Grace (Five minutes freewrite)

The girl walks down the street, gym bag slung carelessly over her shoulder, praying to God that nobody notices her shaky legs or the small vein that keeps pulsing at the corner of her left eye, as it always does when she’s nervous. Of course, Benny would notice the little twitch, he knows her only too well. She knows he’s watching her, he does that every time she leaves the house, not because he already misses her, but to find fault with her too cheerful hello to the delivery boy loading his bike in front of the pizzeria. Or her swaying her hips like a whore. But he’s too far up, there at the window of their third floor apartment, to notice the tell-tale twitch when she turns to wave at him so everyone on the street can witness her little love tribute to her one and only. The love of her life. The one she couldn’t live without…
The without part she’d got it figured long time ago, it’s the live part she needs to focus on now. For the time being, this means making it to the corner and disappear down the stairs to the tube she usually takes to get to the gym. Only she’s not going to the gym today. She’s going to the bus station, she needs to get out of town fast. Before he finds out.
She’s not sure where she’s headed, and it doesn’t matter as long as it is far away from here. Her plan is to change several buses, maybe even hitchhike a bit, to make sure he loses her track, because he will try to find her, she’s sure of that. If not to bring her home at least to get back the money that she stole from him this morning.
But it’ll be at least three hours until he starts wondering where the hell is she and even then chances are he’ll be too drunk to go looking for her. Enough time to put some distance between them.

The driver gives a cursory look to the young woman making her away towards the end of the bus, although there’s plenty of seats, but discards her from his memory. ‘Too skinny!’
Grace settles into a seat by the window and allows herself a sigh of relief. Plenty of things to worry lie in wait, but for now all that matters is that she did it. Her hand sneaks into her purse to retrieve the thing most dear to her. She checks once again the empty seats around her before she takes out the little picture and for the first time in many months her eyes well up. Her index traces the lines of the tiny face, careful not to smudge the picture. She feels the love for that small alien-looking baby filling her heart, the warm feeling that her life has meaning again, that the past can be undone. Some things cannot be undone, though, and the sweet tears of joy turn sour as she remembers the other baby, the one who didn’t have a chance. The baby murdered in the womb that night when Benny got her drunk and forced those pills down her throat. She doesn’t remember much of those days - only that she cried and kicked at the pillows and was very very sick. When she woke up she was no longer pregnant and Benny was happy he won’t have to worry about no baby.
Her other hand pats the womb that’s not showing yet and she whispers to her baby: ‘Don’t worry, Mommy will keep you safe’.

Story written for @mariannewest's freewrite challenge. Today's prompt was: Feel the love! Check out her blog and join our freewrite community.

Thanks for reading!

Image: Pixabay