My eyes leave the taillights fading into the distance and land on Daniel’s face. I’m stunned into complete silence, tears still clinging to my eyelashes.London? He can’t be serious.
“Eventually, I’ll forgive you. What we had can’t be destroyed in a day,” he mutters in defeat as he pulls me back into the house.
I wasn’t cheating on Daniel. We were over. I was supposed to be dead to him. But now I feel like a cheater—a cheater who needs forgiveness.
“Where is your stuff?” He looks around, anywhere but directly at me.
My tears have stopped. My jaw is slack. My vocabulary—nonexistent.
“Here it is.” He heads toward my suitcase in the corner of the room. I’ve been living out of it since we moved our stuff to the main level. I do nothing. He does everything, including grabbing all of my personal items from the bathroom. “Anything else?”
Blink. Blink. Blink.
“Scarlet? Is this everything?”
I nod.
*
I matter.
I love myself.
The world is a better place with me in it.
Who has to think those words? Me. That’s who. I’m not sure how many more times I can get jerked around, knocked down, and kicked in the stomach before I tap out.
Daniel drives us to his hotel in Savannah. I remind myself that the hole in my soul the size of Theodore Reed will not remain forever. This is my journey. No matter who I meet on the way, it’s mine and only mine.
I found out I was going to die and I wanted to live.
I found out I was going to live and now I want to die.
It’s time to count breaths and give thanks for every single one. Eventually, I won’t have to remind myself to take them.
“How did you find me?” I whisper as we enter the hotel room.
We haven’t said a word since we left the house.
Daniel plops my bags down and sits on the edge of the bed. “Oscar.”
I close my eyes and shake my head. “What have you done? I told you never to tell him.”
He pulls his shoulders up and drops them with a heavy sigh. I’ve drained him. “It felt like a life-or-death situation. I knew he’d know how to find you.”
“He’s going to break out.”
Daniel shakes his head. “Why do you say that?”
“Because you told him his baby girl is dying!”
Daniel winces.
I pace the room. “You have to go back and tell him I’m fine. If he breaks out, he will be a fugitive forever, but if he serves his time, then he can be free again. You have to go back. You have to—”
“We.”
I stop and narrow my eyes at him. “Sorry?”
