Page 19 of When I'm Gone

Chase’s warm palm spreads over my fingers where I’m digging into my denim clad kneecaps. He takes over the conversation with Blake, catching up about this or that, but I’m only half listening. Chase’s hand on my leg is making my brain leak out of my ears. I can’t even figure out what his goal is until he encourages me with soft touches to ease upon my grip. When I do, the corner of his mouth twitches in an almost smile and his head moves just slightly in a nod of approval.

He takes his hand back now that I’m not clawing at myself, and a whine nearly escapes my throat. The sudden absence of contact leaves me feeling weirdly warm and buzzy. I really need to get my head on straight. Consider the lesson learned; I never want to be dependent on someone like that again because when I had to leave, it was terrifying how easy it would have been for him to stop me. I need to focus. Figure out a life plan and start checking boxes: GED, college, career. I don’t want to waste another moment, I can’t.

I won’t.

My head snaps up when I hear my name. From the reflection in Blakely’s eyes looking back at me, it’s not the first time she’s said it. Fucking hell, the way he would lay into me if I didn’t hear him. My body threatens to curl up on me just thinking about it. “I-I’m sorry. What did you say?”

Both of them have endless patience in their eyes. It shocks me to my core. “It’s okay, I was just wondering where you came in from,” Blakely says.

“Umm.” Do I lie? I can’t think of why I should.

She’s quick to double back. “Not that you have to tell me, of course. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“No, it’s fine. Boston, actually.”

Chase raises his dark eyebrows. “Jeez, that’s a long trip.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” I grumble.

It was eighty-one hours on a bus that smelled like body odor and desperation, and I spent every second of it trying not to get carsick or jump out the window in hopes that a semi would run over me. The only thing that stops me from abandoning this whole idea is that I have three dollars and fifty-seven cents left after buying a one-way bus ticket toSeattle, and this was the only thing keeping me out of a homeless shelter.

Blakely hums behind me. “It’s good you came,” she announces, like it’s that easy. Like some broken piece finally slid into place when I stepped off that bus and breathed my first breath of clean Washington air. Like everything makes sense now after years of muddled reality and now we’re right in the middle of blinding clarity and everyone is better off for it.

Like I didn’t have some sort of sick flashback this morning when I heard Chase leave for work this morning, leaving me too triggered to even be in the same room as that damn bed or make myself a cup of coffee. I could not convince myself that my ex wouldn’t materialize in front of me and knock the shit out of me for sleeping in my sweats last night or call me a worthless piece of shit until it was engraved on my bones because I didn’t wait on him to start the pot brewing.

“Why do you look familiar?” I ask Blakely suddenly. The words tumble out of my mouth before I realize she is mid-word and I interrupted her. “Sorry,” I add. “I’m sorry. I feel like I’ve seen you before and it’s kind of driving me crazy.”

Chase sniggers. “How into paparazzi clickbait are you?”

“Shit, are you famous or something?”

She throws her head back and laughs. “No way. Only the most dedicated internet stalkers would recognize me from those things.”

I’m grateful for the distraction, but I almost slip up and tell her that I totally might fall into that category. Sue me, I’d get bored like anyone else, and it was just mind-numbing enough to do the trick since he suggested I get off social media. “That sounds like something a famous person would say.”

Chase eyes me from the driver’s seat, making my skinheat. “Does the name Landon Ellison ring a bell for you?” If I was drinking water, it would have ended in a spit-take. I’m not even into basketball but everyone knows about the hot player in LA taking over the league. Chase takes sympathy on me and clarifies. “Easton, meet my very good friend, Blakely Ellison—Landon’s college sweetheart.”

That’s totally where I recognize her from. She gets photographed with him just about anytime they go out in public together. “Does it count as college sweethearts for us though? Because my vote is no, but no one sees it that way.”

“How is that something you’re not sure about?” I ask before I can think better of it.

Chase rolls his eyes. “Don’t let her fool you, Easton, she would be the last person to know something like that. Blakely and Landon were head over heels for each other for years and had no fucking clue. Made for a cute story but it definitely proved that she’s not observant about her own life.”

He says it so fondly, even when he’s teasing her, and she doesn’t look even mildly offended. It reminds me of Brady. He could never ditch that fondness, even if he was mad that I accidentally saved over his progress in his favorite video game or dropped the lego figurine he spent hours putting together. I buried all those memories six feet under when I ran away and then cemented over them for good measure.

Once upon a time, anger and disappointment didn’t dilute love, but that was a long time ago.

“You guys make a beautiful couple,” I tell her, and she smiles kindly at me in return. These people make it easy to pretend I’m not currently a basket case. To just fall into their playful banter and let my hand dance in the breeze as one street blends into another. The sun warms my skin, the air smells like tree bark and rain, making me feel almost human. As long as I can ignore the way each blink grits against myeyes like sandpaper and the overwhelming urge to curl up in Chase’s lap and die.

Maybe he’d pet my hair or something while it’s happening, make it nice for me.

I hate feeling like this. Like leaving my relationship is somehow equivalent to walking out of a war-zone. It makes no sense to me; I was fine for so long but now I’m very much not. And I’m not great at keeping things close to my chest, I like talking through things with someone I trust. It was him for years, even when it didn’t go like I’d hoped, he was always the person I went to. Now, my head is worse than it’s ever been, and my instincts are telling me to lean into someone about it but they obviously have led me astray before and I’m terrified to get burned again.

So, yeah, maybe Chase is great. But so was he. In the beginning, he was the best of the best. Cream of the crop, as my asshole father would say. So maybe Chase is nice now, but if I’m wrong about him and I give history the chance to repeat itself, there’s no way I can survive that. Not even romantically, but trusting anyone in that capacity again and then not understanding what I did to make them switch up on me is more than I can handle.

So, I won’t give him the chance. I won’t give anyone the chance. Never again.

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