CHAPTER 2 - ARIANNA
CHAPTER
Arianna
Now...
I HOVER NEAR THE DOOR, fighting to keep my balance as the tube clatters its way towards Battersea.
I hope my eyes aren’t darting around. I’m desperate not to make eye contact with anyone, convinced they’ll read my mind and pick between the lines of the swirling mess in my head and decipher in glaring clarity that I’ve just murdered my husband.
They might also somehow be able to tell that I’ve got something that belongs to him in my handbag.
Killing Roberto happened three hours ago now, but I was treading water within the anonymity of the busy station, watching and waiting to see if my family came looking for me to drag me kicking and screaming back to face the consequences.
In reality, it feels like only ten seconds since my husband was still the threat he’s always been, but the initial elation of being free from the monster I’ve been enslaved to for two long years has dissipated because I’ve only succeeded in making my life worse.
If I was asked yesterday, or even earlier today, if my life could be more unbearable, I’d have shaken my head with a resounding “no”. Not that I often voice my opinion - it’s not worth the fallout, but now I realize, albeit too late, that things can be worse.
Much worse.
Not only that, but I’m throwing myself out of the frying pan into the fire.
From what I’ve heard, where I’m trying to get to will be worse than anything.
But there’s no choice if I want to avoid bringing retaliation down on my parents, brother and sister’s heads.
Whatever my parents did to seal the hell of my life, I won’t shoulder the guilt of destroying them.
One ruined life is bad enough and that ruined life is mine.
Roberto’s doesn’t count. His life is over, and despite what that brings with it, I’m glad.
I crane my neck to peer above the other passengers on the train, my legs aching from keeping my balance as it thunders along.
“Sorry”, I mutter, quickly moving my hand as it brushes someone else’s fingers also holding on to the pole, although I don’t know why. I guess I’m used to apologizing, but I don’t have to anymore.
I hug my handbag closer and hope the ponytail I’ve hastily fashioned hides the bald patch I’ve inflicted on myself.
How I wish I hadn’t worn these Louboutins. There’s a man further down the carriage whose eyes burn holes into me. My heart pounds faster. Will he rob me of my shoes or attack me for a fix of drugs?
Put me back where I came from?
I’ve just killed a man, yet I have no clue how to defend myself.
I’ve never had to. No one crosses the Galvatores.
My father would tear a person limb from limb if anyone looked at me, my sister or my mother longer than a passing glance.
Anyone that is, short of the man he married me off to. That man was free to do what he liked.
Because I belong to him.
Did belong to him...
Not anymore.
All I’ve done for years - my whole life - is sit silently in my gilded cage, quietly plotting an impossible escape. One with no chance of metamorphosing into anything other than a pipe dream. Until now.
Feeling the tube train slow, my panic resurfaces. Is this the correct stop?
Shit, it is, so what do I do?
I’ve never been on a tube train because we’ve always had chauffeurs. In other people’s eyes I live like a princess, but I’d rather have had nothing if it meant not putting up with what happened. Or what I’m about to do now.
I move nearer to the door, my hands scrambling for another pole. I don’t know what I’m doing and only got this far by watching others on here.
With screeching and a beep, the doors fly open, and my unwilling legs propel me onto the platform. Hot air blasts into my face and pushes my hair into my eyes as the tube rumbles away. I’m swept up into the crowd lurching towards the exit.
Keeping my eyes averted and head down like everyone else, I continue. I have a rough idea of where I’m heading, but that’s about it.
What happens if these people won’t help me? Has that crossed my mind?
It matters little because it’s all I’ve got.
And that isn’t comforting.