Fran has a tried-and-tested solution for dealing with her problems: run away.
And despite what the self-help books say, it's worked pretty well up until now. "Now" referring to her hiding in the seaside town of Seacombe until the end of summer, and...
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Fran kept glancing at Rhodes from the passenger seat, worried the head injury would interfere with his ability to drive, but he seemed unfazed, one arm on the steering wheel, eyes focused on the road. He'd put a Fleetwood Mac album on the radio but kept the volume down low. Darius and Rhodes talked for a while, but Fran was exhausted and couldn't really follow the conversation. Her mind was racing, though. Thoughts flickered through her mind like the streetlights outside the window, blurring into a single line of light: too fast, too chaotic to sleep.
She felt like this night had been a wake-up call. This was the most desperate she'd ever been, relying on a magical rock to fix her relationship for her. She needed to stop waiting for someone to step in and do all the work for her, tiptoeing around the issue without even trying to fix it. Sure she'd tried earlier, and it hadn't worked, but she'd only tried once.
She'd spent so many years complaining to her friends and making passive-aggressive comments to her mother and silently resenting everything she'd done, without doing anything to change it. And, more recently, running away in the early hours of the morning, both times without an explanation as to why she'd done it. Expecting everyone around her to somehow realise what was going on in her mind without saying anything.
Do you ever feel like you make your own problems...?
"I've decided," Fran said suddenly, her voice sounding cool and measured in the darkness. "I'm done running from everything."
Rhodes looked over at her for a second, and then his eyes flicked up to the rear-view mirror, to the figure of Darius leaned against the door in the back seat, fast asleep.
