Emmie glanced out the window to look outside. There...in the distance...she saw him. He was standing alongside the building, smoking a cigarette. Most likely thinking about her. She shuddered. How she hated that man! The way he made her feel, the inconsiderate comments about her appearance, and the constant reminders of how it was all her fault she lost the baby, "his heir". SHE was somehow to blame for being able to sustain a pregnancy to term!

With shaking hands, she grabbed the duffel bag she had stashed behind the linens in the third shelf in the hall closet. Glancing inside, she confirmed it had all she would need to get by for a while.

"Move it," she whispered aloud. She had to leave NOW or else Jake would come back in and never let her go.

At one time, Emmie thought she loved him, but he was really too much of a brute. In the year and a half they had been married, they had maybe one good month. After that, she became pregnant, and then lost the baby. Jake seemed to go off the deep end from then on. If he didn't like her responses to questions he asked, he'd slap her in the face. Call her names. Sneer at her. And still expect her to be the ever-adoring wife. Yeah, right!

Emmie's stomach flip-flopped as she considered this decision to leave this life behind. In her mind, it was a matter of survival-not that she feared for her life so much, but more her sanity. Her heart was shattered, but at least it felt numb now, so she couldn't feel sadness over getting a divorce. She was mostly filled with worry over what their families would say. No one knew how Jake really treated her-and any odd behavior she might have exhibited around them, they mistook for her sadness over losing the baby. She just never bothered to correct them, because she didn't know what she would have done as a divorced woman. She had always felt that marriage was for life, and divorce was only when people gave up on fixing their marriage. Well, since Jake had no intention of changing, and she had done nothing BUT change on his account, it was all fruitless.

She let herself out the front door, cautious not to make a sound. In their apartment building, they shared a central hallway that could easily magnify sounds outside by opening and shutting a door. Thank goodness they were on the first floor, and Jake would have no need to use the stairs to get back in. She crept halfway upstairs and around the corner, so that he wouldn't see her when he came back in after his smoke.

Bang. The main door opened, and Emmie could hear Jake's footsteps. She wrinkled her nose, but didn't move. Even from where she was, she could smell the pungent odor of Winston Light's. Yuck. She heard Jake open their apartment door. It clicked close.

Now was her chance! Emmie snaked back down the steps, praying none of her neighbors would pass by and wonder what she was doing. Before she knew it, she was out of the building, putting that old life behind.

Learn more about this author, Natasha L. Kohlhoff Polak.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about Novel excerpts: Survival?
We want to hear your view. Write now!