24
The sun not yet up, Derrick gathered his things in the dark and crept from the bedroom. Willow pretended to sleep, though she’d spent the last few hours awake. He showered and dressed in the bathroom and tiptoed through the main room with his books and shoes in hand. When she heard the soft click of the front door close behind him and then the louder, freer sound of his car accelerating down the street—the sound of someone believing they’d escaped—she rolled from her side onto her back.
Her head pounded. The first thirty-six hours of Holy Matrimony had been anything but holy. Saturday night, their first night as an officially wed couple, he stepped into the bedroom, looked around at the walls in need of paint, the shabbily dressed windows, the old bed, and in his throat cursed, “Holy
