Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 137077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 685(@200wpm)___ 548(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 685(@200wpm)___ 548(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Eventually, I go through a drive-thru and park in the lot, forcing myself to swallow the tasteless French fries. Stupidly, I wonder if Cameron and Grace ate dinner because I never finished cooking it. Are the peppers and onion still on the cutting board in the kitchen? Probably not. Janey took care of me and probably took care of that too.
It’s like there’s no sign that I was ever there. My room is empty, I stripped the sheets from the bed and left them and my towel in the upstairs laundry room hamper, and there’s not even a Tupperware of leftovers to show that I cooked. I’m just… gone.
I’ve never thought about what remained in my wake any other time I left. But this time is different. I care. I want to have mattered, to have made a difference, to have existed for them the way they still do to me.
I drive some more, not wanting to stop. I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m doing. In fact, of the hundred miles I’ve driven tonight, I think I’m within ten miles of home.
No, not home. Cameron’s house.
I’ve been circling it, unable to break its gravitational pull on me. But my eyelids are getting heavier and eventually, I’m going to have to sleep. Reluctantly, I pull over at a hotel off the highway and go inside.
Getting a room is fairly quick, and mostly painless once the clerk stops his ‘so happy you chose us tonight’, overly-friendly act. I think he can tell that I didn’t choose to be here. I just need a place to go.
Once I have my keycard, I bring everything upstairs and dump it all haphazardly before taking my boots off. That’s as far as I get before I collapse into the stack of pillows and start bawling.
I cry for what I found and what I lost. For what Cameron fixed in me and for what he broke. I cry for Grace, knowing she’s going to be confused and worried when I’m not there. I even cry for Cameron, because I don’t want him to be hurt, or scared, or angry, and he was all of those things tonight.
Mostly, I just cry because it’s the only thing that releases this knot of pain in my chest.
I wake up the next morning, hoping that it was all a nightmare.
What clues me in instantly that it wasn’t just a dream, but is in fact reality, is the trash bag of my things lying on the other bed. It triggers something deep and dark inside me, and I hear Austin calling me ‘throwaway’ again.
He knew that’d hurt me. It’s why he said it.
And as a rule, I don’t use trash bags when I move because of that trauma. But I’d been in a hurry last night, confused and betrayed and spinning out, so I’d yanked my treasured clothes from their hangers and stuffed them into my suitcase randomly. When it was full and I still had more to pack, I’d done the one thing I swore to never do again and grabbed a trash bag.
I’ve got nothing but time now.
That’s true. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I booked this room for tonight too, figuring I’d need a place to decide my next move. Am I going to stay here? Travel? Take a break? It’s strange to think that only a few months ago, I was having these same thoughts and it felt like life had led me right where I was supposed to be when I got the job with Cameron and Grace.
Now, the questions and their potential answers feel like they’re leading me further and further away from what I want.
You don’t always get what you want, Riley.
Isn’t that the truth?
First things first, I throw the blankets off and crawl out of bed. Bleary-eyed, both from sleep and crying, I grab the trash bag and dump its contents onto the other bed. “I’m not a throwaway,” I tell the bag, but the declaration is weak at best, a lie at worst.
It’s stupid for a piece of plastic to mean so much, but it does. It feels like such a regression, of me, of how far I’ve come, of my self-worth.
The room looks exponentially messier, but it feels better without that visual of a trash bag with my belongings stuffed inside. I’m angrily wadding up the bag when there’s a knock at the door.
I learned my lesson all too well, and this time, I look through the peephole. Janey, Kayla, and Miranda are standing in the hallway, staring back at me.
I can’t answer. Not now. Not like this. I’m too sensitive, too raw, my scars tender from the fresh cuts over damage I thought I’d healed. I step back from the door, fidgeting with the bag in my hand.