Page 118 of Things You Save in a Fire
I yanked my arm out of his grasp.
“Hey!” he said, trying again. “I’m not finished!”
I yanked away again. “I am.”
And then I took off running, ankle and all. He wanted to leave? Fine. I would leaveharder.
But he took off running, too—right behind me. His feet smacked the pavement right behind mine. I sped up—or tried to, though I could tell my ankle wasn’t going to put up with it much longer. Was getting away worth reinjuring myself? Who cared?Good. Fine. Whatever.
That’s when Owen caught me. Reached out and grabbed the back of my T-shirt and broke my momentum—and as soon as he did, it was like snapping a rubber band. I stopped running altogether and turned to face him, right there in the middle of the road, panting.
“What?” I said, more like a yell.
“Cut it out! You’re going to sprain the other one.”
“I don’t care.”
He was panting, too. “Can I just talk to you?”
Here’s what I was doing: shutting down. When I watch that moment in my memory, knowing everything I know now, it seems so crazy to me how angry I was. He was trying to help me. He was making sure I could keep my job. He was giving me the thing I wanted most in the world.
Except the thing I really wanted most was him.
All I can say is, I wasn’t good at feelings. I’d spent my life carefully avoiding them. And now, since moving to Rockport, it had been one tidal wave of them after another—the crush, the kiss, the stalker, my mother… It’s easy to heckle the screen of my memory and say,Just let the man talk!But in the moment, I truly felt like I might drown in emotion—as all the feelings of loss and abandonment unleashed—and so I did the only thing I could think of to rescue myself, the thing I’d always done for all these years to stay safe…
I shut it down.
“No,” I said. “I have to go.”
“I just—”
“Nope,” I said, turning and striding back toward Diana’s front door. “I can’t.”
I expected him to follow me.
But he didn’t.
He let me go.
When I got to the door and pressed against it, gripping the handle, I turned halfway back, ready to tell him to leave again, and I was surprised to find myself all alone.
A second of relief—and then disappointment.
I turned farther, and I saw him walking away.
My shoulders sank.
I watched him unlock his truck and get in. I heard the ignition come on. And then he started driving off.
Good. Great.
But it didn’t feel better to be rid of him. It felt worse.
“Wait,” I whispered, staring after him, watching his taillights.
And then it was almost like he heard me.
His brake lights came on. And just stayed on.
