Page 156 of The Exit Strategy

She purses her lips, then wraps her arms around my waist with surprising strength. “Let’s go home.”

I nod becausehomehas no meaning anymore. For the first time in six years, I’m operating without a plan, and the only thing I can do is keep the one promise that’s already killing me slowly.

The only thing I can do now…is wait and pray that she’ll give me a chance to explain.

And even that may not be enough.

27

LIGHTS OFF

JUNIE

I don’t remember gettingin the car.

That sounds like a tragic love song, but it’s the truth. My brain deleted the thirty feet between the hotel lobby and Hudson’s car. One moment I was on the marble floor of an atrium, holding the hem of a dress that Katie duct-taped me into, and the next I was buckled into the passenger seat with the engine running and Charleston sliding past my window in streaks of yellow and red light.

Hudson’s driving.

I’m not sure if he’s even spoken since he opened my door.

I feel the burn behind my eyes, but the tears don’t fall. I’m not sure why. If ever there were a time for tears, surely, this would be it.

Instead, I sit numbly. My body has been replaced with someone else’s, and I’m operating it from behind a veil with a ten-second delay.

My hands rest heavily in my lap.

The gold bracelet on my wrist is cold.

The ring on my hand burns, the skin around it is itchy.

Why didn’t I throw it at him? That’s my default, right? React, engage, apologize?

A better woman would’ve tossed it to the marble floor. A woman who knew what she was doing would’ve handed it to Natalie as a parting gift—a final fuck you, you can have him.

But I’m not that woman tonight.

For the second time in two months, I don’t recognize this version of myself.

“Do you want me to talk, or do you want silence?” Hudson asks as though he too can’t bear the heaviness a moment longer.

“I don’t know.” I sound like my mom. Detached. Cold. Empty. The exact opposite of every intention I ever set for myself.

“Okay.”

The silence suffocates us again, but this time because he asked, it’s different. Like a choice we made together.

Time passes with no meaning. A ninety-minute drive happens in flashes of snapshots.

Charleston gives way to the marsh. The marsh gives way to the highway. Then the highway turns into the two-lane road that runs through the Lowcountry back toward The Haven.

The trees close in, the moon hiding in shadows behind them.

When Hudson first drove me to Porchlight Cove, I was a different woman.

I’m morphing into someone new again, and this time, I’m not positive I’ll like the transformation.

“Hud.”