Page 93 of Free to Run
“Cori, I have to. You have no idea what I walked in on…” I can’t allow my mind to go there. I swallow hard and try to continue. “I have to leave, Cori. I need your help.”
There’s nothing but silence. I’m afraid she’s about to start yelling when I hear her husky “What do you need?”
“I can’t be in the house long. I have to be gone tonight. I need to send you a list of things…” My voice trails off. “Screw it. I’ll just buy new stuff.”
“No, Ali,” she interrupts fiercely. “I can do this for you. Send me what you need to the kitchen fax.”
Sobs rack my body. This is what my family was supposed to be about. The unconditional love and understanding. The absolute faith in me, my decisions. The knowledge I was a part of something bigger. Instinctively, I shy away from the simple word describing why Corinna is doing this for me because right now, there is no such thing as love in a world blurred with this many tears.
“Ali, honey, you have to stop. Do you want me to call Jared?” Corinna’s voice is wrecked with concern.
I wipe the snot on the back of my arm. “No, then he’ll know his newest employee is a nutcase.”
There’s an eerie silence that’s filled with a simple “Oh shit.” I don’t know which one of us said it. That wasn’t how I planned on telling my sister I was leaving.
“For how long, Ali?” Corinna’s voice is awash with pain.
“I don’t know. I just don’t know I can’t be here. I can’t be anywhere near here,” I whisper.
I hear her breathing on the other end of the line, muttering things like “Okay” and “I’ve got this” and “Don’t go for the knives.”
I’m visualizing the perfection of Corinna’s face, taking a mental snapshot for all of the cold, lonely nights ahead, when she suddenly says, “Okay, enough about me. What do you need?”
I swallow hard. “I hate even asking this.”
“This is what we do, Ali. We’re here for each other.”
Oh, God, the pain. “I just need you to go to my house and pack my shit. Then, I need you to bring it to me.”
“Where?”
“I’ll let you know on the fax. I’ll be sending it over from Jared’s office shortly.”
“You mean your new office,” she corrects me.
“Only for a few hours, Cori. Now, let me get you that list. And I’ll see you soon.” I need to hug my sister one more time before I go.
Soon, the fax is on its way with instructions to meet me at The Coffee Shop in a little over two hours. A few minutes later, Jared walks in on me drafting my resignation letter to Amaryllis Events to tell me Corinna received the list and is heading to my house. Keene, after being escorted out of the lobby by security, is apparently being kept at Hudson by Caleb for some reason.
Good, it makes my escape easier. Besides, after I leave Corinna, I still have one more errand to complete. Something only I can do at my house.
“How long do I have, Jared?”
Glancing at the clock over my shoulder, he replies, “You and the courier need to be on your way within the hour.” Hesitating, he says, “Ali, are you sure you don’t want to fly?”
“Absolutely. Once these”—I tap the legal pads in front of me—“are delivered, I don’t want to be traceable for a while.”
Moving closer, Jared crouches down next to me. Reaching for my hand, he squeezes it tightly. “Right now, I want to give you whatever you need. What I don’t want is a call in the middle of the night waking me up to tell me you’ve wrapped your rental around a tree. Right now, I want to get you somewhere quickly so you can have a place to let go the way you won’t right now. Right now, you’re leaving me powerless to do those things. And I hate it,” he concludes.
I swallow hard to keep the tears at bay. Jared, with his quiet strength, has become so much a cornerstone of my life this last year. This is hurting him as much as me. Not only because my pain is so all-encompassing and vicious, but because someone he admired has plunged to the depths of depravity beyond which Jared sees no redemption. And by doing so, he’s losing me.
“You’re doing more than you know, Jared. You’ve given me a safe haven all afternoon. You’re giving me a rental so I can’t be tracked. You’re giving me time to say goodbye to Corinna before I leave.” I see pain flicker across his face. It hurts him to know everything now. “And you’re giving me time to figure out what to do next by giving me a job. You gave me power when I had none walking in here.” Leaning forward, I brush my lips against his softly. “I just need you to give that kiss, my thanks, and my goodbye to Ryan and everything will be the way it should be.”
He blows out the breath he was holding. “Okay, Ali. You have thirty-eight minutes to wrap it up.”
I nod my thanks and keep drafting the letter longhand, trying to figure out how to end not only a business relationship with no notice, but also sever ties with a family whose love I crave right now with every fiber of my being.
Whose mark I’ll bear on my heart and my body until the end of time.
