Chapter 4: The Midnight Bus

"Yes," I said. "I finished it."

I was still sitting on the floor with Rosalind's phone in my hand.

She crossed the room and took it from me gently, and her thumb went over the screen.

The screen went dark in her palm.

She had seen the message, and she knew I had seen it.

Her face stayed as soft as it had been all night.

"You've had a terrible day," she said. "Sleep, Willa. We'll sort it out in the morning."

She kissed my forehead and left.

I heard a key turn in the lock outside my door.

I sat on the bed until her footsteps were gone from the stairs.

Then I stood up and put on my coat.

Under my dress, on a chain against my skin, I wore my mother's ring.

Nobody had ever noticed it, not even Stuart.

The window over the porch roof had stuck all my life, and I forced it up with the heel of my hand.

The cold hit my face.

I climbed out in my stockings with my shoes in my fist, slid down the wet shingles and dropped into the hedge.

A branch tore the back of my hand, and I bit my lip to keep from making a sound.

I put one hand over my stomach.

"Stay with me," I whispered. "Please."

Rosalind's porch light came on above me.

I ran.

I ran down the street and through a neighbor's yard and across a field behind the gas station, with my shoes on the wrong feet.

By four in the morning I was at the bus terminal in the city.

There was a pawnbroker across the road with a light still on in the window.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Billionaire Regretted Losing His Invisible Wife from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.