Chapter 5
I could almost picture Bradley’s furious. expression. I could also imagine my mother’s hysterical reaction. But none of that mattered to me anymore.
I pulled out my SIM card and threw it into the trash. Suddenly, the world around met became quiet.
As I sat on the plane, watching the clouds. drift by, it felt as though everything from my past was bidding me farewell. My childhood, my love, my family, everything.
I knew that no matter how angry Bradley got, he wouldn’t chase me to another country. As for my mother, she’d likely sit at home, cursing me day after day. Neither of them would change their lives for me.
The two people I once cherished the most were, from this moment on, no longer part of my life. For the first time in a long while, I slept soundly on the plane.
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There were no nightmares to wake me up, nor Bradley’s calls to disturb me. In my dreams, there was no past, only the future.
After getting off the plane, I saw Merryl excitedly waving at me. Her smile froze when she noticed the scars and bruises on my body. She asked, “Yasmine, what happened to you? What’s wrong with your head? And your hand… you’ve lost so much weight.”
“It hasn’t been that long, but I can hardly recognize you. What did Bradley do to you?” Merryl gently blew on my wounds, her tears falling like pearls from a broken string.
I patted her shoulder and said, “It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt. It’s all in the past.” But even as I said that, my heart ached.
In all this time, Merryl was the only person who genuinely cared about me. Everyone else thought I was just being unreasonable. Only she asked if I was in pain.
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As I stood there in a daze, Merryl suddenly hugged me tightly. With a warm embrace, she silently comforted me.
Then, she took me to her home and patiently helped me analyze and introduce companies that suited me. “Yasmine, I’m so glad you made the decision to cut your losses at the most critical moment. You’re only thirty, still so young. Your life should have countless possibilities, not… being Bradley’s mistreated maid,” she said.
I looked down at my hands. I suddenly thought of Veronica’s delicate fingers in the photos, adorned with a sparkling diamond ring and perfectly manicured nails.
A carefree, pampered life, one where her hands never had to do any chores, was something that had never belonged to me. Every day, I did laundry, cooked and took care of Bradley’s every need.
He had a cleanliness obsession, he couldn’t stand even a single strand of hair on the floor. The wooden floors were hard to
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maintain. Sometimes, I had to kneel down and scrub them over and over.
But no matter how clean I made them, Bradley and Veronica would always trample over them, dirtying the floor again. Then he would complain that I was useless, unable to handle even the smallest tasks.
I had enough of those tedious, never- ending days. Seeing me remain silent, Merryl patted my shoulder and said, “Don’t dwell on the past anymore.”
“I know,” I said as I held her hand in return. Life was full of suffering, but only we can save ourselves.
I had worked hard to crawl out of one pit after another. No matter what, I wasn’t going to let myself fall back in. I gave my all to prepare for job interviews.
I had braced myself for rejection, but to my surprise, after talking with me, the interviewer praised me highly, “Miss Hunt, it’s a real pity that someone as talented as
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you has been out of work for so long. Our company would be delighted to have you!”
I was somewhat taken aback by the compliment. After all, in my years with Bradley, he had only ever belittled me, slowly eroding my confidence and making. me feel unworthy.
I had never imagined that someone as ordinary as myself could be seen as brilliant in someone else’s eyes.
It felt like I had been reborn. I
enthusiastically threw myself into a new
life.
hat is, until the day I moved out and an unexpected guest barged back into my life.
