Page 6 of Traces Of You

If she didn’t take the plunge now, she’d chicken out forever. There was nothing left to lose, not after Oliver had thrown her against the wall like she was a rag doll. The night wasn’t over, not by a long shot. It never ended quietly. It always got worse.

She pressed on the cap of the pill bottle, twisted, then shook two of them out and slipped them into her pocket.

When she returned to the kitchen, Randy was gone and Oliver was there looking into the cabinets and pulling out a bag of chips.

How the hell could he be so calm about the destruction of his house?

“I’m starting dinner now,” she said.

“Good,” he snapped. “You can clean up in here while you do it.”

Maureen found it odd that the kitchen looked the same as usual, but someone had trashed the rest of the house.

She grabbed ground beef from the fridge, formed it into patties, and placed them in the pan she’d cleaned and left on the stovetop the previous night.

While the burgers were cooking, she closed all the cabinets in the kitchen, noticed Oliver on the couch with his feet up and the TV on. At least he put the cushions back, but that was all he’d touched.

She popped a rice package in the microwave but cleaned nothing else. It was best to have the kitchen stay the same.

When the patties were done, she looked over her shoulder to make sure Oliver couldn’t see her.

He was too absorbed in his phone. The TV was blasting loudly and giving her a headache, but she knew she had to keep a clear head for this to go down tonight.

She crushed two sleeping pills into the burger, covered them with cheese, and waited until the cheddar melted. The microwave dinged, she added the cooked rice to a plate, his burger on the bottom half of a bun, then dumped ketchup all over it before placing the top bun on it.

How she was going to eat with him, she didn’t know, but she’d need her strength to pull this off.

She brought his plate out and handed it over like the little servant she’d become. She didn’t even know how her life had turned into this.

She never had goals or aspirations like other people did. It was all living in the moment and trying to survive.

She was finally going to!

“Where are you going?”

“To eat in the kitchen,” she said.

“No,” he said firmly. “You know the rules. We eat together.”

She took a deep breath, went back to make her plate and returned as if the ankle chains on her feet were keeping her tethered to the wall. She’d be free soon enough.

He was halfway through his burger. She hoped to hell he didn’t notice the pills, but she’d pushed them in as best as she could and he barely chewed his food anyway.

If he found out what she was doing, she’d be lucky to walk into the ER this time.

She took a bite of her burger, chewed but struggled to swallow past the lump in her throat.

Could she do this?

She didn’t think she had much of a choice.

He’d never let her leave. He’d proven that already.

She’d be trapped here.

The one time she left, he found her and brought her back. Made promises she knew he wouldn’t keep, but the fact he found her so easily and threatened to have her arrested for theft of his property, which she hadn’t done, had her leaving her friend’s house to not cause trouble for them.

As big as Gainesville was, Oliver knew enough people and talked his way out of all the accidents that always seemed to happen around and to her.