Saw you through the window. A lie. She knew it was a lie. The probability of Victor Garcia being in this mall on this morning of all mornings and happening to spot her through a window, it was not a coincidence.
Her mind understood this immediately even as her body was already running its old calculations, the ones it had spent years unlearning.
Stay calm, don’t upset him, find the exit, be careful. She put her hand against her belly.
A protective instinct. She wasn’t even fully aware she had done it. I was just leaving actually, she said.
Donna is waiting for me. Donna can wait a minute. His smile didn’t move. It’s been a long time, Elena.
You could at least say hello properly. There it was. That tone. That specific careful tone that sounded reasonable on the surface, that would sound reasonable to anyone passing by, but that she knew down to the molecular level.
That tone that said, you owe me your time, your attention, your compliance, and if you don’t give it willingly, I will find another way to take it.
Her heart had started to beat very fast. She kept her face as still as she could.
Hello, Victor, she said. I hope you’re well. I really do need to go. She took one step sideways, meaning to move past him.
His hand closed around her arm. Not hard enough yet to leave a mark. Just hard enough to stop her.
Just hard enough to make it clear that she would not be going anywhere until he decided she could.
Elena went very still. The way prey goes still. I just want to talk, he said.
His voice was still smooth, still reasonable. A man having a normal conversation. Why are you always in such a hurry?
That was always your problem, Elena. You never wanted to slow down and have a real conversation.
Around them, the mall continued its Tuesday morning hum. Music played from a speaker overhead.
A child laughed somewhere nearby. A woman with a stroller walked past without looking up from her phone.
Nobody noticed. Nobody stopped. And Elena stood there with Victor’s hand on her arm and her baby pressing against her ribs and the old fear.
The one she had spent 2 years and thousands of dollars of therapy and an immeasurable amount of courage trying to dismantle.
She felt it rising back up like water through a crack in a floor she thought she had sealed.
