I throw the fucking pill bottle.
It hits the wall and breaks apart, pills scattering across the floor.
I get down on my hands and knees and pick up every single one.
Carefully.
Because I need them.
They’re all I have right now.
I don’t look at his window anymore.
Don’t watch who’s coming and going next door.
He made his choice.
But I still leave the window open.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD
• • •
The year goes by like that.
Time passing.
Me drifting farther and farther from the edges of myself.
Senior year is coming.
I have to think about college.
I have to get myself together enough to make a decision, fill out forms, perform the version of Rowan Hayes who has a future and knows what to do with it.
I can do that.
I’m good at performing.
I learned from the best.
• • •
I want to go far.
That’s the only requirement I have.
Far enough that the distance does something the medication can’t.
Far enough that the fact of him — just next door, just out of reach, close enough that I could just touch him —
stops being a thing I have to manage every single day.
I could go anywhere, realistically.
The grades are there.
