The Sister-in-Law, Pamela Crane [have you read this book txt] 📗

to the life inside. But the blood seeping into the crease of my jeans told a different story. A story where the man I loved, the man whom I created a child with, hated me more than I hated myself.

He hated me so much that when I told him about the baby he called it entrapment. As if our nuptials years ago weren’t already a contractual bond, dumbass. He slapped me for that comment. Maybe I did want to trap him into a future with me because I loved him to a fault. Maybe I wanted to trap the best pieces of him with the best pieces of me into a tiny, beautiful, pink-skinned, better whole.

Despite the fists and the cursing, I loved the son-of-a-bitch. Because with the darkest lows came the brightest highs. Euphoria when he held me, cradled me like a sad child, then kissed me with all the passion of a thousand lovers. I was never an open book, but with Noah I let him consume my every page. When it was good, it was mind-blowing good. But when it was bad, I bled, I died inside. And now my baby was dying with me.

No one understood my addiction to Noah. Not even me. If you asked me to explain it, I couldn’t. It was as if he had entranced me. He had charm, and a lot could be forgiven of a charming man. I was cursed to be in love with a monster. But that monster knew how to bring me to orgasm, he knew how to play with words that lured me in, he knew all of my secrets and I knew his. We were secret-keepers, dark soulmates, a tornado meets a hurricane, wrapped in a typhoon. I loved being devastated by his love.

But now I had another life to think about. The baby’s. I would give up orgasms and wordplay for the tiny human growing inside me. I had to this time. There was no other choice. If there was any chance this baby would make it, I needed to get out. Now or never. Over the years I could never do it for myself, but for my baby, I would.

I had contemplated killing Noah. Many times, in fact. It would be easy to claim self-defense, with my bruises as my witness. But every time I felt the urge, made a plan … I simply couldn’t. I loved him too damn much. He had saved me when I lost my parents. I owed him enough to let him live.

I stripped off the bloody jeans and panties, leaving them in the corner behind me. I found a pair of stretchy yoga pants in the laundry room, ones that comfortably fit my rounding belly. I grabbed a handful more, along with underwear and several oversized T-shirts, then grabbed the biggest duffel bag I could find in the bedroom closet. Noah’s old, faded, green, military duffel, one not earned but purchased at a thrift store – he’d never served a day in his life. ‘Independent thinkers like me don’t make it in the military. We’re leaders, not followers.’ Except that Noah was neither of those things. Noah just was.

I shoved the clothes I could grow into, along with the barest of necessities, into the bag with the hopes that I would indeed keep growing. If I lost the baby, there was no point in me leaving, was there? Because I had nowhere to go and nothing to go to. I was never strong enough, or brave enough, to forge my own path, but for my child I would be strong and brave. As I buckled up the only possessions I could heft over my shoulder, I vowed never to let Noah find me. Or to let him lay hands on me, or my baby, again.

Next, I needed cash. The little that we had saved up could get me an Uber and a bus ticket out of town. It could get me a few nights in a seedy motel until I found something more permanent. To my benefit, Noah didn’t believe in banks. ‘That’s how the government keeps track of you,’ he warned ominously. ‘Money is how they control you.’ Noah was passionate that way. When he believed in something, or was against something, he followed through. So, instead of depositing his paychecks into the safekeeping of a federally insured bank, he cashed his checks and hid the money in a red Folgers coffee can on his dresser, the first place a thief in the night would look. Popping the lid off, I grabbed the entire wad of cash.

A dollar for my tears? How about interest?

Almost $500, I counted. Enough to catch a bus to the coast. Find a small town where I could start over. Raise my baby somewhere safe, and beachy, and sun-kissed. Somewhere far away from Noah.

I pocketed the bills, pausing to look at a picture sitting on my memory box, as I called it. The image contained me, Noah, and his parents back when we first started dating as teenagers. He’d been my friend through childhood, helped me survive losing my parents. Somewhere along the way the friendship turned to young, dumb love. I couldn’t leave behind my small wooden memory box, the only nice thing my father ever made me, full of both happy and crappy memories, so I placed the picture inside it and slid it into my duffel. Tossing the bag over my shoulder, I walked out the door, following the cracked concrete sidewalk toward an unknown future. I didn’t know where exactly I was going, but I knew where I was coming from. And I would never go back. My old story had been told, a tale about a victim. As my stride grew more confident, and the sidewalk more level, I wrote a new story. A story for my baby and for myself about a woman who became the