Yours Suddenly

Chapter 9

Alexandra

It's lucky I have cash in my purse to pay for my flight. I normally use his Amex Black Card to buy whatever I want, but I don't want the transactions popping up on his phone and telling him where I’m going since he clearly wants to stop me. Not that he should care to stop me. Keri or Annalise or whatever is clearly all he needs.

A sob threatens to escape me as I give the gorgeous flight attendant my boarding pass.

“You look… fabulous ,” she says. Glamorous Versace is a little much for a flight from New York to Portland, Oregon.

“Thank you, you too,” I say to her.

It feels surreal when the flight rises into the air, taking me away from my home. I glance at my phone screen, the airplane-mode icon glowing next to the battery one. Twenty-nine missed calls from Roman. Eight missed calls from Adrianne. As the adrenaline from my confronting my husband ebbs from me, it's then I realize what I'm doing is pretty stupid. Impulsive. Insane, even. I hope Roman doesn't give Adrianne a hard time.

I text him leave Adrianne and Freddy out of this , and to Adrianne I text I'm fine I just need a little break i’ll be back and then switch off my phone and try to get some sleep even though tears are running down my face.

Is what I'm doing dramatic? Very . But I need a break. I need to reset.

My maternal grandfather’s side of the family is from Oregon, and sometimes Mom, Dad, Evie and I would spend summers there. This is a detail Roman is not aware of, as far as I know.

We arrive in Portland at 4 a.m. local time. I linger in a business lounge, a throbbing in my temple, until daylight creeps in through the vast windows. Then I take an Uber from the airport to a small town called Hereford that's sixty miles from the Portland city center. The Uber driver drops me off at a cozy B&B where I pay the nice elderly lady at the front the amount for a week of stay.

I freshen up in a tiny old bathroom that smells of bleach and then find a local clothes store where I get some jeans, a pair of sneakers, and a couple of oversized T-shirts. Hereford is not the town my grandad was from, that would be Peterson. There's no way I'm visiting Peterson because I have too many good memories with family there, I'll just end up crying more, so I came to Hereford instead because of the horse ranch.

There’s something therapeutic about horses and their big, silky muscular bodies. The owner of the ranch isn't the same friendly one I remember from when we visited years ago, though. This time it's a large, mean-looking man I meet in the ranch office. Inwardly I sigh at the way he ogles me, but I really do want a job here.

“Yes, we're hiring,” he says. “We don't usually take on females for our hands, but I'll make an exception for ya.”

He winks. It's not a good idea to get a job here, clearly, but I need horse therapy. In my pocket, my phone begins to vibrate again with yet another of my husband’s calls. Defiance rises in me, but it also occurs to me that Adrianne and Mama could think I'm in trouble. Or done something to hurt myself.

After signing the paperwork to start work tomorrow, I leave the ranch office and its lascivious owner and text Roman I'm okay. I just need some time away. I'll come back.

And divorce you.

A little dramatic, maybe, but I can't do other women. My parents were extremely faithful and devoted to each other. Almost to the point of annoying everyone else in our town.

I wanted that for myself, to annoy other people with how much in love I was.

Why even get married if you're going to cheat? Like what's the point?

I know men who get married just to have somebody to cook for them and clean for them and give them children while going out and sleeping with other women.

But Roman doesn't need somebody to cook or clean after him. He doesn't need someone to run his household…

I start my new job the next day and immediately regret it.

When I thought about working at a horse ranch, I thought about giving the horses scratches on their noses and petting their smooth coats and wearing cute plaid shirts. Instead, I'm assigned the job of mucking the stables because I’m new. Fair enough. The other ranch hands are friendly – though I had to initially convince them I’m not really a city girl like they think I am – but the owner is making it extremely likely I'm going to quit when he starts to flirt with me.

I remind him, in a friendly way, that I'm married.

“I don't see a ring on you,” he grunts as I carry a bucket of horseshit to empty by a manure dump.

I can tell he's getting annoyed.

I'm getting annoyed too.

“Well obviously I left it at my place, I wouldn't bring a diamond ring to a horse ranch, now would I?” I snap.

He doesn't take kindly to that and for the rest of the day, he’s all irritable with me.

When I don't do a good job, apparently, of de-shitting the stables, he gets pissed. Personally, I think I did a great job, even the other ranch hands said I did, but it looks like he's just looking for something to be negative about.

When I ask him what specifically is wrong with the stables and tell him there isn't any freaking shit I see, he shoves me into the wall and I hit it hard, falling on the hay-strewn floor. Stunned, I look up at him, but he connects his boots to the back of my neck as I try to get away. White-hot pain spreads through me as he kicks me again in the same spot.

“Don't you ever answer back at me, fucking bitch,” he says. He spits and then walks away as I lie there in disbelief, my neck throbbing in pain.

After an eternity, I stand up gingerly and walk out, going back to the B&B. The lady that owns the place gives me one of her nice smiles and I try to give one back but as soon as I pass by the door to my room, I burst into tears.

I miss my mom so much. If the accident hadn't happened, I would still be in Wisconsin right now.

If I hadn't stayed at home that night, I would have died too.

Instead, I'm in Oregon, which I've never been to without my family and I don’t even know what I’m doing here and I just got kicked in my fucking neck. Probably got a broken bone somewhere. I get into bed, curling into a ball under the sheets.