Page 121 of The Misfit

Didn’t check my phone that night because I was organizing my sock drawer by color and texture, needing everything to be perfect, controlled, orderly. While my best friend stood on those cliffs alone. While she made a choice I didn’t understand until much later.

“The Mill?” the driver confirms, eyeing my formal wear in his rearview mirror.

I nod, not trusting my voice. He probably thinks I’m running from a bad date, not running toward ghosts I’ve avoided for two years.

The night wraps around us as we drive, streetlights becoming scarcer until nothing but starlight and memory light the way. Chelsea loved the cliffs by The Mill. Said they made her feel infinite, standing at the edge of everything. I never understood that—how chaos could feel like freedom. Not until Lee taught me that some patterns exist in the midst of disorder. That sometimes the most beautiful things are the ones that don’t align perfectly.

Lee.

My hands clench in my lap, but I force the thought away. I can’t think about him right now. Can’t think about how he looked tonight, drowning himself in bourbon and self-hatred. Can’t think about how much I wanted to stay, to help, to fix everything.

Because that’s what got me into trouble with Chelsea, isn’t it? Always trying to fix things. Always thinking I could make everything perfect if I just tried hard enough. Always believing I could save people who didn’t want saving. Or letting people into my life who think they can fixme. I like to pretend I was normal before everything happened, but I’ve been counting and cleaning all my life. It just got much worse after Chelsea.

The dirt road to the cliffs appears, and I ask the driver to stop. He hesitates, clearly concerned about leaving a woman in formal wear at the edge of nowhere in the middle of the night. But something pulls me forward. Something stronger than memory or guilt or patterns. Something that feels like finally being ready to face the truth about that night. About Chelsea. About everything that came after.

Even if it breaks me all over again.

Even if it shatters every careful wall I’ve built.

Even if it means letting go of the last bits of control I’ve clung to since that night.

The cliffs rise before me, silhouetted against the stars that Chelsea loved to count. Time to face our ghosts.

“You sure about this, miss?” the driver asks one last time.

I am. For the first time since that night, I really am.

The path to the cliffs seems steeper than I remember, or maybe that’s just my heels sinking into loose dirt with every step. Chelsea and I used to run up here in sneakers, laughing and breathless, racing to see who could reach the top first. Now each step feels like penance.

My silk gloves catch on branches as I steady myself, gathering smudges of earth and green that won’t wash out. These were Lee’s gift—chosen with such care, such attention to my needs. Now they’re being ruined by this pilgrimage I can’t explain.

A branch snags the right glove, tearing the delicate fabric. The night air hits my skin through the rip, and suddenly, I can’t stand them anymore. Can’t bear these beautiful things that represent everything I’m losing, everything I’ve already lost.

With trembling fingers, I peel them off. The cool air feels foreign against my bare hands. How long has it been since I’ve felt anything directly? Since I’ve let myself be this exposed? The gloves go into my dress pocket, the silk crushed and dirty, like everything else about this night.

But something strange happens as I stand there, my hands bare in the darkness. The world doesn’t end. Panic doesn’t overwhelm me. The need to count and clean and control everything doesn’t consume me.

Maybe that’s Chelsea’s gift, finally reaching me after all this time. The understanding that sometimes we have to let go of our careful patterns to find our way forward.

Or maybe it’s Lee’s influence—teaching me that some chaos can be beautiful, that some disorder holds its own kind of peace. Even now, leaving him behind, he’s helped me find strength I didn’t know I had.

The path levels out ahead, opening to the clearing where everything changed two years ago. Where Chelsea stood alone because I was too busy organizing my life to see she was about to end hers. Where Marcus …

A figure stands at the cliff’s edge, silhouetted against the starlight. For a moment, my heart stops—the scene too familiar, too close to how I imagined that night hundreds of times. I haven’t been able to return to this spot since then.

Then I recognize him.

I wonder how often he comes here.

Like he can feel my eyes on his, he turns around, and in the dim moonlight, I swear I see a flash of surprise flicker in his eyes.

“Salem?” His voice carries none of its usual cruelty. He sounds younger somehow. More like the boy who used to make Chelsea laugh before everything went wrong.

We stare at each other across the clearing, two survivors of a tragedy neither of us fully understood. Both of us carriers of guilt that doesn’t belong to us. Both of us hiding behind masks that maybe, finally, it’s time to remove.

Like my ruined gloves, sometimes protection becomes a prison.

Like Chelsea’s choice, sometimes the hardest truth is that we couldn’t have changed anything.

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