Page 117 of Running Home to You
Three hours later, Abby sat in a downtown Los Angeles precinct. They’d taken her prints, snapped her photo, locked up her belongings. She shook in a cell, surrounded by a dozen others who scowled or cried or shuddered just as violently as she did.
“Cruz,” an officer said. “You can have your call now.”
Abby’s teeth chattered as she followed them to a phone bank. “I think I’m in withdrawal,” she said. “I need something.”
The officer didn’t look at her. “Make your call.”
Abby knew two numbers by heart. While she should call Isla, she only wanted one person. One person if this was her end. And with how shitty she felt, she thought it just might be.
Her fingers shook as she dialed Kate. Tears filled her eyes, and she gritted her teeth. The ring was back. Not her mother’s call, ruining the life she knew, but her own call, ruining what she recovered in the wreckage. She gulped, imagining Kate on the other end, learning the news in the middle of the night.
“This is a prepaid call from an inmate at the Los Angeles County Corrections Facility.”
There was no answer, and she was grateful. The voicemail recording sounded, a brief glimmer of Kate that made her throat contract. She clutched onto the wall, knees almost buckling as dizziness threatened to take her down.
“Hey, it’s me.” Her voice broke, and she did her best to cough away the accompanying rasp. “I know I shouldn’t call, but I thought I’d cash in on that free legal advice.” Another unbearable tremor hither. “I uh, I guess I really did it this time. Withdrawal’s a bitch but I don’t know if I’m going to come back from this one. I’ve just never really been this scared.” Abby pressed her forehead to the wall. Someone shrieked behind her. More people getting booked and shouting for their phone calls. “I wanted to call in case this is it and I wanted to let you know I love you. I love you and I want you to be happy. I want you to have the life you want. All of it.” She stopped and pulled the phone away for a tiny whimper. “I’m so sorry for always pulling you down with me. I don’t mean for this to be another case of that, but I just don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen, so I wanted to tell you that.” Abby sniffled. “I’m sorry for all of it. You were always right about me. I don’t want you to worry. I’m going to call Isla next, but I needed to tell you first.” She didn’t know how to finish it, so she blurted out the end before she wept. “Okay. Bye, Kate.”
She spent the night in jail, twisting and turning on a thin mattress in the holding room. She threw up more than once, pissing off her cellmates. The officers weren’t impressed, never sent medics for her, even though she was sure she was on the verge of seizing. She bargained with God, prayed that if she lived, if she got out, she’d turn everything around. God or no God, she promised herself she would.
“Cruz, someone posted bail.”
Abby limped out behind the officer, reeking, shaking, exhausted. As she rounded the corner, expecting Isla, she came upon a few officers laughing as they posed for a picture with someone. That someone being Audie.
“Dad?” Abby whispered.
He opened his arms, and she collapsed into them. “Are you okay?”
“No,” she whimpered. “No, I’m so far from okay.”
“I know.” Audie rubbed her back.
“Why am I like this?” She sniffled into his shirt before pulling back.
Audie cupped the side of her head, his copper eyes melting. “You’re not like this,” he said. “This is just the bottom. This is when your new life starts, yes?”
Abby sniffled, tears streaking her cheeks. The next four words built in her like a second chance, like a revelation, like a prayer. The key to a new life. The one she’d denied since her mother’s death. “Will you help me?”
“Always,” he said.
As she walked out of the precinct, leaning into Audie for help, the ringing stopped. It was an end. Just not the one she expected.
After the Hurricane
Hurricane Maria hit the island during her third week in rehab. Solace Ridge didn’t allow patients cellphones or internet access, and Abby rarely made it to the common room to watch TV, so she learned of the news from the kitchen staff who had family caught in the storm. Her heart sank for her former teammates from the Puerto Rican national team and their families, many of whom had welcomed her into their homes, cooked for her, taken the field with her, and unwittingly comforted her during that first year after Insley.
The counselors denied her access to the outside world, even after she pleaded her case, offering a therapy session instead. Abby rolled her eyes and stomped back to her little room with the twin bed. By then she’d made it through detox—a full week of hell complete with vomiting, bone-deep aches, chattering teeth, and sweat-soaked sheets. The delirium spiraled into hallucinations of her mother, father, and Kate, convincing enough that she fought each night to reach out and grab them.
Now, with that evil behind her, she sank into the low place she’d poisoned herself to avoid. One in which she conferred with her loss and loneliness. While it was far preferable than prison, Abby found the four walls of her blank room oppressive, her skin crawling as shepaced, did push-ups, punched at the mattress to release everything that hadn’t already escaped through tears.
Abby plopped down to her desk after learning the news and swiped up a pen. She ripped a sheet out of her journal, sucking in a scared breath before meeting it with ink.
Dear Kate,
But just like every other day, she stopped. She talked to her in her head constantly, and while she had plenty to apologize for, each time Abby put pen to paper it came up short.
A gentle knock saved her from agonizing over more. “Abby, you ready?”
She wasn’t, but she trudged to the group therapy room anyway, where a dozen families awaited their recovering loved ones, including Audie and Isla. She wrestled with relief and shame that they showed up. Their absence might’ve been easier. An excuse to stay angry and avoid the guilt that they’d flown to Arizona to be with her, especially Isla with two little boys back home.
