Page 53 of Runaways

"I guess," I say, shrugging.

"Is your room upstairs?"

"Yeah."

"Come on; I'll help you."

I wrap an arm around him, and we make our way to the staircase. Once we reach the steps, he picks me up, carrying me to the top.

"You could just throw me down the stairs, you know. Get it over with."

He laughs, and I wait for him to say something like,I was never really going to kill you, Noah. I care about you too much to do something like that.

Instead, he says, "Nah, I've seen you jump from a second-story window. You'd probably just stick the landing. Which room is yours?"

"The one at the end of the hall."

Once we reach the threshold, Tate sets me down, and I flip on the light.

"Damn, this is your room?" he asks. "It suits you."

I scoff. "Yeah, no, it doesn't."

"It looks like sunshine in here," he says, looking over the paintings on the wall. "That's how you look to me—like sunshine."

His gaze drops to the boxes near the wall, filled with books and assorted personal items—the kinds of things I wouldn't have needed over the next few days. He stops at a box with a framed photograph of me with Mia at our junior prom sitting on top and picks it up, smiling just a little.

In the photo, I have a tight, closed-lip smile the way I always did before because my teeth embarrassed me. Mia beams from ear to ear, her smile just as wide and perfect as Tate's, the same hazel eyes sparkling more than her sequined pink ball gown. I wore something even louder—a black dress with a deep 'v' dipping down to my belly button. It screamed,look at me—see me, want me, touch me; someone for once fucking notice me, but it didn't work. Tate had a date, Mia had Levi, and I went with someone who ditched me as soon as he got the chance.

I took their car and left alone a couple of hours later. Silas made me feel better, though—when we were still just friends.

"I tried to talk to her," I tell him. "I never hated her."

He turns the photo over in his hands and tosses it back into the box.

"Where were you going to go to school?"

Were.

"University of Oregon." I turn away, blinking back tears. "I'm just going to…take a shower," I say, opening my bathroom door.

"You have your own bathroom?" he asks, following me inside. "It's cute. Is this your closet?"

Before I can answer, he opens the door to my walk-in closet and steps inside. "Oh, shit. What happened in here?"

"What? What do you mean?"

When I enter the closet, my heart sinks. On the floor are the shredded remnants of my wardrobe, and at my feet, a pair of kitchen shears. It's fitting, really. It's like the universe knew I would cease to exist soon, and decided to start getting rid of the evidence early.

"Did he do this?" Tate asks.

I shrug. This time, when I blink, I'm unable to prevent tears from rolling down my cheeks.

Probably. But I guess it could have been my mother, too. Maybe they even did it together.

"Hey, it's okay," Tate says. "You don't need this stuff anymore, anyway. Go ahead and shower; just make it quick. I'll find something you can still wear."

I limp toward the shower, turning on the water while Tate looks through the pile of shredded clothing. I don't wait for it to warm before stripping down, pushing back the curtain, and stepping inside.

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