Finding Home (Complete)

2. Boston.

I hated everyone.

But I still went.

Nearly three years ago, I boarded a plane to Boston, Massachusetts.

Saying goodbye wasn't all too difficult as I refused to hug or even mutter a farewell to anyone. I hugged my coat to my chest, silently throwing daggers with my eyes watching as Liam and Taylor stood outside the departure drop off door, waiting for me to go inside. I pursed my lips into an annoyed scowl when I realized they weren't trying to say goodbye either; they were making sure I didn't run away.

The brother that once looked at me with so much pride and understanding, had a look in his eyes that screamed utter disappointment. That bothered me even more than I initially thought. I told myself not to care, but deep down it was the first time I accepted the guilt in any of what my life had become.

Still, Liam had promised that we'd make it through anything that happened after the events of entering that hospital that night. Yet there we were, he was shipping me off for someone else to handle. He couldn't deal with me anymore. I was simply tainting the perfectly painted "ever after" he was creating with Taylor.

My guilt wasn't so much of my responsibility in this chaos, no, even then my guilt was in the realization that no one around me could be bothered to care about me anymore.

I was the defective one.

Max helped cart my ass to the airport, too. He stayed in the driver's seat of the car, silent the whole ride, even refusing to watch me leave. The last thing he muttered was when he sat adjacent to me on the kitchen counter, telling me I needed help. The pop of the 'p' at the end of that sentence rung in my ears. I wanted to hate him also. I had actually fallen apart and made myself vulnerable to someone for the first time since my parents died. He told me he loved me and I trusted him. I let my walls down to let him in like he begged me to...

Look how that helped me.

They were all shipping me off, Max included. I didn't even mean as much to him as one of his one night stands. Those girls sometimes got a call back, me? No, Hannah gets sent off to another state.

I finally left the outside bitter air and strolled inside to get patted down by the TSA. Before leaving the sight of the windows however, I glanced over my shoulder as the automatic doors slid shut with a thud. Through the one way glass and the open car door, I saw Max's eyes that seemed to find me after he thought I wouldn't see him. The hurt and pain held in those blue orbs made a new sense of panic settle in my bones more than I would've admitted.

I really had hurt him.

Badly.

But even then, I could find empathy.

They were the bad guys.

As I found my gate and sat in a lone seat watching the seconds tick by, my emotions kept playing a game of flip/flop. Every time I told myself I had every right to be the mad one, the last image of Max's face made my heart squeeze. I finally swallowed my pride and told myself that he was merely a good actor that felt bad he fell for my sob story.

I slept my entire flight, silently wishing the past seven years were some sick dream and I'd wake up to mom cooking breakfast or Dad grumbling about the news.

But it was real.

Too real.

The walk through the overcrowded airport in Boston was a blur. There was massive crowds everywhere that never seemed to stop moving, as if trying to swallow me up. Happy people were all around me. They were excited in their lives, laughing for their prospective travels, holding hands, kissing... kissing the way Max had kissed me the other night...