A crazy one. The kind Callum described to reporters.
Morrison family releases statement: "We pray Jessica gets the psychiatric help she so clearly needs."
Psychiatric help.
The words blur as tears fill my eyes. I blink them back and force myself to keep reading because apparently I'm a masochist now. Add that to the list too.
My phone buzzes with a text from my mother. The fourth one today.
Jessica, please call me. We need to discuss damage control. Your Aunt Patricia saw the article. She's very concerned.
Aunt Patricia, who hasn't spoken to me in three years except to criticize my hair at Thanksgiving.
Another buzz.
The Morrisons have been very gracious. Callum's mother called me personally. She said they might be willing to help with treatment costs if you apologize publicly.
Treatment costs.
A laugh tears out of my throat, high and sharp and slightly unhinged. The sound echoes off the walls of the empty room, and I clap my hand over my mouth to stop it.
This is what crazy sounds like. This is what they're all talking about.
I shove the phone under a pillow and push myself up from the window seat. My legs have gone numb from sitting too long, pins and needles shooting through my calves as I stumble toward the closet. The hardwood floor is cold under my bare feet. I should have put on socks. Pedro's wool socks are somewhere in the nest, buried under Carlos's flannel and Nacho's grey hoodie.
I'm not going to need them anymore.
The closet door sticks when I pull it. This house is old, full of quirks and creaks, doors that don't quite fit their frames after acentury of settling. Sergio mentioned fixing this door last week. Said he'd plane it down over the weekend.
He won't have to bother now.
I grab my suitcase and drag it out and heave it onto the bed. The impact sends pillows tumbling. Sergio's hockey jersey slides off the headboard and lands in a heap on the floor, faded number seventeen staring up at me like an accusation.
My chest constricts. I bend down and pick up the jersey, pressing the worn fabric to my nose. Cedar and smoke. Safety and warmth and everything I don't deserve.
I fold it carefully and set it on the nightstand. He'll want it back.
The dresser drawers screech when I yank them open. I grab clothes in handfuls, not bothering to sort, just cramming everything into the suitcase. A shirt I bought last summer. Jeans that are starting to fray at the knees.
My hands are shaking so hard I drop a sweater twice before managing to shove it in the bag. The trembling has spread up my arms, into my shoulders, down into my core. My teeth chatter even though the room is warm.
This is panic. I've felt it before, in the dressing room at the church, right before I kicked off my heels and dove through that window.
The difference is, last time the panic pushed me toward four men who made me feel like a person instead of a project.
This time the panic is pushing me away.
I zip the suitcase and wrestle it off the bed. The wheels catch on the braided rug as I drag it toward the door. I should leave a note. Should try to explain.
But what would I write?
Dear Sergio, Pedro, Carlos, and Nacho,
Thank you for three weeks of kindness. Sorry about the property damage, the raccoon incident, the thumb in thecentrifuge, and the media circus currently camped at the end of your driveway. I'm leaving so your lives can go back to normal. Please forget I exist.
Love (pathetically, desperately, inappropriately), Jessica
P.S. I stole your clothes. They're on the bed. Except for the hoodie I'm wearing. I'm keeping that. Consider it payment for emotional damages.
