The Runaways

Chapter 22

I passed my Ma's room halfway down the hall—still locked, still smelled like those lily flowers that did nothing else but make me sad. Just thinking about her was enough weigh me down so I blocked her out before her memory buried itself deeper than my bullet wound.

Second to last door on the left was mine—ours—a room that belonged to more ghosts than people now. Standing at the door, something between my heart and stomach twisted around ‘til it ached.

If I gave into that quicksand sadness again, I'd end up on the floor again drowning in salt water. Dad was coming back soon, and I'd be dammed if he saw me like that twice.

Hailey didn't see me come in but she heard me there. The second I saw her tied to the bed like some kind of animal, I grabbed Liam’s old pocket knife out from under his mattress and cut her loose. As much as she deserved, she didn’t belong tied down to a bedpost.

She sat up and smoothed out the kinks in Ma's clothes like she knew to be careful with them. She could be as careful as she wanted, it didn't change the fact that I couldn’t stand anybody touching Ma's things. Even her.

        "What the hell are you doing?" I asked.

She backed away from me further into the bed, like fear had finally found its home in her. She looked terrible, like she’d been crying as much as I had and sleeping about as little.

        "Where’d you get those, Hailey?"

Her eyes darted down to her clothes and back up to me.

        "Your dad."

She gave me this look like she saw my Dad standing in front of her instead of me.

        "Caleb, I’m sorry."

        "Those are my Ma's,"

My voice jammed in my throat. I couldn't stand seeing her eyes spilling over with pity like she knew everything was going wrong. I didn't want her to. I didn't want her feeling sorry for me. I just wanted her to let me be, but from the looks of it, she didn't have any plans to.

        "Are you deaf or something? Give her stuff back! I’ll turn around if you want, just take them off!"

       "Okay, I will and I’m sorry. I didn't know these were her’s, I never would’ve worn them if I had. Just calm down or you'll hurt yourself."

        "You think I don’t know that? Just stop talking and give them back, please."

I turned my back to her so she wouldn't know I was quietly losing myself, quietly breaking down into the old me— the guy who cried about everything.

Why’d she have to be in those clothes? Why’d she have to ask so many damn questions? Every time she opened her mouth her words ate away at the half of a heart beating inside me.

I leaned into Marcus's bunk when the world tilted and spun out of control. Bullets couldn’t kill me, but she could’ve if she’d wanted to.

I'd planned on coming in and hollering at her ‘til I felt better—picking at her a piece at a time so I didn’t have to be the only one falling apart. I wanted somebody to blame. I needed somebody else to hold on to the hurt hanging heavy on my shoulders.

But seeing her in Ma’s clothes killed even the worst motivations in me. Remembering Ma was a lot like living through losing her all over again.

She’d left us all of a sudden—alive one minute, gone the next, and hearing about Marcus the way I did, wasn’t any different. But things weren’t supposed to go that way for him.