Page 1 of Finally Mine
1
This was the second stupidest thing she had ever done in her entire life. But sincethisstupid thing was going to remedy the first, Gloria Parker cut herself a tiny sliver of slack.
This was necessary, she reminded herself, running her hands down the front of her white t-shirt, wincing when she brushed bruises. Life and death. Hers.
Her rusty little car was packed with her meager belongings. She wouldn’t be going “home” tonight.
“It’s going to be fine,” she assured herself, stepping onto the skinny front porch of the bar. Remo’s was the favorite—and only—bar in the town of Benevolence. Built like a log cabin, the cedar-shingled exterior invited thirsty patrons inside with its hand-painted sign and cozy patio off the right-hand side. Its only view was the gravel parking lot, but if you were visiting Remo’s, you weren’t worried about ambiance. You were there to catch up with your neighbors. Enjoy a pitcher. Sample a plate of hot wings. Or, inhiscase, drink until you couldn’t see straight.
She was twenty-seven years old and had never once stepped foot in Remo’s. There were a lot of things she hadn’t done. Yet. And one reason for all of it. Today, it all ended, and her life could finally begin.
It was spring. Early enough that she could still feel a few curling tendrils of winter in the air. Spring meant new beginnings. As the sun went down over the town she’d been born and raised in, so would the curtain on ten years of stupid. Ten years of pain. Ten years of a history that she was ashamed of.
Gloria swallowed hard. “You can do this,” she whispered. With a shaking hand, she pulled the thick wood door open, ignoring the purple welts around her wrist. She’d gotten good at that. Ignoring. Pretending.
She stepped through the doorway and into her future.
Cozy, not seedy,she thought. Wood paneled walls showcased beer signs and pictures of Benevolence over the decades. There was a skinny strip of stage against the back wall. A crowd of mostly empty tables and chairs clustered around the pine floor. The glass door on the right led to a patio for warm weather socializing. But her attention was on the big man hunched over the bar.
Glenn Diller.
Judging from the slump in his shoulders, he’d either left work early, or he’d been laid off again from the factory and neglected to tell her. Either way, he’d been drinking for hours.
She took a shaky breath and let it out. It was now or never. And she wouldn’t survive never.
The bartender, Titus, was an older man she recognized as the father of one of her classmates. His son had just finished law school in Washington, D.C. And here was Gloria, still frozen in time. Titus spotted her, and his gaze slid uneasily to Glenn.
He knew. Everyone knew.It was part of the shame Gloria feared she would never shed. But she had to try.
Sophie Adler, crackling with energy, danced behind the bar, tying her raven hair in a tail. “Sorry I’m late, Titus. Josh hid my car keys in the toilet again.”
Titus grunted and reached for the tip jar without taking his eyes off Glenn. He was expecting trouble.
Gloria prayed to God the man was wrong.
She cleared her throat. “Glenn.” His name came out clear as a bell with a confidence Gloria didn’t know she still possessed.
He turned slowly on his stool, an empty shot glass and a beer in front of him. His eyes were bloodshot already.
He focused in on her and lurched to his feet. “The fuck you doing here?”
That guttural growl, the threat of violence it carried, had cowed her for years. But not today. Today she was immune.
She wanted this. She reminded herself. Sheneededthis.
She watched the man she’d fallen for at seventeen, the man she’d let systematically strip her of everything right down to her dignity, approach. Alcohol and a feeling that life owed him more had made his high school muscle bulky and bloated. It had dulled his eyes, sallowed his skin. He looked a decade older than his thirty years.
Glenn listed to the right as he shuffled toward her. Drunk but still capable of inflicting so much damage. That’s why they were here. Not in the shabby trailer they shared where no one paid any attention to the sounds of fists and screams.
Here, there were witnesses. Here, there were people who might help.
She put an empty table between them, the hair prickling on the back of her neck.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he demanded again. His bark drew the eyes of everyone in the bar.
“I’m leaving,” she said quietly. “I’m leaving, and I’m not coming back, and if you ever touch me again, I’m going to the police.” The words poured out like water rushing over the falls. They’d been lodged in her throat for so long they’d strangled her.
His once handsome face twisted into a gruesome grimace. His cheeks flushed red. The veins in his neck corded into a topographical map. But they weren’t within the walls of his trailer. They had an audience.
