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When he was old enough, he had gotten a job and stashed half of it away for a college fund and gave half of it to his mother. It gave her just enough slack to leave her waitressing job behind. She could be home in the afternoon with James, a luxury he had never gotten.
And James had grown up a bit spoiled, always having had a life without worry thanks to an older brother who tried his best to fill the shoes their father had left.
He had even paid for James' college tuition.
Elliott ran a hand down his face. It wasn't often he thought about those things. His entire life from a young age had been to try to ease some of the burden off his mother's shoulders. He had managed along the way to replace her ancient, battered car, and help her with rent every month even while away at college.
It was the biggest disappointment of his life that he could never fully take care of her the way she wanted. Nothing had hurt more than getting the call from a despondent James in the middle of his senior business class that their mother had been hit and killed by a drunk driver.
Then there was more work to be done. Making the arrangements. Paying off debt-collectors. Taking legal custody of a sixteen year-old James. Moving out of his dorm room to a cheap college-adjacent apartment with one bedroom.
Elliott smiled. How James had hated him at times, raging against losing his mother and his friends, everything he had ever known and loved. Forced to sleep in a bunk bed with his older brother and live on ramen and store brand soda.
But then it was over. James started college and turned from a lonely, angry high schooler to a confident, over-zealous college student. Elliott remembered night after night of their apartment full of drunk kids while he slaved away trying to turn a loan from the bank into a company. Into a future. For them.
He used to do everything.
And now Hannah did.
Elliott sighed, pouring a cup of coffee and placing it on his desk.
It was then that he noticed it. A small white envelope with his name scrawled on the front. Turning it over, he pulled out a piece of white lined paper with a handwritten note.
Mr. Michaels,
I am writing to inform you of my intent to take a two week vacation. Effective immediately due to circumstances beyond my control. I apologize for any inconvenience.
Sincerely,
Hannah Clary
Elliott felt the air rush out of his lungs. She was taking a two week vacation? Effective immediately? What was going on? Was she actually that freaked out about them hooking up that she felt the need to run away? And if so, why hadn't she just quit?
He heard the chime of the elevator doors and grabbed the letter. Tad was just putting his coffee down on his desk and powering up his computer. He looked up, startled when he heard Elliott's footsteps. Elliott threw the letter down on the desk impatiently. "Do you know about this?" Even to his own ears, his voice was harsh and grating.
Tad's eyebrows drew together as he read the note. "She didn't say anything to me," he said, handing the note back to Elliott. A worried crease was forming in his forehead. "This isn't like her."
Elliott felt a sinking feeling in his chest. Hannah and Tad had seemed very close. The fact that she hadn't said anything about some kind of emergency to him then she was lying. Apparently she hadn't said anything to Tad about them having sex so she obviously wouldn't tell him that was the reason she left.
To avoid him. To put some space between them.
"Alright, thanks Tad," he said, retreating back into his office.
"Mr. Micheals," Tad called.
"Yeah?"
"I'll let you know if I can get in touch with her."
"Thanks," he said again, closing his door and leaving Tad to marvel that the notoriously crass and nonchalantly rude Elliott Micheals had just thanked him twice in one minute.
–
Hannah could feel her pulse in her ears and a slow, heavy, sick feeling seemed to have permanently settled in her belly. Her hands felt clammy on the steering wheel and she couldn't help but keep checking her rear view mirror, even though she had been driving for hours and there had barely been a car in sight for the previous twenty minutes. The road was becoming blurry and she reached for her cup of coffee.
She hadn't even tried to sleep the night before. By the time she had finished checking every corner of her apartment with a frying pan in one hand and a flashlight in the other, finally reached out and called the cops and filed a report and was essentially told that they would have a patrol car drive past every hour to make sure nothing happened, which would obviously not help at all, she had decided for certain that she couldn't possibly spend another night there. She had packed a bag with clothes and books and poured a pot of coffee into thermal cups and hit the road before sunrise.
For the first hour and a half, she had driven around aimlessly, cursing herself for not having made a plan when she left her apartment. She could just drive to some secluded inn somewhere and try to regain her composure. But sleeping somewhere alone in a room where there wasn't any security save for a middle aged married couple who ran the place asleep a floor below didn't exactly fill her with confidence. She needed to find someplace where she felt safe.
