Abused {ACM}

Chapter 30

"Hello?"

The familiar, airy voice came through the other line, wary and a little hopeful. I opened my mouth, but was too choked up to speak. Relief and pure nervousness made its way into my system at the exact same time, overwhelming me.

"Abby, is that you? I thought you weren't allowed to call until...I mean...I even deleted your number to stop the temptation - the cops told us to. But I still have it memorized from when I had to call you from our house phone..."

I chuckled. Typical of her, to ramble when she was nervous.

"Zoey. I need you to pick me up now. I'm at the airport in Virginia."

Abby's POV

You know those moments in your life that you just know are extremely important? You know that they could crush your heart or make your life or give you a thousand different opportunities to be who you are. You know that you're going to remember them forever. You're fully aware of how important the situation is, but the more you think about how important it is, the more...less important it becomes? You overthink and suddenly you're just a giant nervous wreck and you don't want to face the moment, no matter how good it may be.

That is exactly how I was right at this moment.

Standing outside of the airport with my small backpack, I couldn't stop my hands from shaking. My mind flashed over my friends' faces, imagining how their reactions would be. Would they be rejoiced? Would they be angry? Hurt? Scared, even?

Then I thought about Austin. What if he found someone new in the short amount of time since I've last called him? What if he didn't love me anymore? What if he was angry with me? What if he didn't speak to me?

I mentally slapped myself.

Get a damn grip, Abby. Coming here isn't for you. It's for Amy and Joe. You don't know where they are and your psychotic dad is after you and it's all up to you to tell the police your plan and somehow make them help you.

But those rational, selfless thoughts were washed out of my head when I saw a familiar car pull up. And my heart started pounding irrationally faster and my hand twisted tighter on my backpack strap. I pinched my lips together and stepped back a little, looking down. I saw a flash of blonde hair and I took a deep, shaky breath and peeked up from under my eyelashes.

She seemed to be doing the same thing. And seeing Zoey there, in all of her shortness and shyness and uncertainty, standing there being completely her, I broke down. I stared at her for a couple more seconds, but then I couldn't take it. I flung the backpack off my shoulders, not wanting to have it slow me down, and sprinted into her five foot tall body. She let out a sob and snuck her thin arms around my waist, and I buried my face into her hair, inhaling her familiar scent. She was murmuring 'I'm sorry's and I was too, my face hot and sticky. We were just muttering incoherent things but neither of us seemed to care. The only thing that mattered was the others' presence, and right now, we couldn't have asked for anything more. We stood like that for a long time, rocking back and forth, gripping the back of each others' shirts desperately trying to convince ourselves that this was real. This was real. I was back.

I was back.

I shakily blew out a breath and and grinned at her. "Hi, Zoey."

Zoey just shook her head at my attempted casualness and grinned back. "I've missed you so much, Abby."

I just bit my lip and squeezed her back into another hug. All of this time, I've forgotten how much I've missed physical contact. I mean, Amy and Joe hugged me, but it wasn't the same. I didn't really love them, at least not as much as I loved Zoey and everybody else.