chapter 5
Back at the guesthouse, I curled up on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
The rain had stopped.
The sky was clearing.
I didn’t know what my future would look like, but I knew one thing with absolute certainty.
It would not involve Jake or Ethan.
I wasn’t going back.
The next day, I visited a small legal office in town and asked about changing my name.
I picked something simple.
Something clean.
From that day on, I became Rachel May.
The lawyer asked whether I needed protection. A restraining order. Police involvement.
I said no.
I didn’t want revenge.
I wanted silence.
I wanted freedom.
But freedom, as it turned out, didn’t last long.
Two weeks after I disappeared, a letter arrived at the guesthouse.
There was no return address.
Inside was a photo of me, taken through a window while I sat alone with a cup of tea.
A note was folded behind it.
You really thought you could leave without consequences?
I stood there frozen, my heart pounding against my ribs.
I asked the guesthouse owner whether anyone had come by asking for me.
She shook her head. “No one strange. No one asked questions.”
I didn’t sleep that night.
The next morning, I checked out early and took a bus to another town. I switched hotels. I paid in cash. I started wearing sunglasses and hats even when the weather didn’t call for them.
I lived like a shadow.
But whoever had sent that letter had found me once.
They could do it again.
And the worst part was that I didn’t know whether it was Jake or Ethan.
I wasn’t sure which one I feared more.
The third town I moved to was quieter.
Coastal.
The streets rolled toward the sea, and at night the air smelled like salt and jasmine.
I rented a small studio above a bakery. The owner was an older woman named Marla who let me pay weekly in cash and asked no questions.
There, I became Rachel May completely.
A freelance editor.
A woman with no past.
I made a new email address. Opened a new bank account. Built a new routine.
Morning walks by the shore.
Toast with jam from the bakery downstairs.
Long hours sitting by the window, pretending not to jump every time my phone buzzed or a knock sounded at the door.
The fear never really left.
But neither did the life growing inside me.
One morning, I sat at a little café near the boardwalk with a small leather notebook open in front of me.
I had started writing.
Not a diary exactly.
More like fragments of myself.
Memories I didn’t want to lose.
One entry read: He never touched me by force, but I still feel like my body doesn’t belong to me.
Another said: Ethan once told me I looked prettiest when I was quiet. I hope my daughter roars.
I didn’t know if I was having a girl.
But imagining it helped.
It made the future feel softer.
More possible.
Then one afternoon, when I was walking back to my apartment, I noticed a black car parked across the street.
It hadn’t been there that morning.
The windows were tinted.
The engine was off.
I kept walking as if I hadn’t seen it.
Upstairs, I pulled the curtains shut and sat in the dark.
I didn’t eat.
I barely breathed.
I waited.
At midnight, the car was gone.
But the next morning, there was a note taped to my door.
You can run. But you’ll always be mine.
No signature.
No familiar handwriting.
Just those words.
Sharp. Final.
I packed in silence.
Took only what I needed.
Then I went to the bus terminal and bought a ticket to a city I had never visited before.
I used another fake name.
Another burner phone.
Another piece of myself discarded for survival.