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I won’t make that mistake again.
When I leave this time, I will put enough distance between us that he will never find me.
My phone vibrates and everything inside me goes still. Inhaling a deep breath, I lean over and pluck it from the bedside table.
Trudy: Just checking in. How are things? If you need me, you know where I am.
A shudder goes through me. It would be so easy to tell her the truth. To beg her to help make me disappear. But Trudy has her hands tied, I know that. If I tell her about Vaughn, she’ll have to go to the police, and that is not an option. I can’t trust them.
I can’t trust anybody.
Raine: Everything’s fine.
Trudy: Glad to hear it. I hope you’re staying out of trouble? I heard a little rumour you met a boy?
A pang of something goes through me. Guilt. Sadness.
Hopelessness.
I wasn’t supposed to fall for Theo. He’s everything I should have stayed away from. But I can’t find it in myself to regret even a second of our time together. Even when we were at each other’s throats, trying to tear the other apart.
Theo Ashworth gave me something I’ll forever cherish.
He made me feel alive.
For the first time in my life, he made me feel like things could be different.
And that’s worth something.
It’s worth more than I ever realised.
Tears prick the corners of my eyes as I quickly text Trudy back, hoping my reply will satisfy her curiosity.
Not that it’ll matter soon.
My gaze flicks to my backpack. The one now full of my meagre belongings.
I check the time, but it’s only two-thirty. I still have hours until I need to be at the hotel.
But I can’t go, not yet.
Not until I sever things between me and Theo, I at least owe him that much.
A clean break.
The thought fills me with a nauseating sense of dread.
I don’t want to cause him any pain.
But Vaughn is right, I need Theo to believe I’m leaving of my own free will. I need him to believe that we’re over.
Done.
That it was never anything more than a bit of fun.
My fingers curl into the mattress as anguish builds inside me. I wish it didn’t have to be this way.
I wish—
