“Thank you for visiting Harborview.”
The sign blurred as I drove past it, with no clear destination in mind exceptaway.
My phone rang. I pulled it from my pocket to see Benny’s name on the screen. I rejected the call, opened my contacts, and selected another name to call instead.
It was well past midnight, but I knew he’d answer.
When the line clicked, I spoke before he had the chance to. “I’m leaving him. I’m leaving them all. It’s done. Don’t hurt anyone else.”
Silence for a moment, then Leon spoke. “Good. Come home.”
Home. That house had never been my home. No place had been. Myhomewas currently in a hospital waiting room in the opposite direction from where I was headed.
“No,” I answered. “I lose, but so do you. Neither of us gets what we want. I’m leaving.”
“Harper—”
I hung up.
I turned off my phone.
I drove faster.
forty-four
Harper
RUNAWAYS.
Every day was harder than the last as weeks passed. I lived off the cash I’d taken from the ATM the day I’d quit my job, staying in the cheapest motels and eating only enough to keep myself from passing out.
I’d found a bag of new clothes in the trunk of Benny’s car, and I’d been wearing them. He’d been buying me new styles and colors these past few months to see if I’d like them. I wasn’t sure pink sweaters and booty shorts were my thing, but I didn’t want to waste my limited funds on something so unimportant as clothing.
Leon seemed to have left Benny and his family alone, at least from what I could tell when I looked them up.
After days of him trying to contact me, I’d ditched my phone, bought the cheapest one I could replace it with and still use the internet, and continued on.
There was a hole in my chest, and I figured it was because my heart had stayed with him. It left me with a growing void in its place.
Some days, I didn’t even get out of the shitty hotel bed, even though I was incapable of sleeping.
I couldn’t go back. Not until I found a way to fix this and keep them all safe. But what could I do?
How was I supposed to take on Leon when he had everything and I had nothing?
Weeks of thinking, and only one answer presented itself.
But how?
How could I get rid of Leon and returnhome?
Benny was light. He was color. He was music. He wasgood.
My hands were already too tainted to hold him. If I ruined them further, I would never be able to let myself touch him again.
I was alone.
I fucking hated being alone.
