Page 87 of Visions of Darkness

“I can’t go on, knowing my mom is terrified for me, Pax. I can’t pretend like I don’t know that she can’t function because the only thing she can think about is me. I can’t pretend my brothers and sister aren’t being affected. I can’t.”

Pax edged even closer, speaking around gritted teeth. “You’re running because of them. Because they locked you away because they don’t understand you. They don’t understand you and they never will. You have to let them go.”

His words were harsh. Almost cruel in their delivery. As if it were the only way he could get through to me. But he didn’t understand these pieces of me, either.

“I love them.”

It was simple, and the way his jaw clenched made me sure he didn’t understand.

He’d never experienced it here.

And that nearly killed me, too.

“I can’t just forget them, and you can’t ask me to.”

For the longest time, he stared at me like he wanted to argue.

Finally, he looked to the ground. “Goddamn it, Aria.”

He inhaled through his nose, agitation lighting him up before he pulled the oldest phone I’d ever seen from his coat pocket.

It was bulky and as obsolete as the television in the motel room.

“Here.”

I stared at it like he’d handed me a bomb. I guessed he had.

“Make it fast.”

My hands shook as I dialed my mother’s number, and all the breath left me when she answered on the first ring.

“Hello?”

Grief hitched in my throat with the desperate cry that infiltrated the single word: “Mom.” I choked it out. Eighteen years of pain and misunderstanding bled out with it.

“Aria, oh my God, Aria.” She gasped it around sobs.

Tears slipped free of my eyes.

“Oh my God, Aria. Where are you?” she begged. I could tell she was pacing, the phone clutched to her ear.

“I’m safe.”

“Please tell me where you are. I’ll come for you. Whatever trouble you’re in, it’s okay. We can talk and make this right. I promise—”

“I’m not coming home.”

Despair seeped into her voice. “Please, don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.”

Agony burned in my chest. “I just wanted to let you know I’m safe. I’m safe. I promise I’m safe. And I want you to know how much I love you. That I understand why you’ve done the things you have, butI also need you to understand that I can’t live under the weight of that any longer.”

“Aria,” she cried.

A commotion clattered through the connection, a crash and the shattering of glass before my father’s voice suddenly came through the line. “Where the hell are you, Aria? Do you understand the kind of trouble you’re in? Whoever you’re with is going to pay the—”

I yelped when the phone was suddenly yanked out of my hand. Pax threw it to the ground and stomped on it with the heel of his boot, crushing it in one swift blow.

My hands flew to my mouth to cover the sob. There was a huge part of me that wanted to gather up the broken pieces and put them back together so I could hear her voice again. The part that wanted to succumb.

---