day I ended up leaving. I wanted to take at least two or three more weeks to stash away cash.
But fate had other plans.
“Make sure she does her business,” Ben warned as he opened the door for me.
“Why?” I asked, confused. She never went in the house.
“Because this is the last time she will get to go for the next twelve hours.”
“Twelve? She can’t hold it that long.”
“She will have to. Pick up her water and don’t feed her.”
That was just cruel.
But I knew better than to argue.
So I took Edith out, letting her take her sweet time, wiping her feet, then offered my leg to Ben to remove my tracker before watching Ben gather his things to leave.
When I heard the car start up, I moved toward the window, watching him drive away until he disappeared.
Ten hours.
He would be gone for ten hours.
I glanced at Edith, trying to silently tell her this was it, that today was the day.
I was a little jealous of her obliviousness as my own anxiety ratcheted up. But I forced myself to be calm, to look like I was just going about my day. In case Ben was watching as he left.
I gathered all my clothes and a blanket I was taking with me, sticking it all in the washing machine with my money, where I shoved everything inside pillowcases for easy carrying.
Then I gathered cleaning supplies and went into Ben’s office.
Where I hit the jackpot.
A stash of the cash I’d washed that he hadn’t used yet.
I glanced at the clock.
He’d been gone an hour and a half.
Hopefully, he was far enough away that he had no time to turn back and get me, even if he did notice immediately that I was gone.
I sucked in a deep breath, grabbed the cash and the key, then walked out of the office. Still pacing myself, still putting on a show for the cameras in case he missed the theft.
I went to the washing machine, sticking the cash in, then grabbing my pillowcases, picking up Edith, and making my way to the door.
I half-expected an alarm to ring when I stuck the key in, as I heard the click, as I watched the light go green.
But there was nothing.
Just a door that slid open.
Just a breath of fresh air.
I forced myself to walk carefully down the steps, not wanting to fall and crack my head open so close to freedom.
But as soon as I hit the ground, I ran.
Edith grumbled at first, but eventually just resigned herself to the discomfort as I forced my legs and lungs to deal with the pain as I tore down the woods just in from the road.
It felt like forever. It was probably almost two hours. But I finally made it to the main road.
Where I lucked into a kind stranger who was happy to drive me into the nearest town.
I bought a bag to keep Edith in and a bottle of water for us to share, then hopped on a bus.
I watched anxiously out the window, sure a car was going to speed up on us, that Ben was going to force the bus to stop, come on, grab me, and drag me back to hell. Where I would never get a chance to escape again.
But there was nothing so dramatic.
Just a long, bumpy bus ride into a much shadier town.
It was the perfect place to find myself a cheap car, though. And the guy who I bought it from was happy not to do any official paperwork in exchange for a hundred bucks over his asking price.
The car wasn’t worth it.
My freedom was.
So I paid it.
Then I used some more of my money to get food for Edith, to grab a hat and sunglasses for me. And maps. So many maps.
The rest, I tried to save for fuel and food. Though I ate almost nothing, too sick to my stomach at the idea of Ben finding me that I didn’t dare eat more than a few bites when I was feeling positively lightheaded.
The rest, well, it was history, wasn’t it?
I didn’t genuinely even process the concept of freedom until I found my way to Navesink Bank. I was too busy catastrophizing every possible scenario where Ben might find me.
Looking at a traffic camera.
On a security camera at a gas station.
Tracking me down to figure out exactly what maps I bought, where I was heading.
I didn’t have any reason to assume Ben would guess where I was going, that he would know about the promise made years before.