After His Mistress Had Me Beaten, I Disappeared

Josie found me on the floor of the supply room.

She told me later that I'd called her first. Left a voicemail. My voice slurred and broken. She couldn't make out the words but she knew something was wrong. She drove to Mount Sinai. Asked security. Checked every floor.

I don't remember calling her.

I remember the fluorescent lights. The hum of the vents. The sticky warmth of blood on my temple. The way my ribs felt like broken glass every time I breathed.

Then Josie's face. Her hands on my shoulders. Her voice saying my name over and over.

The ambulance came. They put me on a stretcher. Asked questions I couldn't answer. Josie answered for me. She rode with me. Held my hand the entire time.

Two cracked ribs. Laceration above my left eye. Seven stitches. The doctor said I was lucky. That it could've been worse.

I sat in the waiting room afterward. Josie beside me. A thin hospital blanket wrapped around my shoulders. I stared at the wall. White paint. A poster about hand hygiene.

I wasn't crying. I should've been. But I wasn't.

"I'm going to Seattle," I said.

Josie didn't ask why. Didn't tell me to think it over. She just nodded. "I know. I've already been looking at apartments."

She pulled out her phone. Showed me a listing. Small studio. Affordable. Available immediately.

"I'll wire you money tonight," she said. "Emergency funds. You don't have to pay me back."

I looked at her. "Josie—"

"Don't." Her voice was firm. "You'd do it for me."

She was right. I would.

I nodded.

We sat there until the sun came up.

The next three days passed in a blur of mechanical precision.

I packed one suitcase. Clothes. Toiletries. The battered notebook I'd started keeping. Nothing else. Everything I owned fit into fifty pounds.

I went to the bank. Withdrew my remaining cash. Counted out forty thousand dollars in hundreds. My hands didn't shake. I felt nothing.

I found an envelope in my desk drawer. Plain white. I placed the money inside. Sealed it. Wrote a single note on a torn piece of paper:

*Consider every debt—emotional and financial—paid in full. Don't look for me.*

I folded it. Slid it into the envelope.

Then I drove to Atticus's apartment.

It was Tuesday afternoon. He'd be at the hospital. Rounds until six. I still had his key. The one he gave me sophomore year. *Use it when you want to surprise me*, he'd said.

I unlocked the door. Stepped inside.

The apartment smelled like his cologne. Coffee. The faint scent of Katalina's perfume.

I walked to his desk. Set the envelope down. Centered it perfectly on the leather mat.

I looked around the apartment one last time. The couch where we used to watch movies. The kitchen where I made him breakfast before exams. The bedroom I would never see again.

I felt nothing.

I walked out. Locked the door behind me. Went downstairs to the mailbox. Dropped his key through the slot.

It clinked as it hit the metal bottom.

Done.

I booked a red-eye flight to Seattle. Josie drove me to the airport. She didn't ask if I was sure. Didn't tell me to reconsider. She just hugged me at the curb. Hard. Long.

"Call me when you land," she said.

"I will."

"I mean it, Grace. The second you land."

"I promise."

She pulled back. Her eyes were wet. Mine weren't.

I walked into the terminal. Checked my suitcase. Went through security. Sat at the gate and stared at the departures board.

Flight 247 to Seattle. Boarding at 11:45 PM.

I didn't look at my phone. Didn't check to see if Atticus had found the envelope. Didn't care.

When they called my boarding group, I stood. Walked down the jetway. Found my seat by the window.

The plane took off at midnight.

I pressed my forehead against the glass. Watched the lights of New York shrink below me. All those buildings. All those people. All those years.

I didn't look back.

Seattle was raining when I landed.

I called Josie from baggage claim. She answered on the first ring.

"I'm here," I said.

"Good." Her voice was thick with relief. "You're going to be okay, Grace. I promise."

I wanted to believe her.

The apartment Josie found was in a neighborhood I didn't know. Small. Clean. Affordable. But I couldn't move in for three weeks. Lease issues. Paperwork.

So I stayed in a budget motel near the airport. Forty dollars a night. Thin walls. A bed that sagged in the middle. A card table I bought at Goodwill.

I set up my laptop. Printed resumes at the FedEx down the street. Made a list of every pharmaceutical company in the Seattle area.

Then I started calling.

The first office hung up after fifteen seconds.

The second told me they weren't hiring.

The third let me talk for a full minute before saying no.

I called forty-seven prospects that first day. Got three callbacks. I wrote it down in my notebook.

*Called 47 prospects today. 3 callbacks. Progress.*

I ate instant noodles for dinner. Fell asleep with my laptop open.

The next day, I called sixty prospects.

Four callbacks.

I wrote it down.

The day after that, seventy-two calls.

Five callbacks.

I kept going.

Every rejection felt like a door slamming. But I didn't stop. I couldn't. Because stopping meant going back. And I was never going back.

I stared at my reflection in the motel bathroom mirror. Stitches above my eye. Bruises on my ribs. Circles under my eyes.

I looked like someone who'd survived something.

I was.