Page 64

Jessica

My left sock has ripped, my heel now exposed and bleeding. Every step is painful, and my right foot isn’t much better. Between the state of my feet and the wheeze of my chest, I need to walk, but I’m too afraid to.

My initial thought—that I’d get in trouble for checking myself out—is gone, because whatever that place is, it’s not legit. I’m not even sure it’s legal. Unless it’s some government black ops site—and why would I be at a black ops site?

It doesn’t make sense. None of it. And now, I’m starting to think through everything I should have questioned.

Like why I wasn’t being arrested for what I supposedly did to my mom.

Was that bullshit too? Probably. I just need my brain to be clear.

I’m a smart girl when I’m not in some medication-induced fog.

My mom used to always say that. So much smarter than me!

She said it so much that I asked once if I got my brains from my dad.

That, apparently, hadn’t been the smart thing to ask.

She got really quiet, and I felt like an asshole, and I know you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but I was paying him a compliment, sort of, so it seems like it would have been okay.

Someone’s got to drive down this road at some point. It’s not overgrown at all, so someone is using it a lot. There’s like, nothing out here. A bunch of trees and a fence. I haven’t seen anything since I left that building—not even a mailbox or power line.

I look back. The road has curved, the building now hidden from view.

I don’t know if they’re chasing me or not.

If not yet, they will be. He seems like he’d be fast, probably runs marathons on the weekends and shit.

The only time I run is to the couch if a new episode of reality TV is on.

Other than that, the last time I did any version of cardio was when I tried to be on top during sex and had to switch positions after thirty seconds because my thighs gave out.

A tight pain in my rib cage hits, and I stumble to a walk and press my hand against the cramp, attempting to massage out the knot.

I look back and speed walk, scanning the sides of the path.

If I hear an engine, I’ll sprint into the trees and hide.

He won’t know where I left the path. The straw will hide any footprints—not that I’ll leave any in my socks.

There’s a bend ahead, and it looks like a clearing.

I force myself to jog again, wincing with each step.

At the clearing, I can stop. Maybe there will be a gas station or a neighborhood. A river. I would kill for something to drink.

Ten more steps. I count them down, my lungs protesting as I push my body to its limit.

I fall short. It takes another few footfalls, but then I am at the clearing, and I stop, because here the road ends, the path branching off to the left and the right to make way for a pasture.

And there, way across the pasture, I see a house, one with an honest-to-God white picket fence and flowers in the window boxes and some wind chimes swinging off the porch.

I duck under the fence rail and start to run toward it.

The grass is soft, and even my cramp is on board, softening as I sprint toward freedom.