The Escape

by C.L. Taylor

‘You’ll regret ignoring me,’ Paula shouts after him as he steps into the car park. ‘I’ll get what’s mine, even if I have to destroy your family to do it.’

‘Remaining in the family home will strengthen your case. As will restoring Elise’s routine.

for the first time in a long time, a tiny flame of hope sparks in my heart.

I won’t let him take my daughter from me. I will do anything I have to to keep her safe.

He let himself into the house and he tipped rubbish all over it to make it look like I couldn’t look after our daughter. And the drugs. The reason I was meeting Lorraine Hooper in the first place. He’d planted those too.

You believed me, didn’t you,

Oh yes, I know Paula. Of course I do. But I wasn’t going to admit that to anyone. Least of all you.

I threw myself into my work because it was the one area of my life where I still felt in control.

How fucking naïve was I to think that you might be grateful? That you appreciated the sacrifices I’d made? That you loved me? Really fucking naïve as it turns out because all along you were secretly planning on leaving me. And you were going to take our daughter with you.

AFTER EVERYTHING I DID FOR YOU. You KNEW how fucked up I was when my dad left me and how I swore I’d never do the same thing to my kids. And yet you still planned to take Elise away...

‘Why did you help me?’ I whisper. ‘I thought you were going to give Elise back to Max.’

‘I was going to,’ she says softly. ‘I wanted to believe all those awful things he told me about you.

I wanted you to hurt as much as I was hurting.

I wanted you to suffer for the rest of your life, just as I’d suffered.

‘I’m not proud of the woman I was in that moment but the anger I was carrying in my heart

I wasn’t the only one who lost everything that day. You did too.’