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I run.

I run like I could never run before.

I run from him.

From the ghosts of my past.

I run from myself.

I’m out of the house in seconds, bursting through the front door with no idea of where I’m going. My feet pound the ground, and I run—the street blurred by tears and the cover of the night.

Dylan chases after me.

My chest hurts, my lungs burn with each inhale of the cold spring air, and yet sweat breaks on my skin. My legs carry me away, putting distance between me and what just happened.

I cross the street, and I’m blinded by lights followed by the sound of screeching tires and an angry car horn. My steps falter, and I lose speed.

“Becca!” Dylan calls to me.

He’s a figure coming from the shadows. Streetlights sharpen his features as he moves into the glow of the light. I stumble backward and out of the street. I turn and gain purchase again, but flight has abandoned me, and my steps slow with each wheeze for air.

All my senses come back on full alert. The car that almost hit me drives on. Beyond my own loud breathing, lies the quiet of the night and the sound of someone else heaving.

I stagger backward, only to turn and fall on my hands and knees. Cold grass softens the fall. I squeezed my eyes shut and cover my ears with dew-wet hands. But the images I try so hard to forget flash in my mind, and I open my eyes to shut them down.

His shadow falls over me, and he kneels. He’s close, within arm’s reach, but he gives me space. The few inches between us—a wall of safety, a prison—the loneliest of spaces.

“Becca …” His voice is just above a whisper, my name dropping out of his lips in an exhale.

His hands come closer, but don’t touch me. Is he repelled by me? Repelled by all those who touched my skin before him?

I crave his touch … and hate that I do.

His arms come around me and embrace me, I turn to stone at first, then my entire being folds into him.

I tremble. I’m cracking into a thousand pieces that can never be put back together.

His chest presses to my side, his arms circle me, He pulls me close, and the heat of his body envelops me, melting away the coldness, layer by layer until my skin burns from the inside out. I want to push away, to fight him off me, but I have no fight left.

His cheek presses to the top of my head, he tightens his arms around me—my entire universe goes askew. What is this? My mind races, trying to place the foreign feeling cuddling my heart. It takes me a couple of minutes to figure it out.

Refuge. Sanctuary. Heaven.

Dylan feels like home.

The notion is so unreal, so bizarre, that a bubble of laughter erupts out of me.

Then I’m laughing and laughing until the misplaced sounds of joy turn into sobs.

And I cry. I cry and cry. A deluge spilling out of me.

A waterfall of tears.

A broken dam.

My stomach clenches and heaves.

My body, my heart, my soul choosing this moment to spill all the pain, all the hurt, all the ugly out of me. I cry until I’m empty of everything.