Page 70 of The Version You Hide

I pick up speed, no real idea where I’m heading, just knowing I need far away from this place. When my lungs are burning, my muscles spent, I find myself near a small shopping village nestled in a bay. My feet carry me to the water’s edge, and I collapse down onto the sand, the full weight of what I’ve just been told sinking through my bones like lead.

Truth be told, I don’t know how I’m supposed to react. My mother has been gone for most of my life. I didn’t know if there would ever be a day that I’d see her again. It’s only now that I know that day will never come that I realise I had hope.

A tiny slither of faith that maybe one day she’d spring back into my life. That she’d tell me how sorry she was, and I’d have the chance to forgive her.

How could she be gone?

I don’t know how long I sit here, the silence of the beach a total contrast to the overwhelming volume of my thoughts, but it’s long enough for the sky to change colour.

When the sun has almost set, I find a bus stop across from the shopping village and board a bus back to Cliff Haven.

My tears hold out until I’m about halfway home and I wonder then if I’ll ever be able to stop them. I’ve never been much of a crier, but they pour out of me soundlessly now like rain through a floodgate.

My thoughts take me to places I don’t want to go, leaving a myriad of questions in their wake. How will I explain all of this to Kristen? Does my father already know? Surely, he wouldn’t have left me wondering about her existence if he did.

Fat heavy droplets begin to fall on the roof of the bus, cascading down the windows, blurring the world outside. I’m so caught up in my grief, I forget to look at where I am. I squint out at the dark street, realising I’ve missed my stop.

“Shit,” I curse as I stand up, swiping at my eyes. I stumble down the aisle to the bus driver. “I need to get off.”

The bus comes to a halt a little further down the road. When the door swings open with an audible hiss, I burst out onto the street.

I scan the area, gathering my surroundings. I’m at the beach. If I take the shortcut through the beach trail, I might be able to cut a few minutes off the twenty-minute journey across town.

I cross the street, startled by a car horn and the screeching of tires. I hold up a hand in apology as the headlights blind me, leaving a trail of silver along the wet road. Then I race toward the trail, my hair clinging to my shoulders in thick strands, the crop top and jeans I’m wearing completely soaked through.

There’s been a sharp temperature drop, the icy wind blowing through the fibres of my wet clothing. I know the cold should bother me, but I’m numb.

Tears fill my vision as the ground blurs in front of me, the trees creating black shadows in the darkening night. I make it to the start of the trail when everything starts to spin.

I stumble, tripping over a tree branch. My hands shoot out in time to brace myself from the full weight of the fall, but they hadn’t been able to stop me completely.

I push myself up into a sitting position, my jeans now coated in mud, my hands filthy.

“Mackenzie!” A voice cuts through the air. “Mackenzie!”

Panic replaces the air in my chest, my body frozen in place.

“I’m coming for you, Mackenzie. You can run but you can’t hide.”

“Ethan! No!” My scream echoes through the trees.

His hands are on me now, smothering and all-consuming.

He’s going to kill me this time. I’m sure of it.

I scramble to my knees, but he still claws at me.

My body feels so heavy. I don’t know how much fight I have left.

I’m losing the will to get back up as his voice begins to fade into the background.

I close my eyes, surrendering.

“Mackenzie, it’s me.”

Chapter 22

DYLAN

---