Chapter Four
Catalina
Minneapolis is nice. I’ve been here for two weeks, now, and it hasn’t taken long to get acclimated to it.
It’s a pleasant mix of small town and big city, and the people are kind and friendly.
I don’t think anyone will think to look for me here, and I was careful not to leave traces.
The first thing I did while I was in the Uber I ordered to pick me up from near Papa’s house was to buy a plane ticket on the next available flight—to Florida.
I put it on Papa’s credit card. I don’t think he’ll be able to find out that I never actually got on it.
As soon as I got back to my apartment, I crammed everything I couldn’t leave behind into a suitcase, hit up an ATM for all the cash I could get, dropped my car off in airport parking, and caught a cab to the bus station.
Nine hours later, I’d arrived in a new state, with only a suitcase to my name and a little under a thousand dollars—the maximum I was able to withdraw before I hit my daily limit, plus the emergency fund I kept stashed in my underwear drawer.
Only a week ago, I had my future planned out.
A teaching job lined up, making use of my years of education.
Now I know that it was all a waste. My future has already been decided for me.
Bartered away by my family. My own feelings and opinions just as immaterial and unimportant as those silent Russo women who said nothing and stared blankly as their husbands ridiculed them.
I don’t intend to become one of them.
But there is a price for my freedom, my own sacrifices which have to be made.
I don’t know how far the Russo family’s criminal reach extends, to what lengths they might go to recover me.
It means I can’t use my identification or my degree.
It means I had to cut up all my bank cards, and I can only rely on the meager supply of cash I managed to take with me.
It means I’m living in a roach-infested motel because it costs just forty-five dollars per night and the owner didn’t ask for my identification. It means I had to take the very first under-the-table job I could find, because what money I do have won’t last long.
Luckily for me, the job is a decent one.
Darren—the owner of an independent coffee shop—took pity on me when I told him the stripped-down story of my life.
I didn’t lie, exactly, but I also omitted enough information to keep myself anonymous.
He thinks I’m on the run from my controlling family—which is true enough—though I’m fairly certain he left that conversation with more of a cult impression than I had intended.
I was a barista at the campus coffee shop in college for a few weeks, before Papa decided that he didn’t want me working the closing shift.
I’m a bit rusty on the espresso machine and the milk frother, but on my hour-long trial shift, I do well enough that Darren is confident I can handle a full shift with minimum training, and just like that… I have a job.
The pay is just above minimum wage, but even that is enough that I can pay for my motel in three hours of work.
The tips are split at the end of every shift, and the staff is allowed a free food item every shift, so I don’t even have to waste money on lunch.
It’s not a lot, but it’s a small measure of stability that I desperately need.
I can’t do this forever, but if I can just stay hidden long enough for Papa’s family to give up on me, then maybe I can come out of hiding one day.
If I can live frugally enough and save up some money, then maybe in a few months I can move somewhere even farther away.
Get a new bank account. Update my resume.
Finally put my master’s to use and get a job as a teacher.
Maybe one day, all of this will feel more like taking a gap year than running for my life.
Until then, I’m scanning news sites every day for my name.
For Papa’s. For the Russos in general. Searching for the faintest bit of hope that whatever crimes they committed, whatever debt I was meant to be payment for, is no longer a problem.
Maybe one day, Papa will forgive me for running. Maybe one day, I’ll forgive him for going along with his family’s plan. Maybe one day we’ll be on speaking terms again.
For now, I feel…not safe, exactly. Safer, though, than I was.
The family might be looking for me, but if they were capable of tracking me, I’m sure they would have found me already.
Leaving my car at the airport was probably enough to misdirect them for a little while.
But I’m not stupid enough to log into any accounts that could be traced back to me.
My one indulgence is the occasional text to Nicky’s burner phone, which is probably at the bottom of the river or something. I know in my heart that it’s stupid. That he’s dead and he’s never going to answer. That even if he were alive, he wouldn’t.
But it makes me feel grounded. He can’t talk back, can’t reject me, can’t make me feel inferior with his dismissive bullshit.
Now, Nicky is the custodian of my secrets.
In death, he protects me in a way he never wanted to when he was alive.
It makes me feel better, somehow, to have someone to confide in…
even if it’s someone who never wanted to know me in the first place.
Nobody knew about his burner phone, so I know he’ll take my secrets to the grave. After all, he’s already in it.