Page 62 of Wreckage and Rain

Cheyenne.

Cheyenne

Last night was amazing. I've wanted that for so long. I am so glad that we finally gave into what we've both been feeling for a while.

I read it twice. Three times.

I've wanted that for so long.

She wanted this. She is texting me the morning after with the intimacy of a woman who believes last night was mutual. That we crossed a line together. Voluntarily.

I make it to the kitchen sink before I throw up.

Not dramatic. My body catching up to what my brain is trying to outrun. Something terrible happened to me last night and I can't prove it and Summer is gone and I don't even know how to start explaining what I don't understand.

Dom's hand on my back. Steady. Waiting.

"I didn't want this." I say it to the sink, to Dom, to the empty house. "I didn't... Dom, I swear to God, I didn't choose this."

"I believe you." He's already moving toward the door. "Stay here. Don't call anyone, don't respond to her. I'm going to make some calls. I know people who can find out what actually happened to you that night. It's going to take time. Give me time."

He leaves.

Our house is quiet.

In the kitchen, Summer's coffee mug is hanging on the hook by the coffee pot. Still has the ghost of her lipstick on the rim. The dusty pink she wears every day because she says it's the only color that doesn't make her look like she's trying.

I take it down. Hold it with both hands.

She told me. She fucking told me. She stood in our bedroom before she left with a suitcase in her hand and she told me.It's like you aren't even aware that you're losing me.

I told her I would fix it. I didn't.

I went to a celebration instead.

The mug is warm in my hands. Or my hands are cold. I can't tell the difference anymore, I'm numb.

Chapter 14: Disappear

Summer

I drive fourteen hours. The only stops are gas, coffee, and one twenty-minute nap at a rest stop in Kentucky where I wake up disoriented and crying and sit in the driver's seat for ten minutes remembering where I am and what I just did.

I reach Chicago and pull off at the first exit and sit there with the engine off. Wicker Park. The name sounds like a place no Bennet would think to look for me. A third-floor walk-up. The photos show hardwood floors, a bed, and good light. I book it for a month. The code comes through before I've put the phone down.

The walk-up is three flights up. Keypad code. The door opens. Small. Clean. Hardwood floors. A kitchen the size of a closet. A bed that's too soft and smells like someone else's laundry detergent. The furniture is beige and impersonal and has no opinions about me. I set my suitcase down. Stand in the middle of the living room.

A week ago I was in a green sweater in my own kitchen writing. Now I am here. I have two suitcases. I have my laptop. I have a hard drive with every manuscript I have ever written. I have eight photos saved on my phone and three sentences on a torn page of yellow legal pad sitting on a dresser south of here. I have a city that doesn't know me. That is why.

Chicago. Big. Cold. Indifferent. Indifference is the kindest thing anyone can offer me right now.

The silence is different here. In Charleston, silence was the absence of something that should have been there. Colt's voice. His keys in the ceramic dish. The smell of his coffee in the morning. The silence in Charleston was full of him, even when he wasn't in the room.

This silence is blank. It doesn't know my name. It doesn't know that a few nights ago I watched my marriage end on a phone screen.

I sit on the floor. Back against the wall.

I cry.