Everyone was better off without me.
I needed to get out of this treehouse before someone saw me. The last thing I needed was to be recognized and make everyone miserable again.
I took a deep breath.Matt doesn’t want you anymore. He doesn’t love you anymore. You need to leave.
But my body didn’t crawl back out of the treehouse. Instead I moved closer to the wall of pictures. I found one of Matt smiling at the camera. He was younger in it. He looked so happy. It was before he met me. Before I messed up his life.
Yeah, I needed to leave. And this time I’d leave it all behind. I’d leave and never come back. Ever again.
It hurt to think of what life would be like without him. But he was already living his life without me. I had to let him go. I had to let him be happy.
I was dead to Matthew Caldwell. I traced my fingertips across the picture of his perfect face. And he was dead to me too.
Runaway - Chapter 23
Monday
I pressed my foot down harder on the gas. But it didn’t matter how fast I drove. I couldn’t get the scene of Matt in the pool out of my head. It just kept playing on repeat.
Who was that girl?
How was I so easily replaced?
I actually felt…dead.
I wanted to be back on the beach screaming at the ocean at the top of my lungs. But I wasn’t at the beach. I’d left that life behind. Just because I’d held on to some stupid hope.
I drove as fast as I could away from Matt. And out of the city that had only ever caused me pain.
My music blared and for a long time I felt numb. Until suddenly I didn’t anymore. I pulled over to the side of the road and screamed at the top of my lungs in my car. And screamed and screamed. Until my voice was hoarse and the tears had dried on my cheeks.
I thought about just abandoning my car and running off into the woods. I could just run until my legs gave out. Until I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t do this anymore. It hurt too much. Every time I thought I overcame something, I kept getting knocked back down. I couldn’t keep doing this. I just wanted to…
What?
I stared at the woods.
Did I want to die? Was that really what I wanted? My body was running on empty right now. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I knew that. And yet the running until I died in the middle of the woods option felt like my best one. Literally running from the pain. Running until I couldn’t run anymore.
Everyone already thought I was dead. I put my head down on the steering wheel and started to cry again. I didn’t want to be dead. I just wanted to stop hurting so much.
It would hurt less the farther away I got from Matt. It would. I had to believe that. I lifted my head and pulled back out onto the highway. I drove farther and farther, waiting for my chest to stop hurting.
Matt and I were over. We’d been over for nine months. What had I been thinking? He was a player. Of course he was going to move on. Maybe he did love me back then. But love was fleeting for some people.
I didn’t even know where I was driving. I just…drove. It was like my body was working without my mind.
And when I pulled into the cemetery, I wasn’t at all surprised this was where it had taken me. I climbed out of the car and walked through the cemetery until I reached my mother’s grave. And then my body gave out. It was like it had gotten me to this point and couldn’t function anymore.
“Mom,” I croaked. My voice was hoarse from screaming and crying. “Mom.” I lay down on top of her grave and somehow managed to cry even more. “Mom, I’m so tired. I don’t know how to keep going.”
She didn’t respond. Of course she didn’t. She was dead. And it wasn’t lost on me that even though she was dead I still loved her fiercely. Whereas when Matt thought I was dead he filled his days with other women.
“I fucked everything up,” I said into the silence. “Everything. I’m just so tired.”
I tried to picture her smile. Her voice. Her laughter.
But every day that passed without her made it harder for me to remember.
