Page 57 of The Other Side of Apart

“You know we can’t go back to our apartment, right, Mei?”

She stands and leans over my bedrail, burying her face in my neck. “I’m so sorry, Marcus,” she breathes, and I slide my arm around her. Her weight presses against me, grounding me in reality.

“We gotta move,” I say.

Mei pulls back, meeting my eyes.

“We can’t risk Nick showing up again to finish us off. We can’t stay here. Like all the other places we couldn’t stay.” My words are still too big, too hot, coming too fast, so I close my eyes and focus on pushing them down, but I’m too tired. “I’m so sick of running and hiding and worrying. This is all so stupid. And I don’t wanna do it anymore.” I’m too exhausted to resist the truth bobbing at the surface. It’s found my weakest moment and slipped out.

She smooths her hair away from her face, acting like nothing happened. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, we’re going back to Stanford. I’ve been talking to my academic advisor since we left. I’m still enrolled, and I might be able to get my scholarship back. Maybe. I’ll find out in a couple days.” I swallow. “All I know is, I’m not staying here anymore. I’m not doing any of this anymore.”

She searches my face like my words are scrawled across it, illegible. I’m surprised she hasn’t seen them before now. But maybe she’s looking at me like that because she didn’t hear me,so I say it again. “Done running and hiding and pretending.” The moment with Nick seeps from my memory, a hot trickle through my whole body. My lungs ache, my leg throbs, my face burns.

“When you say you’re done, are you talking about?—?”

“All of it. I can’t do it. I don’t want to. Can’t even run anymore anyway.” I flex my toes to remind my body I still have a leg, but pain shoots up my shin and through my thigh, and I hiss through my teeth.

Mei stares at our hands and I can almost see the thoughts circling her head, wondering when to land. Wonder if she’ll say what she’s thinking since I can’t see her eyes.

“You know this is what I’ve always been afraid of, right, Marcus? You getting hurt? This is why I gave you so many chances to run the other way.”

“You think I would’ve run, knowing you’d get hurt? Not a chance, Mei. But I don’t wanna do any of this anymore.” I throw my hand toward my leg, the room, whatever waits for us once we leave this hospital. “I wanna get out of here and out of Indiana and away from it all.” Our eyes meet, and we stare at each other, but hers are metal doors she’s hiding behind. I let out a long breath and reach for her. I slide my hand around the back of her neck, threading my fingers in her hair. “I’m sorry, Mei, I?—”

Someone taps on the door, and my head snaps up as two officers step into the room.

“Hello again, Mr. Bromley. Hope you’re feeling better today than yesterday.”

Mei stiffens beside me, her eyes on the cops as I pull my hand away.

“I can think of a few things that would make my life a little better right now, but hey—I’m alive, so we’ll start there,” I say.

They chuckle, approaching my bed. “Mind if we ask you some follow up questions about yesterday’s events? We don’t feel likewe got a full report since you weren’t in any state to answer a bunch of questions.”

I’m really still not. It’s like my mood took a dive during surgery, and I’m trying to swim through the tension and frustration, but I’m drowning “Uh, yeah. Sure. Not going anywhere for a few hours.”

Mei grips the bedrail. I’m gonna have to be very careful with my answers; can’t say anything that will make them suspect Mei.

They stand at the end of my bed, so I have to talk over my brace like it’s part of the conversation.

“Are either of you connected in any way to your attacker, Mr. Bromley?” the shorter officer asks, leaning casually against the end of my hospital bed. “Any reason he would enter your apartment specifically?”

My eyes dart to Mei, who’s shaking her head. “No. No connection to him,” she says.

I swallow the inevitable bitterness that always comes before a lie. “Nope. Just the chosen one, I guess.”

The officer glances at Mei before throwing out another question. “Are you aware of any reason someone would break into your apartment?”

Mei’s response is immediate. “The only thing I can think of is that whoever lived there before us was involved with him in some way.”

I’m impressed with her quick thinking, but the officer is looking at me. “Mr. Bromley?”

“We have nothing anyone would actually want.” Minus that very battered, expensive box of tampons throwing a shiny beacon from the cupboard.

“We’re just trying to piece together why the attacker zeroed in on your apartment complex, your apartment.”

“We have the same questions,” Mei says, nodding, and the officers shift their attention to her.

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