Page 156 of Hunting Pretty

I loved him. And he loved me.

And that was enough.

Spurred on by my realization, I snatched my backpack into my lap and grabbed the closest pile of soft cotton summer dresses. Would this be enough?

Who knows? Who cares? We could buy more clothes wherever we were going. All I needed washim.

I shoved the dresses into the backpack and froze as something rattled at the bottom.

I set the clothes aside and reached into the bottom of the bag, pulling out a thin cotton shopping bag.

It was Liath’s stuff that she’d left at Aisling’s house, gathered into a bag like I’d asked her to.

“Take it.” Aisling had shoved it into my hands before running off that day in the pub.

But I’d been so dizzy with my own realization I hadn’t looked inside. I’d shoved it into my backpack and forgotten about it.

I pushed the backpack and photo album aside and pulled the bag of Liath’s stuff in my lap, picking at the This Is Not a Plastic Bag label on the side in stamped paint.

I was leaving. I was.

So… what did it matter what was in Liath’s stuff. Right?

I fidgeted with the long cotton handles, running my finger along the opening.

If I looked inside, I might find something. And…

And that didn’t matter anyway because I was leaving.

Iwasleaving.

I dumped the bag upside down onto the bed before I could change my mind.

Out rolled a yellow toothbrush, a tortoiseshell brush with several dark hairs weaved through the bristles, her favorite faded black Radiohead t-shirt.

And… Liath’s pills.

I picked up the yellow bottle and rolled it between my fingers, the pills rattling in my hand like a bag of bones.

She’d been taking antidepressants, Aisling had said. Or really, she’d stopped taking them.

These must be them.

I popped the lid and shook a pill out into my palm.

White, round, and with an indented line across the middle.

I frowned.

I scooted off the bed and raced to my bathroom, pulling out my own pill bottle and shaking out a pill into my palm.

I stared at the two pills side by side.

Hers were supposed to be antidepressants.

So why did they lookexactlylike my antipsychotic pills?

I turned Liath’s pill bottle over so I could read the label.

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