Exit Wounds

The lightning flashed again, illuminating the bedroom where I'd spent seven years learning to disappear. Mark's back was turned to me, his breathing even and infuriatingly peaceful. He never woke during storms.

I was already packed. Two suitcases, a box of books, and Carrier, the cat I'd rescued from behind the dumpster when Mark was out of town on business. The cat—my cat—watched me with yellow eyes from his carrier, judging me for the tears tracking down my face.

"Shh," I whispered, scratching his nose through the wire door. "We're not running away. We're running toward."

I wasn't sure I believed it.

The dog next door—Mark's brother's place, where we spent every Thanksgiving—barked at something in the storm. That dog loved everyone. Even me, when I showed up with store-bought pie and a smile that felt like cracking glass.

My phone lit up with a message from my boss: *Client meeting at 9. Don't be late.*

I typed *I quit* and hit send before I could talk myself out of it. Seven years of graduate school, six figures of debt, three promotions, and I was leaving it all in the middle of the night with a cat carrier and a purse full of cash I'd been siphoning from our joint account for months.

The house groaned in the wind.

I lifted the carrier. Carrier meowed—complaining, as usual.

"I know," I said. "But you're coming with me this time."

The last time I left, I came back. That was three years ago, before the wedding, when I spent two weeks at my sister's before Mark promised he'd change. He didn't. I just got better at hiding.

The dog next door barked again. Or maybe it was a different dog now. I'd stopped noticing things like that.

Outside, the air was thick and electric. My car was packed. Lightning split the sky as I opened the driver's side door, and for a second, everything was bright as noon, bright as truth.

I got in. Started the engine.

In the rearview, the house looked smaller than it had any right to. A container for a life I'd outgrown.

I put the car in drive and didn't look back again.