“Take me to the station, Ronny. Please.”
Ronny nods and opens the door.
As the car pulls away, I don’t look back. Not at the building. Not at the window. Not at the boy I thought I knew.If he wanted me there, he would have come. If he wanted me at all, he would have come.
The train station comes back into view and I tighten my grip on my bag.
“Ma’am—are you sure?—”
“I’m done with Tar City,” I say as I step onto the platform. “And Tar City is done with me.”
* * *
On the train, Tar City shrinks behind me. My life flashes in fragments: My mother’s last good day. Millie coming home from work one afternoon and announcing she wasn’t leaving for college. “Someone has to stay,” she’d said simply. My father crying in the kitchen when he thought no one could hear him. Millie learning how to measure medication. The goodbye. My father smiling. Me leaning over my mother’s bed before leaving, waiting for her eyes to open. Millie’s happy tears.
My stomach knots as I press my forehead to the glass and watch my hometown fade away. I am leaving. I am finally leaving this place, and I have never felt more miserable.
For months I told myself there was no alternative. I didn’t know where Jax was, I didn’t know if he was hiding, if he was hurt, if he was lying somewhere no one thought to look. I told myself I had to go, that staying was dangerous, that Tar City wouldswallow me whole if I didn’t leave.Yet, every time I packed a bag, I unpacked it again. Not knowing meant there was still a version of the story where he came back.
Not even the fear of the Pit—of that voice—was strong enough to make me walk away. I still hear it every night when I close my eyes. The words it spoke as the bargain sealed. The way it accepted.I know what I traded. I know what it expects. And still… I wanted to stay. For him.
Walking to the train earlier, ticket ready, I was still unsure if I could actually get on and leave.
In a way, I should be thanking him. Seeing him like that finally made it possible. Knowing he doesn’t want me should make this easier. It doesn’t.
The train lurches forward, steady and unstoppable, and it feels like my entire life stays behind.
Across the aisle, a woman holds a sleeping child against her chest. Her coat is thin, her hands are cracked from hard work. Two rows ahead, a man stares at nothing, grease still under his fingernails, boots caked in factory dust.
I wonder how many of them would trade places with me without hesitation.An academy. A scholarship.A way out.I swallow hard. I am leaving with opportunity in my bag and I should feel grateful, I should feel relieved. Tar City disappears behind the bend and a dark part of me wishes I had sunk into the tar that night and let it keep me.
Fifty-Three
NOW | JAX
The bar is loud enough to drown her, but my entire body is a fucking tuning fork for her. I can hear the shift of her weight, the inhale before she speaks. If I focused hard enough, I could probably count her heartbeat.
Everyone in town seems to have sensed I’m not in the mood for company. So of course, everyone is here. The noise level spikes—some asshole sneezes, a glass smashes on the floor, a girl cries. It all grates against my skull.
I polish the same glass three times.
“Jax.”
I don’t look at her.
“We are not doing this again,” she yells over the noise. “We’re going to talk. Like two adults. We’re going to sit down, maybe have a proper meal for once, and talk about this.”
I set the glass down hard. “I have work to do.”
“The bar can wait an hour.”
“It can’t.”
It absolutely fucking can.
She turns slightly. “Matt.”
Matt is at the far end of the bar, stacking glasses like he’s deeply invested in the symmetry of it all. The motherfucker is always listening. He glances up, caught. “Yeah?”
