my teeth clattering as I walk away from him.
“Whoa, hang on.” His hands are on my shoulders, and I shrug them off. They feel dirty on my flesh, contaminated with the words of hate and disgust spat like venom from his own blood. “What the hell are you—”
I walk the length of the dock, my eyes frantic, my heart the same. “Where are they?”
“I don’t—”
I turn, shielding my disgusting body from him. Leo’s eyes—so dark, so twisted—land on my bare skin, at the parts of me I want to strip from my bones.
“Don’t look at me!” I scream, cringing when my words echo around us. I try to calm down. I can’t. “Where the fuck are my clothes?”
Leo’s eyes widen at my curse, and he takes a step back, his hands falling to his sides. “I think Luke brought them back. He thought—”
A sob retches through my entire body.
“Here,” Leo says, removing his hoodie and passing it to me.
In one swift move, I shrug it on, but it does nothing to cover my fear, my shame, my ugliness.
He huffs out a breath. “Mia, I—”
“Shut up,” I rush out, my voice quiet. I hate that he’s here, that he’s witnessing my downfall. I look around, my mind too numb to think straight. “Which way is the house?” He chews his bottom lip before reaching for my hand. I pull back, bile caught in my throat. “Please, don’t touch me.”
His fists ball. “I’ll walk you back.”
His hoodie goes down to my knees, the sleeves way past where my arms end, and I use it to wipe away the evidence of my pain. “Just point to it,” I grind out. And through the ache in my heart and destruction in my soul, I tell him, “I don’t want you near me.”
For a moment, I swear he feels what I feel. He sees, inside me, that I’m fading. As if the light within me is dimming. And he’s the one at the switch.
I should never have let him control me.
He lifts his hand, points east, and I push past him, my knees weak as I walk barefoot toward the house. He’s with me the entire time, one step behind, and I hate his presence.
But not nearly as much as I hate myself.
When the house comes into view, I don’t know where to go. My mom would be in the apartment, and I don’t… I don’t even live there anymore. I live in the main house, in the basement, where Logan wants to be.
I can’t go in there. I can’t stomach having to face any of them.
And Lucas—he took my clothes. My phone was in the pocket of my shorts.
Panic swirls, biting at my organs, and I wish there were a way to get rid of it all.
I stop in my tracks and turn to Leo. Surprised by my sudden movement, he knocks into me and grabs my elbows to stop me from falling. “My phone was in my pocket,” I tell him. “You need to go inside and get it.”
He wipes at his eyes, and I realize now that he might have been crying, too.
While my cries are loud, uncontrolled; his are silent.
Just like him.
“You live here, Mia. You can get—”
“Please,” I beg.
He nods, hands in his pockets as he slowly makes his way inside the house. I hide in the shadows, in the darkness of my thoughts.
He returns a moment later, my phone in his hand. After taking it from him, I grab my bike from under the apartment stairs. Still barefoot, in only my wet underwear and his hoodie, I ride past him, the bike wobbling beneath me. “Don’t follow me,” I tell him, proud of the feigned strength that comes with my order.
I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m doing. I just need to go.
Once off the property, the roads open up, and I pedal, taking corner after corner, with no destination in mind. I find myself at the steps of the church, praying for a way out of my head, out of my darkness.
I can leave, I think to myself, wiping at the tears that don’t seem to quit. There’s nothing for me here. There’s nothing for me anywhere. I can leave this town
… I can leave this life.
My name is scrawled on surfaces where I’ve been, but my time on this earth will leave nothing behind.
I can go to the tower, my once happy place, but now it’s scarred with memories of false hope and forgotten promises.
I