AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We turn a corner back towards the bustling downtown as we enthuse about chocolate croissants and cinnamon rolls, dodging oncoming people who come at us like bumper cars with packages and strollers. Everyone rushes around so much. It’s exhausting to always be in such a hurry, something I’m guilty of too.
It’s been so great to just take it a little slow with Joel, roaming the city aimlessly without worrying about a thing. I’d almost forgotten what chilling out was like. Just chatting with a friend about stuff, important and not.
This is the closest I’ve felt to anyone in a long time.
“We’re nearly there,” Joel announces, turning us onto Jubilee Boulevard. This is one of the richest streets in town, lined with hotels and exclusive shops that I would never be able to afford to enter. The Christmas decorations are at full strength in the window displays, bright red Santas laughing at trees that don’t grow like that in the wild.
As we pass one of the exclusive five-star hotels, a door opens on a balcony above us. I don’t really understand why you’d want wedding photos on a gross-looking street like this, because despite its opulence, it’s still kind of dirty and really busy. But I guess they can afford a good editor. I glance up at them and catch a glimpse of the bride in a puffy white dress, smiling beautifully at the camera. I’m not pining for that, exactly — my dream wedding is on a beach with no one else around — but it sure would be nice to love someone that much.
Sighing internally and trying not to picture anything remotely like Joel in a tuxedo, I keep following him down the street. The photographers above set to work.
And Joel stops dead.
“Did you hear that?” He looks like a baby deer, terrified and about to get hit by a car, his eyes darting about, his body stiff and tense like one touch would shatter him into a million pieces.
“What?”
“The camera!” he says. “There! Again! God, they’re here. They’re going to get us.”
I don’t get the chance to say anything at all because before I can even react, he’s grabbing my hand and we’re running from whatever demons he’s conjured up inside his imagination.
CHAPTER17
JOEL
“Joel, wait up!” Anna yells but I can barely hear her over the pounding rush in my ears.
This is a nightmare. I should have known this would happen. I was so damn stupid for thinking I could get away with being outside when the vultures of the press are still on the hunt for me. I read the news this morning. I’m still featuring heavily and they’re wondering where I’ve gone because I haven’t been seen for a few days. They’re just waiting to pounce on me again and tear me to shreds.
And now I’m going to get Anna caught in the crossfire. She doesn’t deserve that. I don’t want her to be Lockhart’s Mystery Woman, for hack journalists to dig into her past and uncover all the stuff she won’t tell me just to splash it all over the internet.
She’s right. I am an idiot. And now my ego is going to have ruined both our lives. She’ll never forgive me if she gets turned into a scandal.
I’ll never forgive myself if I break her heart.
I have no idea where I’m going, but my feet keep hitting the concrete hard and fast, taking me as far away as possible from cameras and reporters. God, even normal people have cameras these days in their phones. What if they’ve been filming too? What if we’re being blasted all across everyone’s timelines now? What if they’re about to start chasing us down for sport?
She’s still yelling, tugging on my hand to try and slow me down. It’s only then that I realize she’s still holding my hand. Something I would have longed for under normal circumstances but right now she feels like one of those huge metal balls they chain prisoners to in films. Isn’t what they say about marriage? Ball and chain.
I never understood why you’d marry someone if you felt they dragged you down that much.
I haven’t got the time or brainpower for philosophy right now, though. All I know is that I have to get somewhere out of sight, hidden, alone. I wrench my hand free from her grip and hear a noise of surprise. I hope it didn’t hurt her feelings. She must know this isn’t about her, right?
She’s still calling after me, close behind, so I guess she must forgive me. I’m a radar, scanning the crowd for danger as I weave through it. People keep coming at us, brightly colored obstacles bathed in the neon and fluorescent lights of shops, in the faint streetlights above us. Cars crawl past on the road, cab drivers yelling for fares, impatient men yelling at the traffic, cyclists taking their lives into their hands as they brave the road.
I need to stop running. My chest and lungs and stomach feel like they’re about to implode and I don’t see the point of throwing up if I’m not at least sixteen times over the legal drink and drive limit.
I know this city. I’ve hidden from cops before in this city. I know where I can go.
I take a sharp right, nearly bowling over an old couple who have armfuls of shopping. I yell an apology at them as I zoom by. The hat and scarf are suffocating now, my head dripping in sweat, so I pull the hat off and throw it to the ground, followed quickly by the scarf. I’ll buy Ben new ones if he cares.
There’s a series of winding backstreets round here, little alleys that are full of feral cats and dumpsters, all connected to each other through narrow gaps in the buildings. I’ve hidden here before in various drunken stupors. I think I slept in a dumpster one time. That memory’s kind of fuzzy and distant.
Finally, finally, I hit a street with no people and I let myself screech to a halt, my feet and legs burning with the strain of the workout. Anna might think I have personal trainers and nutritionists, but my workouts are random and without direction or discipline. Just like everything else in my life. I look good, but it’s not because I try for it.
And that’s means I’m unfit as hell.
I land heavily against a wall behind a pile of trash, steaming and stinking in the cold. I’m gasping for breath, trying to claw air back into my lungs which are also on fire. Everything in my whole body is burning up in pain and panic. I unzip the coat and try and let the cold inside in case that helps.
