Julie walked up to the sheltered bus stop, sweating from walking two miles even on this cool February afternoon. It was mid-afternoon and she didn’t know how long she had before Seth came home to find her gone. She’d left the clothing, shoes and jewelry he’d bought for her behind, only taking things she’d already owned or had bought with her own money.

            When she scanned the posted schedule for bus route 45, she cursed to realize she’d missed the previous bus by five minutes and there was a 25 minute wait for the next one.  Her greyhound bus to Seattle didn’t leave until seven this evening, but any delay or hitch in her plans felt like a bad sign.  She was desperate to be gone. 

   Even standing here on the street corner, she felt vulnerable. There wasn’t another person in sight on this pale gray afternoon. Even the 7-11 across the street looked empty, only two cars in the tiny parking lot. Not that she expected anyone else to stand up to Seth on her behalf, but there was safety in numbers.  Seth had a reputation to uphold in town—he wouldn’t want to drag her back home kicking and screaming in front of even casual witnesses for fear of who might hear about it, later. 

It would be kicking and screaming, this time. And it wasn’t home, just Seth’s condominium and the seat of all her misery and trouble. She had been planning her escape since Thanksgiving, carefully scrounging and  saving up money for the bus ticket to Seattle in increments of one or two dollars at a time.  She'd done any internet searches related to her plans on public computers at the library rather than on Seth’s computer, made any important calls on public phones to leave no clues on the cell phone he'd supplied.

 Seth had been contrite, tried to sweet talk forgiveness from her,  showered her with Christmas presents. For all the good it had done him since her love for him was dead as of Thanksgiving Night. He hadn’t truly beaten her since then, but she knew she had to get out while she could. All  through January and February, she'd counted her money and the days until today February 24th, her target departure date one month before her thirtieth birthday.  She’d hidden the accumulated cash in various hiding places so that Seth wouldn’t find her whole stash at once, should he become suspicious enough to look  for it.

        Despite her present anxiety, Julie felt a fierce joy at having closed the door on that upscale condominium for the last time.  The lush complex with its carefully maintained  landscaping, the rec room and the two pools were no haven—to her, it had been hell.  Safe from external threats maybe, but never safe from Seth, who didn’t have to hit her to hurt and belittle her.  Not that he had refrained from hitting her when he was angry enough.  It was good to be back in this neighborhood where she’d lived on her own terms with her friend Tina during her first year in San Diego. Tina had been all too right about Seth.  She wished she dared take the time to call Tina now and tell her she was leaving Seth. But the cell phone was another thing she'd left behind.

            Julie worked the front door key off her pocket key chain and dropped it through the metal grate in the gutter near the street corner nearest the bus stop. It fell down satisfyingly far out of reach, glinting in the weak winter  sunlight.  Too bad the gutter was dry and only full of leaves and trash—or no, not only trash.  Julie   spotted the grimy white page edges of a paperback book amid the dead leaves, and picked up a worn but whole copy of Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. She stepped back up on the curb, feeling as if she’d picked up a talisman.   Mom had read The Lord of the Rings to aloud to her and her two older sisters before the divorce, before Julie had any thought of her life ever being unhappy or unsafe. She would take  this as a good omen. Seattle was home after all, while the hobbits were heading into a strange, dangerous world pursued by Black Riders. Seth was quite bad enough of course, but at least there weren’t nine of him.   Julie crammed the book into a side pocket of her back pack and crossed the street. She had time to pick up food and water for the bus trip home at the 7-11; better in there than sitting here in plain sight if Seth came driving past looking for her.

           Afraid to miss the next bus, she shopped quickly,  glad the cashier paid her no attention other than to ring up her purchases.  It was a relief to see other people were waiting at the bus stop when she returned, too.  An older black woman sat on the bench under the shelter  looking as if she were too tired to ever get up again, and a young Latina mother sat beside her, cooing at her baby in a stroller. Who was the man in her life, Julie wondered. Was he loved and trusted, or feared? Four teenaged boys stood in clump near the corner street light.  

            Julie kept her backpack on, wanting to be ready to get on the bus the minute it arrived. The bus fare was counted out and ready in her jeans pocket  so that she needn’t hunt for her change purse. She’d eat her Twinkies once she was on board and the bus was moving. She’d bought them purely out of  nostalgia--officially, they’d been forbidden at home with two health-food minded parents. But she and her sisters had always been united in a conspiracy to buy junk food whenever they’d saved up enough allowance. Funny to think how all that  strategic childhood  plotting and knowing how to find obscure  but effective hiding places had paid off during the past few weeks.  She’d been able to carry out her plans to leave Seth right under his nose without his suspecting a thing. She stood three quarters turned away from the street and pulled out The Fellowship of the Ring. She would read while she waited for the bus—it would keep her from going crazy with fear and suspense.

***           

        Seth fumed behind the wheel of his Acura as he waited at a red light, unsure where to start looking for Julie first.   “Enough is enough. Goodbye, asshole” was all she’d written on the note he’d found on a post-it note stuck to the kitchen table. He felt blindsided, betrayed. He should be home watching Julie make dinner, not scouring the city for her at this time of day. Where might she go? She’d lived in this part of town with her roommate Tina when she and he had met two years ago. Tina might have moved of course, but that crummy apartment complex was a starting place.  He was the source of all Julie’s cash, and rarely gave her more than twenty or thirty dollars at time.  Probably couldn’t even leave city limits on that. Of course he’d made her quit her job—it made her unavailable too many evenings a week when she should have been at home with him. Even a waitress' pathetic salary gave her an income he couldn't legally control. And her boss had been a nosy old bastard—always asking Julie too many prying questions, claiming “concern” for her.

       If she’d gone to a battered women’s shelter, it would make getting her back difficult,  initially.    Of  course she'd tell all those lesbians some sob story to get them on her side and make him sound like a monster.  He hadn’t hit her once since their big fight on Thanksgiving night. Didn’t she realize he’d been drunk? How many times did he have to apologize for that?

           “I spent thousands of dollars on her clothes and shoes, gave her jewelry, a nice place to live and then she pulls this shit. I deserve better!” Seth muttered, gunning the engine and the Acura jumped forward like a jack rabbit.   Joe might have helped her—after Tina’s place, it was worth swinging by the diner to check if Julie had gone running to her old boss for help.

Seth cursed again to be stopped by another yellow light at the end of the block, and sat drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Fuming all over again, he looked up at his rearview mirror, catching the reflection of a bus stop back at the far end of the block.  A girl, partially hidden behind a group of teenaged boys caught his eye. She had a skinny figure and dishwater blonde hair like Julie’s, but there was no way Julie would buy an olive green backpack like that when she knew he hated that color. San Diego had lots of blonde women, too. With those  boys  in the way, he couldn’t get a proper look at her face, either. Especially not with her nose buried  in that book.