Sam pulls up in front of the building and I take a few breaths to get my hands to stop shaking. In and out. I’ve got this. I’ve done it before.
“Sure you don’t want me to pack you a bag?” I shake my head and he spurs me on with his reassuring smile. “Take all the time you need, kid.”
As the front door closes with a soft click behind me, I’m more certain of my decision, terrified as I might be. I can’t stay here. The place we’ve rented for the past five years has too many memories.
Did he ever kiss her when we had parties or movie nights at home? The thought runs like ice shards through my chest. No…I can’t torture myself now. I’ll find time for hair-splitting later.
Weird how my childhood routine comes in handy now. A habit I couldn’t shake, even after eight years of stability. The essentials kit was always packed. Documents, cash, some clothes, and the few precious memories I had.
I pass through the living room, ignoring the evidence of our relationship, all our pictures together, the changes I made so we’d have a home that felt like ours, and head straight for the bedroom. I don’t need to pull the switch in the small closet. Jared never tidied up, so I wasn’t worried he’d ever find it. On the top shelf, in the back, I shuffle through old sweaters until my fingers graze the worn-out duffel bag.
It’s so old and tattered that the zipper almost breaks but I manage to open it. Everything is still inside. I shove in some more underwear and clothes until it’s bursting at the seams. In the hiking backpack we never used because Jared is not a fan of the outdoors, I throw the essentials for camping, as a backup.
The silent goodbye to the rest of the apartment doesn’t take long. My soul aches for the squeak in the floor near the small open kitchen and the dent in the bathroom door. The little imperfections made this place my real first home.
After one last look, I know there is nothing else I want to take with me. I won’t be back. It’s a certainty seated deep in my bones.
Leaving the keys under the doormat I’m hit with a painful sense of déjà vu, a laundry basket in my arms, holding what didn’t fit in the duffel bag. The moment slides me back through the corridors of time. A little girl stepping out of house after house until I turned eighteen. Each move leaving me worn out, smaller, brittle.
This one? This one might take everything from me.
“That was fast,” Sam says, getting out of the truck.
He recognizes my old bag and nods in understanding, going for the laundry basket and placing it in the back seat.
“This all? What about the couch?” Sam rolls his sleeve, ready to move furniture. He thinks he can still do that by himself, at his age.
“I just want to leave, OK?” I pull my jacket tighter around me, nervous to hang around much longer in case Jared materializes next to me. It’s stupid, I know, but I can’t stop dreading it.
“I’d leave him to sleep on the floor if you asked me,” Sam mutters.
“Honestly, I don’t want to touch any surface they might have…” Bile fills my mouth. It’s awkward enough and I leave him to fill in the blanks.
“Oh,” he grimaces in disgust. “Right.” Sam pulls at his football-night sweater, visibly uncomfortable. The one Martha made for me is safely tucked in the basket.
“Want to go anywhere else before we head home?”
“Oh, no…” I’m barely hanging on and desperately want to lock myself away. Martha and Sam are better off without my drama.
“Eliza, you know you’re always welcome in our home,” he says in a soft voice, turning to me, but I can’t meet his eyes, or my resolve will crumble. I hate upsetting them.
“I know.” I swallow against the dryness in my throat. “I need to be alone right now. Can you take me to Gram’s cabin, please?”
Sam sighs but doesn’t insist.
“It’s not like I’d take you to ours.” He laughs for my benefit. “That place is waiting for your magic touch, kid.” His abandoned fishing cabin needs more than my DIY skills, but I keep my mouth shut.
“Are you sure it’s empty?” Sam makes a U-turn toward the exit for the lakeside road.
“Valerie didn’t say anything about reservations for this weekend. Small mercies, I guess,” I say, returning a feeble smile.
Gram Miller’s cabin is ten minutes out of Silver Lake Falls. She wasn’t really my grandma, but the closest thing I had to one. She and her husband took me in when I was sixteen. They were nice, warm people who had already raised their kids, all scattered across the country with families of their own.
Their kindness still overwhelms me. They’re the reason I didn’t end up on the streets of Portland and now have a place to hide away from Jared.
The night becomes darker as the truck follows the dirt road leading to the lake. Tall pines and oaks eat up the sky as they sway, letting stars shine through from time to time. Deep between the trees, I catch glimpses of other cabins and thin columns of smoke rising from the places more secluded from the road.
Sam parks, the car tires crunching the gravel on the driveway. The sound is loud in the dark cocoon of the trees. The only other sounds are the gentle lapping of the lake and the occasional hoots and howls of night critters.
