Page 28 of Cain

It was just something people said.

But as I stood back as her car sputtered to life, then watched her pull out of the lot, I hoped she took me up on it.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Georgie

I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying to pull myself together. School was out, and the parking lot was filling up with parents and kids with too much energy. None of them needed to watch my post-attorney-call crash out.

I mean, it was no surprise that Perry was contesting the divorce. He hated losing. He hated losing control more than anything. And that was what I was trying to take from him.

“He’s denying the grounds for the divorce,” my lawyer said in his resigned, matter-of-fact voice. “He’s saying he doesn’t agree that there are irreconcilable differences and that the marriage hasn’t broken down.”

The marriage had been broken from day one.

“Well, he can’t force me to stay married to him,” I said, tone rising. “What happens now?”

That got a slow exhale out of my lawyer, making the hairs on my arms raise. “Knowing what you’ve said so far about your husband, I think he is going to drag this out. Make it as painful and expensive as possible in the hopes that you will just drop it.”

“Drop it? Drop it and what? Move back in with him? Pick up where we left off?”

Where we left off was him finally raising his hand to me. Something I think a part of me had always known was coming someday. But that hadn’t stopped it from being the most jarring, shocking, horrifying day of my life. Because there was no more justifying his actions.

Some part of me had been able to believe that the rigid control over my life, my body, everything, was his way of improving me, of shaping me into the woman he knew I could be. Not the poor girl from the wrong side of town who barely scraped by through high school and thought a twenty-dollar bottle of wine was fancy.

But the second his fist collided with my face, it forced me to confront it all at once.

The years of abuse.

The thousands of hours of me trying to convince myself that my husband simply wanted what was best for me.

Because no one who wanted what was best for you raised their hand to you. There was no way for me to qualify that action.

The punch hadn’t just bruised.

It had blown up my entire life.

And while the wreckage had given me my freedom, it was still an explosion; I was still picking up the pieces.

It seemed like the next steps would be Perry’s lawyer and my lawyer going before a judge. Thankfully, I didn’t have to go. Neither did Perry. I wouldn’t have to face him. Yet.

But I would have to pay for my lawyer’s time.

So that was another several hundred dollars between the meeting itself, prep, and communication.

I wiped my cheeks, trying to remind myself that if this was the price for freedom, then it was worth every penny. And every hour walking up and down grocery store aisles looking for the very specific spice I’d never even heard of in my life. For a two-dollar tip.

But it was my money.

That I earned.

That I controlled.

That was why it would be worth it to have to pull ten-hour shifts for a few weeks to be able to afford rent, food, personal expenses, and my lawyer.

It was doable.

Especially if it was the next step in permanently removing Perry from my life.