The Great Escape

One night, you realise you’ve had enough. You’re lying in bed, watching patterns move on the ceiling, when the body next to you stirs and a heavy hand lands against your thigh. The face turns to yours and the smell of almonds washes over you. Your stomach heaves and then, that very moment, you realise you’ve had enough. Like a ghost, you rise from the bed and move soundlessly around the room, finding essentials- suitcase, toothbrush, towel. Your movements are steady and your heart is steadier still. The darkness gives you strength. 

It takes no time to shove your meagre belongings into the suitcase. Everything bought with your money goes in. It’s a pitiful amount. Your stomach heaves again and you think of almonds. 

The kids are asleep. Their door was left slightly ajar and through that sliver of space, you watch them sleep. Goodbyes should be tactile, spoken in touch and tears. Your eyes are dry, and you don’t dare touch the kids, but you burn their silhouettes to memory. They’ll hate you for this, but one day they might understand.  

You leave through the back door. It’s cold but you grit your teeth and begin the long, bitter journey to the train station. A trail of street-lights stretch from you to what seems like eternity. It’s quiet. Occasionally a car glides past, headlights zipping in the dark. Your trainers rub against your ankles. A pain begins to throb, shooting from your feet to your hip to your back. So when you get to the bridge, you pause to rest. Your breath comes out in white clouds, which makes you smile (reminds you of simpler times), and you lean over the bridge to watch the city below. All those lights - the world never sleeps. 

Your phone buzzes in your pocket. You freeze. It goes off stubbornly for a long minute, then is mute. Now your hands tremble, as you fish it out of your pocket and put it on silent - the call might not have even been from him, but that doesn’t matter. Nobody needs to know where you’re going. Snapped out of whatever dreamlike reverie, you begin to walk again. You can't stop shaking.

“Never again,” you say. “Never again.” And you repeat it, over and over, like a prayer, down the sorry journey to the station. 

***

It would be easy to say that you had been young when you’d met him - that you’d been naive and he’d taken advantage of that. But you knew what you were doing when you walked down that aisle. You knew the weight of marriage. You knew the man you were marrying. But you were just so tired - tired of thinking, of fighting. He’d promised you an easy life. When you signed away your life in court, you’d known exactly what he’d meant. 

But, one day, you wake up, and realise the clothes on your back aren’t yours. Your house isn’t yours. Your children aren’t yours. During the day, you do the chores and lie back on the couch, watching daytime TV. There are people fighting over who fucked who on national television, and you laugh, but it’s awful. Look at you - look at where you’ve come from and who you’ve become. You laugh, but a part of you watches you in horror. 

Then the kids come home and you cook. He comes home a little later and you welcome him with a kiss. The taste of almonds lingers. Look at who you’ve become. 

***

The sun is peeking over the horizon when you reach the station. You withdraw money from a nearby ATM - barely enough for a ticket. You’ll sort out the specifics when you get to where you’re going. The train station is empty- you’ve arrived too early for the gates to be closed. The platform is deserted. Your train is in thirty minutes. So you wait. 

As you wait, you remember. You remember a story you read, a long time ago, of a man who believed in paradise on Earth. He had grown up the son of a slave, and had intimate knowledge of human cruelty. He lived in a sick, dying world. But the man believed that, somewhere across the vast seas, there was a land with no suffering, no rape, no death. So he chased Paradise, even as the walls closed in around him and the earth began to burn. 

You cried reading the book, and you cry now. You cry until you’re sick with it, until your eyes are raw and your stomach heaves. You cry for - for what? For your kids, for Paradise and lost time. God, you’ve wasted so much time. You cry until you’re numb. 

The train arrives. Your mind is blank as you step into it and find a seat in an empty carriage. You lean against the window and watch as you’re towed out of the city you’ve called home for years. It’s hard to care. You cried it all out on the station, and now you’ve left the station - far, far behind. 

The train pulls into a tunnel. It breaks out- pure light hurts your eyes and makes you squint.  

You call him three stops away. There’s background noise when he answers - the kids getting ready for school probably.

“What’s all this then?” he says. His voice is rough and you think of all the sweet words he peddled you with that voice. 

“I’m leaving you,” you say, and the reality hits you. The words are out, the deed is done.  

“Oh yeah?” he says. He’s amused. He’s mocking you. In the background, you hear the kids’ voices. He tells one of them to hurry up - they leave for school in five. You can’t pretend it doesn’t hurt. 

“I’m leaving you,” you repeat. “Even if I loved you, I’d still leave you.” 

He laughs long and hard. 

“You say - you say the strangest things.” He’s so winded from laughing he barely gets the words out. “Alright then. You throw your tantrum, have your little fit. I’m not chasing you. Sweetheart, I know you - you’ll come back to me -”

You cut the call. 

“You don’t know me,” you spit, as loud as you like, because you’re alone in the carriage, alone in the world. “You don’t know anything about me.” 

He’s underestimated you. His image of you is a sham. He knows too little about you to be a threat. And your anger suddenly dissolves, because isn’t it wonderful that the man you married is too proud to chase you? You’ve gained your freedom at a generous price. It’s a better deal than what most get. 

So you relax into the cheap train seats, and watch the landscape change from your window view. At the end of the journey is a town that might be Paradise.