Too Far

16: Step One

I woke with a start as countless nightmares plagued my sleep. Louise, I knew, was sitting in the room next door worrying herself to death about Robbie and probably considering running away. I wouldn't let her, though.

Two voices made me frown at the closed door and I rose, creeping closer and avoiding all the old, creaky boards I remembered.

"...can be normal about coming back from the dead." Louise's voice was humorless and desolate; I felt my heart chipping at the way you could hear every bit of her emotions in it.

"You're right." That was Katherine. Condescending as always, but she and Louise didn't seem to be arguing. "But you have some amazing people to help transition. Maybe you guys can all just go somewhere no one knows you."

I quite liked that idea, but I knew Louise would think of it differently before she even said, "I told you, I'm done trying to get away from my problems."

"There's a difference between facing your problems and moving so you can be happy." I managed to get the door open ever so slightly so I could see and hear better. Only Louise was in my line of sight, and her face was set in hard lines. There were age lines where there shouldn't be at merely twenty one years old. Her short hair fell into her face, but she pushed one side behind her ear. "It's not running if you don't have anyone to run from."

"It's not always a person," Louise murmured. I knew she was only talking quietly because her voice would crack if she spoke up. She'd done it for all the time that I'd known her. "What if you just running from society and social pressures?"

"I think social pressures would be the last thing on your mind," Katherine said lowly, as if she was nervous someone would hear her. "And I think, before you run, you'll have to spend a little time behind bars."

"It'll be good for me," Louise said, sounding absolutely broken about it. Her lie came through unusually clearly and I knew she was close to losing her mind at all of her stress and anxiety. She only ever opened up to me about it because I used to practically force her. I regretted that immensely.

In my admittedly slow college experience, I found out that people tended not to like for you to beg for them to tell you about them. No one seemed to be as tightly sealed as Louise, but all of them sealed tighter when you coerced them to tell you something. I'd gotten my nosy personality under control.

"I think it will," Katherine reaffirmed. "But I also think you'll be stormed with questions and people you used to know when you get out." Louise's face showed that she knew only too well what would happen. Katherine, seemingly ready to get back to sleep, shifted and came into view. "Might ought to start coaching yourself to deal with civilization now."

Louise watched her go and stood in her place for a few more minutes. Her eyes found the floor, where her bare feet were planted firmly on the cold wood. The cold never bothered her hands or feet, which were naturally icy. Deciding on that moment to open the door, I stepped out of my bedroom.

She looked up, her dull eyes finding me without a hint of surprise. "I'm sorry," she muttered, straightening and ambling back towards her own door down the hall.

Unable to move from my position, I watched her retreating back and sucked in a breath. "Louise," I called, making her stop.

She turned, looking at me through shielded eyes. "All the stuff you're going to say about loving me and it being okay and whatnot," she began, her face too hard to read, "say it all after I get out of jail."

With that, she disappeared into her bedroom and left me dumbfounded in the dim light of the hallway. Raking a hand through my hair, I stormed back into my room as I replayed her words. She wouldn't even let me try to comfort her? It was like she didn't realize that comforting her made me feel like I was doing something right for once. If I was holding her, she couldn't slip through my fingers again.