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“No.” I shook my head, the steady thumping inside of it increasing in tempo, in intensity. “No.”
I took the steps two at a time. Bree was slow to react but jumped into action, climbing up behind me.
“Liss,” she hissed, keeping her voice low.
The floorboards creaked under the weight of my feet as I burst through my bedroom door and grabbed the duffle laying open by the bed. Yanking open my closet, I snatched handfuls of clothes without bothering to look and tossed them inside the bag.
“Liss, stop! What are you doing?”
I ignored her, making my way to the bathroom, and dumping whatever toiletries I could find on top of the random assortment of clothes. Sliding the zipper closed, I pushed past my aunt in the hallway and bound down the stairs, ignoring the crushed expression she wore.
“Liss, please. This will devastate her.” Her pained voice cut right through to the heart of me, slicing clean through like a sharp-edged blade, and I hesitated.
But nothing—nothing—could be as painful as watching my mom disappear.
And I couldn’t fucking do pain.
I wasn’t built that way.
Bracing my shoulders, I grasped the brass door handle like it was a life-preserver, like it was the only thing keeping me afloat. Without turning, I said, “I need some time.”
“Liss, please,” Bree whispered. “Time’s the one thing she doesn’t have.”
My heart plummeted to the floor with the weight of a falling rock and smashed open before my eyes. I’d moved so freely within my castle of isolation, believing I’d hardened myself so thoroughly nothing could touch me, but now the walls were closing in. Everything was falling apart.
I drew in a harsh breath, collecting every morsel of shit I couldn’t deal with right now, all of it, and locking it away deep down inside.
“Thought we were being positive, Bree?” I murmured, then pushed through the door, a lead weight strapped to my chest.
The miles disappeared beneath the tread of my tires as I drove away from Claremont, the screen from my phone flashing periodically from its position on the passenger seat cushion. I wanted to bag it up with my old life—with every-fucking-thing that had happened in the last twenty-four hours—and toss it out the moving window.
Aside from the hastily packed bag lying
face down on the back seat of my car, I wasn’t bringing anything from that town with me this time.
TWENTY
LISS
The heavy beat of the bass thrummed through me, strobe lights dancing across the backs of my lids as I swayed in the middle of the dance floor.
Five months, and I was still running with no hope of escape. My past clipped my heels with every single step I tried to take away from it.
My mom called weekly, leaving voicemails that made me question my decision to keep my distance.
I wanted to go back, but I couldn’t make myself.
I wanted to be a better person, but I didn’t know how.
And Leon.
I’d shut down any attempts at contact immediately. They’d started up less than two hours after I’d slunk out of his trailer at dawn on New Year’s Day. I hadn’t bothered reading them; we had nothing to talk about. He got what he wanted, and I’d spared him the awkward morning after conversation he usually strove to avoid. It surprised me that he’d called at all. I could only assume he didn’t enjoy being on the receiving end of it.
I hadn’t spoken to him or seen him in five months… but that had no bearing on how often he played on my mind. Sleeping with him should have purged him from my system, instead of hard wiring him further into it. But that’s where we were.
So many aspects of my life had spiralled out of my control, all I could do was ignore them. A skill I’d been trying to perfect since the start of the year, since a sinkhole the size of the Grand Canyon opened up in the landscape of my future and swallowed a huge chunk in its meaty jaws, distorting it beyond all recognition.
I couldn’t see ahead anymore, and I was too ashamed to look back. I wasn’t proud of the choices I’d made, and now I found myself imprisoned in a never-ending state of limbo, running in place.
