The fact that I’d probably brought that last bit on myself only made me feel worse, and as I paced back and forth in my room—except it wasn’t my room, it was Holden’s, because everything in my life right now was Holden’s and nothing was goddamn mine—I realized I couldn’t bear having to see him at dinner tonight, or in the library, or whatever other place we ran into each other as he tried to avoid me.
I was too embarrassed. Too ashamed. And honestly, what had I been thinking, trying to stay here, with a stranger, just because I was afraid to face the rest of the world?
Maybe it was normal to feel that way when you lost your memory. Maybe everyone with amnesia ended up paranoid. Maybe my family—the family I felt terrified of meeting for some reason I couldn’t fathom—was out there looking for me and all I had to do to end this was just knock on the door of the nearest police station.
Whatever happened, it would be better than staying here and feeling like an idiotic, unwanted guest who kept fucking up because he couldn’t keep out of his own way.
Holden said Edgecliffe Manor was just north of Birch Bay. How long could it take to get there? It was probably just a few miles down the coast.
With a nod to myself, I threw on two extra sweatshirts and left the room
The first flaw in my plan became apparent after just two minutes of walking, and it was that self-righteous anger, while satisfying, didn’t actually keep you warm for very long. Even shame, which lasted longer, provided poor protection from the cold.
And it wasn’t just the cold. It was the wind too, and the way it gusted and blew blankets of snow right into my face. I felt like I was practically horizontal, doubled over and walking into it. Even when it let up a bit, it still stung the tips of my ears.
I didn’t have a jacket or a hat or anything because—well, I’d never asked for one. And you couldn’t very well storm off in a huff if you had to ask for outerwear first. It hadn’t even occurred to me to worry about that until I was already outside.
Well, Daisy had said something about a gatehouse. Maybe I could catch her there, before she went inside for the night. Even if she were already gone, maybe I could get in and warm up.
Of course, that required reaching the gatehouse, which was the next problem. The longer I walked, the more I realized that I had no idea how big Holden’s property actually was.
After ten more minutes of walking, I reached a clump of trees that stood to the side of the driveway and provided a tiny bit of shelter from the howling wind and snow. That was when I discovered my third problem, which was that I wasn’t actually on the driveway at all, and had strayed off the path who-knew-how-far back.
Fuck. I spun around, trying to see where I might have lost it, and realized I couldn’t see more than fifteen feet in front of me in any direction. Double fuck.
Panic rose in my chest, but I tried to shove it down. This was dumb—big surprise there—but not irretrievable. I hoped.
All I had to do was retrace my footsteps and I’d make it back to the driveway. Yes, it was stupid to wander off the road, and yes, I was realizing now how dumb it was to storm off in a huff into a literal storm, but if I could just find the driveway again, I could get back to the house and dry off before Holden or Daisy ever realized I’d left.
With renewed confidence, I turned back the way I’d come, took two steps, and stopped.
Was this the way I’d come? Or was it more to the right? I tried to look through the snow again, tried to remember what I’d passed before reaching this spot, but my vision was down to about ten feet now.
Triple fuck.
Calm down, I told myself. Calm down. You’ll figure this out. You’re not going to die out here.
Except it was rapidly becoming clear that was exactly what could happen, which would just be the cherry on top of the sundae of bad decisions I’d made since coming here. It would be just like me to get rescued by Holden down on the beach, only to die