“I will be out in thirty minutes,” I said.
Then I turned and walked away.
No one stopped me.
I went upstairs to the bedroom that had once been ours.
It had not felt like ours for a long time.
Julian had not slept there in over a year.
I opened the walk-in closet and looked at the designer gowns Arthur had bought for me.
Not as gifts.
As costumes.
Clothes meant to make me acceptable.
Presentable.
Less embarrassing.
I did not touch them.
I left the diamonds.
The pearls.
The shoes.
The handbags.
The silk dresses.
Every beautiful thing that had made me feel smaller.
At the back of the closet, I found the old suitcase I had arrived with three years earlier.
It was scratched and worn, covered in faded stickers from places I had once dreamed of visiting.
That suitcase was mine.
I changed out of the expensive dress and put on jeans and a plain white T-shirt.
Clothes I had bought with my own money.