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I still right there by Reid’s bedside. In my head, I replay the things I saw tonight. Sasha talking to the guy on the other team. The guy on the other team running back to his sideline with an almost smile on his face. Is he the one who sacked Reid? Did he try to hurt him on purpose?
I stumble back from the bed, guilt slamming into me hard and fast.
My fingers fall from Reid’s hand. His arm is outstretched beyond the sides of the stretcher now. His fingertips are just dangling there with no life. No life.
I turn around and head right back through the door. Instead of taking a right and going back toward the waiting room, I take a left. “Hey,” a voice says.
I ignore them. My head’s pounding. My heart’s in my throat.
Did Reid get hurt because of me? Because I didn’t want anyone seeing that stupid picture of me?
I trip over my two feet, but then right myself afterward.
“Hey!” the voice comes again. “You can’t be in here.”
The doors at the end of the hall swing open again and two paramedics walk through from outside. I slip to the side and make my way out. The sun is low in the sky, but it’s still shining. I hold my hands over my eyes, blocking out the bright rays. All they do is ricochet off the darkness I feel in my heart right now.
I think I had it right before…when I ran away. I definitely had it right. No one to care about but myself, and I’m not sure I even care about myself at all right now. Look what happened to Reid because of me.
The hospital is on a hill, so I climb up it, putting as much distance between me and Reid and me and the rest of the world as possible. People walk by me in business suits. Cars honk their horns. I hear the beep, beep of the intersection crosswalk, telling people when to go. I mix in so easily with the people walking around the city. That was one reason why I liked it so much before. Everyone’s so busy going to where they need to go that no one notices what’s going on with you. I can hide. And if no one’s asking me what’s wrong, maybe I’ll forget too.
Maybe I’ll just forget everything.
I keep walking and walking and walking, leaving this life behind once more.
Maybe I had the Spring Hill blues worse than Brady my whole life. Subconsciously, I probably knew I’d always leave.
30
A week later…
This room is somusty it makes my nose run. I’ve gone through all the scratchy tissues the motel provides and something tells me it’s going to be difficult to get another container, especially considering it looks like these were purchased in the seventies with the puke green paisley pattern printed on the outside of the box.
I stretch back on the bed, fully clothed with my hands behind my head. The TV is on, but I can’t really hear what it’s saying. I’ve already seen this episode ofSupernaturala bunch of times. I know I need to get out on the street, see if I can’t drum up some more money to pay for another night in this place. People just like giving money to young kids my age. They all want to help, especially when I look as sad and confused as I feel all the time.
But at least I’m not home right now. At least I’m not at school worrying about what’s happening with Re—. I shake my head. Nope. Won’t think about it. I left that life. It’s gone. What I need to do is find a permanent job instead of begging on the streets. I should probably hit up the local diners and see if I can’t get a bussing job or even a waitress position even though I have zero experience.
A knock comes on the door. I bite my lip. It’s probably the owner of the hotel. She’s been pretty good to me. I owe her for last night and tonight. I’m sure she’ll understand.
I swing my legs over to the carpeted floor. I briefly glance out the dirty window. Yeah, it’s her.
I undo both locks and swing it open. It takes a second for my eyes to adjust from the shitty motel grungy light to the bright light of the sun from outside. I haven’t kept the curtains open since I’ve been here, but when my eyes do adjust, I want to slam the door back in place.
“There you are,” a sickeningly sweet voice says.
She bounces right in, throwing her arm around me tight. Too tight.
“Thanks,” she calls out to the owner of the motel before kicking the door shut in her face. She yanks her arm off me as soon as the door’s closed, tugging some of my hair out in the process that got wrapped around her bracelets. “You’re so dumb,” she sneers.
I glare at Sasha, wondering how the hell she found me, but maybe even most importantly, why the hell she found me.
She takes her phone out and wiggles it in front of my face. “Do you think you actually had an online boyfriend named Ezra? You think because you were smart enough to turn your old phone off that no one would find you, but what was one of the first things you did after buying a burner phone? Contact me.”
I blink at her. I feel like my brain has already caught up to something my body doesn’t want to admit yet. “What are you talking about?” I ask, but there’s another question there that I want answered first. Another one that’s burning me up from the inside even though I know it might hurt to know.
She walks close to me and laughs in my face. “I’mEzra, Briar.” She smirks. “That friend, the only one you think you had in the world? Yeah, that was me. When you were touching yourself in that picture? It was me. When you were bleeding your heart out in messages? It was me. And I think you already know this, but I was laughing the entire fucking time. Your pain is funny to me.”
I feel sick. My stomach wars against the idea. It revolts, sending bile up my throat. Ezra is Sasha? When I bought the burner phone, he was the only person I told I’d run away again. It was a moment of weakness. A moment of uncertainty. I just wanted one person to know, so I picked the safest one. The one I knew wouldn’t come looking for me because he already proved he didn’t care that much. He already proved he could talk to me or not. Either way was fine with him.
And it was Sasha the entire fucking time.
I have nothing in my stomach, so there’s nothing to heave up, but my stomach tries to do it anyway. I cover my mouth and Sasha looks so disdainfully at me that if I had any feelings left, I might actually be hurt by that look.
I sent her a boob picture. She saw my nipple. She pretended to care. She pretended to be interested.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Sasha says, her black eyes zeroing in on me like she’s the devil himself.
I know I’m not going to like whatever comes out of her mouth next. I know I’m going to hate it. I know that what I’ve just done is throw myself into the path of the enemy with no life vests. I’m on my own. Truly, this time, I have no one.