Lucy’s keys jingled as she unlocked the door to her unit, where she lived with her man, Hugo, an unemployed drywall contractor, or mover—she didn’t know. She just knew that Hugo got her drugs when she needed them.

Stepping inside, Lucy heard music. Hugo wasn’t supposed to be home.

A topless woman was upright on the sofa, bouncing up and down and as Lucy moved around she saw that the woman was straddling Hugo, who was naked and shocked when Lucy cried out.

“What the—” Hugo shifted, tossing the woman to the floor as he tried to reach Lucy.

But she’d fled to the bathroom, locked the door, slammed her back to it and slid to the floor.

She could hear Hugo and the woman yelling, a door thudding, then the music died.

Above Lucy, a toilet flushed and foul water dripped from the ceiling into the tub along a path marked with an aged yellow stain. Then Hugo was at the door.

“Get out here. I want to talk to you.”

Lucy could feel her craving growing, her stomach cramping, muscles twitching.

She opened her bag. She had no medicine—that’s what she called it. She looked at the money from her final check she’d cashed at the bank before boarding the train. She looked at the tip cash she’d stolen. She hadn’t counted it but it was a lot.

Lucy moved fast, opened the vanity door under the sink grabbed the box of sanitary pads, reached to the bottom, where she hid the cash she’d been saving for months.

Escape money—save-my-life money.

“Don’t make me come in there, babe. You know I don’t want that.”

She carefully stuffed nearly all of the cash she had into the bottom of the box, set the pads on top, closed the box and the vanity.

She stood, took a breath and opened the door to an explosion of stars as Hugo’s fist jackhammered her skull, sending her to the floor.

“You told me you were working today!” he said. “You lied. When you lie I have to punish you. Why’re you home?”

Her head pulsating, the room spinning, she tasted blood as she moved her jaw to speak.

“I was fired. I got my last paycheck, cashed it. I’m sick, Hugo. I need—”

“Shut up!”

She felt him tugging at her bag, glimpsed him rifling through it, taking her wallet and all the cash she’d left in it, gripping it in his fist, bending down and shoving it at her face.

“This it?”

“That’s all they gave me, I swear.”

All the air erupted from her stomach when Hugo’s foot plowed into it.

He stomped away, rampaged through the house. Closets and dressers slammed; zippers zipped.

Then Hugo was gone.

Out of her life.