HOPE

I’M NOT PROUD OF the fact that I ran. It was the hardest decision I'd ever had to make. But in the end, I thought of the life growing inside me and then it all became very simple.

I woke up to the sound of the birds singing outside the bedroom window. The noise broke into my restless slumber, bringing me bleary eyed back to the land of the living.

In my dreams, I had been running. It seemed afterwards as if I spent all that day running. I had been back in the woods, crashing through the trees, the pain in my throat making it hard to breathe as I heard them yelling behind me, screaming at me to come back or they'd only make it worse for me.

As I ran, an alarm started to sound. At first I thought it was coming from the trees around me but then I woke up and realised. It was just the birds singing. I was safe.

I sat up, spotting the note a few seconds later. Rob had left it on the bedside table. I scanned it quickly.

"Had to go to a meeting. Back this evening. R."

His handwriting was as bold as he was, with a hint of a flourish to the initial at the end.

I climbed out of bed, my heart sinking as I thought about what I was going to do. I had first begun to ponder the night before and I had woken up with the idea firmly set. It wasn't an easy decision but it had to be done.

Once he found out I was pregnant, it would ruin everything. He was a businessman, not a babysitter. He wouldn't want a child in his life. I didn't need to talk to him to know that. He had barely known me a few days and in that time I'd seen him running back and forth to work, taking calls and emails late into the night. I couldn't burden him with a child that wasn't even his.

He would ask questions too. If I told him I was pregnant, he'd want to know who the father was. How could I tell him it was the same abusive scumbag who'd given me the bruises on my neck? The man I'd run from in the woods, the man I wanted nothing to do with ever again.

He wouldn't understand. No one would. The world thought you needed a father to your child. The world didn't seem capable of grasping the fact that some men were bad, that the child would be better off without them in their little lives.

I had a baby growing inside me. A baby that was mine. I was responsible for it, no one else. I couldn't ask Rob to be part of its life, it was asking too much.

Maybe if we'd known each other longer, I might have been able to do it. But it had to be this way. It was for the best, I thought to myself as I slipped my shoes onto my feet.

I would go while he was at his meeting. He would come back to find me gone from his life. Then he could get on with his.

There was a pile of banknotes in a pot on the kitchen counter, wedged tightly in together, perhaps a thousand pounds worth. I took two twenties and folded them in half, waves of guilt washing over me. I told myself it was just a loan, I'd send them back as soon as I found work in my new place, wherever that was going to be. All I knew at the time was that I was going to head north.

It was to help him more than me, I told myself as I opened the front door of the cottage. It would be agony to move away from him, to never see him again. But I couldn't stay.

Not only was I going to be a single parent, I was risking his safety and my own if I stayed. They would find out I was here eventually and they would come for me. It was too much to ask him to deal with that, to risk his life over someone like me.

I could picture it. I'd tell him I was pregnant and a look of disgust would creep over his features, his playboy life interrupted as he tried to work out how to politely push me away. For a moment I hated the baby, hated being pregnant. Then I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt at even having that thought. "I'm sorry," I said out loud, rubbing my stomach as if she could hear me. She.

I'd already begun to think of it as a she. Was that why I'd talked to Rob about families? To sound him out? To see what he might think about them. We'd lain in bed together late last night, talking about the future. I'd told him if I had a child, I'd call it Faith. He'd told me that was a beautiful choice of name.

But he had seemed distracted throughout the conversation, his mind clearly on work, not on me. That was how it would always be.

My head hurt from all the whirling thoughts running through it. One moment I was convincing myself I was running so he wouldn't be in danger, the next it was because he would hate me for being pregnant. Then that he'd get bored of me soon enough. He was bound to, I was nowhere near good enough for someone like him.

The thoughts changed but the conclusion was the same. I had to run. I had to run far and fast, get somewhere he'd never find me, somewhere they'd never find me.

I found an old bike in the garage, rusty but functional enough for me to push my way along the track. Once I was on the road at the end, I wobbled along, becoming more steady as each mile passed, mentally and physically.

I was doing the right thing. I was able to convince myself of that fact. Despite the doubt in the back of my mind, the gut wrenching pain of thinking I'd never see him again, I was doing the right thing for everyone.

It took a couple of hours to reach the nearest town and I jumped on the first bus that came along. That got me to the next town where I was lucky enough to find a coach station.

The money shouldn't have been enough to get me anywhere but my luck held as I found a last minute deal at a travel agent's on the high street. With my ticket in hand, I went back to the coach station and climbed aboard.

"Any luggage?" the driver asked, examining me with unsmiling eyes.

"Just a little one," I replied, rubbing my stomach gently as I passed him by and went to find a seat at the back, out of the way, passing by an old man who was complaining about newspapers to the driver. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I didn't want to think. I just wanted to put as many miles as I could between me and Rob. I knew that if I didn't get away soon, I wouldn't be able to do it at all and then we'd both be doomed.