Her hand moved toward the turn signal—an automatic response born of weeks spent following his movements, documenting his routine. The familiar urge to track him, to know where he was going and what he was doing, flooded her system like a physical craving—just one more time. Just to see where he went after leaving the station. Just to?—
"No." The word emerged sharp and loud in her quiet car, startling even herself. Ann jerked her hand away from the turn signal, gripping the steering wheel again with both hands. She forced her foot down on the accelerator, her gaze fixed deliberately on the road ahead as she passed the station.
"Don't look back," she whispered to herself. "Just keep driving. Steady pace."
But her eyes betrayed her, darting to the rearview mirror where Marcus's figure was still visible, growing smaller with each second but burning into her consciousness nonetheless. It took every ounce of willpower to keep the car moving forward, away from him, away from the pull he exerted on her fractured psyche.
The town gradually thinned into suburbs, then into scattered rural properties, then into the empty highway that would carry her away from everything familiar. Only when the "Now Leaving" sign disappeared behind her did Ann allow herself to exhale fully, her shoulders dropping from their position near her ears, her death grip on the steering wheel easing slightly.
Days along with hundreds of miles passed beneath her tires, the landscape changing from forest to farmland to swamps. Ann drove mechanically, her mind cycling through memories, justifications, explanations—constructing and reconstructing narratives that allowed her to remain the victim rather than the perpetrator in her own story.
They could say what they wanted. She knew the real truth.
On the third day, a gas station appeared on the horizon, its sign flickering even in the morning light—some electrical issue causingthe fluorescent bulbs to pulse arrhythmically. Ann's fuel gauge hovered just above empty, forcing her to pull into the cracked concrete lot. The place looked deserted except for a single attendant visible through the convenience store's streaked glass.
Ann filled her tank methodically, the smell of gasoline sharp in her nostrils as she watched the numbers climb on the pump display. Her phone vibrated in her pocket—had been vibrating periodically throughout her drive, though she'd ignored it until now. With the pump running, she had no excuse to continue her avoidance.
Six new messages. Lena, Miriam, Chef Cho, Tom Granger. Their names lined up on her screen like an indictment.
Lena: "Ann, please call me. I'm worried about you. We can figure this out."
Ann's thumb moved automatically, deleting the message without fully letting the words sink in. She didn't need Lena's false concern. Didn't need the pity of someone who had abandoned her when she needed support most.
Miriam: "I'm so sorry about everything. The restaurant isn't the same without you. Please call when you're ready to talk."
Delete.
Chef Cho: "Porter. Heard what happened. Know a good lawyer if you need one. Text me."
Ann paused, momentarily surprised by the offer. Then suspicion bloomed—was this another trap? Another attempt to locate her, to bring her back, to force her into "treatment" she didn't need? Her thumb moved again. Delete.
The final message was from Tom Granger, sent less than an hour ago: "It's not too late to get help. Everyone makes mistakes. What matters is how we handle them afterward. The offer still stands—Granger's will cover the first month at the facility. Please consider it, Ann. For your own sake."
Her finger hovered over the delete button, but something stopped her. A tiny crack appeared in the fortress of her conviction—a moment of clarity that whispered: What if they're right? What if I really did imagine all of it?
The gas pump clicked off, jarring her from the uncomfortablethought. Ann returned the nozzle to its holder and screwed her gas cap back into place. As she slid back into the driver's seat, her gaze fell on a business card, which had fallen from the passenger seat onto the floor.
New Horizons Psychiatric Treatment Center.
The place Officer Ramirez had suggested. Ann picked up the card, turning it over in her fingers, feeling its weight and solidity.
For one brief, terrifying moment, the possibility opened before her—that everything she believed might be wrong, that her mind had constructed an elaborate fiction, that she needed the kind of help this card represented.
Then the moment passed, the crack in her conviction sealing shut as quickly as it had appeared.
"They're all just gaslighting me," Ann muttered, tossing her phone onto the passenger seat beside the business card. "I'm the only one who knows the truth."
She started the engine and pulled back onto the empty highway, accelerating quickly as if she could outrun the doubts that had momentarily surfaced. The road stretched before her, empty and promising—a clean slate, a new start, a place where no one knew her name or her history.
Ann refused to acknowledge the small voice whispering that no matter how far she drove, the real problem remained seated right beside her, inescapable as her own shadow.
As she stopped at a roadside diner to eat, the neon lights flickered as she slid into a vinyl booth. She'd barely glanced at the menu when movement on the mounted TV caught her eye—a redheaded woman with a confident posture speaking into a forest of microphones.
"Who's that?" she asked, nodding toward the screen as the waitress refilled ketchup bottles nearby.
The waitress followed her gaze and smiled. "Eva Rae Thomas. FBI hotshot. Just cracked that serial case nobody could solve down in Tampa." She nodded toward the screen. "Got a book out now about how she gets inside killers' heads. Half the women in Florida want to be her, the other half want to meet her."
"Eva Rae Thomas," she whispered, rolling each syllable across her tongue like a hard candy. Her lips curved into a smile that didn't reach her eyes. “I think I want to be you, too.”
