Page 10 of Exposing Colorado

I hate that I still know him better than he knows himself.

Before everything went to shit, I used to love being able to relax him when nothing else could. Taking him to a headspace where thoughts didn't exist, only the current moment, the pleasure I could bring him. But that's no longer my job.

He fucking ruined it by dumping me in Vegas, after I got drunk and married the asshole just so that I could claim his virginity.

Jesus, there’s something really wrong with me.

Forcing my eyes forward, I inhale deeply and clutch the necklace hidden beneath my bra. I don’t care that Logan looks like he's hardly slept in weeks or that he's clearly eaten his feelings over the last few months.

I don't.

But the RV feels smaller than it should. The air feels stale, and I know that no matter how many miles we put between us and home, there’s no outrunning the past. Not when I've got four different mistakes nipping at my heels like wolves out for blood.

Three months, ten different cities trapped inside this metal box with nowhere to hide while every bad decision rips me apart and eats me alive.

Maybe I'm my mother’s daughter after all.

Her words haunt me now, echoing in my mind like a death knell. I haven’t seen her in three years—not since I moved in with Xed.

“This is your future, Salem,” she’d slurred, gesturing to her mascara-streaked cheeks after her husband had stormed out for the thousandth time. “All that beauty will fade, and then you'll be alone. Just like me. No one stays.”

I remember the smell of cheap perfume and vomit clinging to her skin as I hauled her off the kitchen floor—not for the first time in my life. I can still feel the weight of her body in my arms, red hair the shade of mine dirty and tangled around her frail shoulders. A pill bottle rattling in her hands. It was always the same shit: blaming me for him walking out on her.

It was my fault that he stuck his hands down my pants when I was seven. Again at eleven when I kicked him in the dick for crawling into my bed. My fault at fifteen when I threw a hot curling iron at him for recording me in the shower.

It’s always my fucking fault.

Those memories make me swallow hard, my knuckles whitening on the steering wheel.

No one stays.

I glance in the rearview mirror at the guys, both staring out their respective windows with a mile-wide chasm between them.

No one stays. Not even me.

Not when loving someone means losing yourself in the process.

Chapter

Five

Logan

Nashville's city lights blur through the windshield, casting neon streaks across the rain-speckled glass.

My entire body aches from the drive. Twenty-four hours straight of endless highways, gas station burritos, and the occasional depression nap. The RV rattles over uneven pavement, its engine's hum cutting through thick silence.

Beside me, Devon slumps in the passenger seat, earbuds in and sunglasses on, even though it's almost dark. He hasn’t spoken in hours, not since we switched drivers somewhere outside Memphis and he tried to corner me in the bathroom for a “talk.”

I haven't seen or heard from him in… six months, nor did I ever want to again.

Arya’s in the back, alternating between scrolling through her phone and singing loudly along to the music. If I didn’t already know that Salem is a heavy sleeper, I’d wonder how the noise didn't wake her up. She’s probably used to Arya’s twangy voice, anyway.

The city skyline stretches on, but I don’t really see it. My leg bounces, the tension in my jaw growing with every mile. My stomach churns as we pull off the freeway, following the directions Huck sent earlier. I haven’t seen him in months, either.

I spent years texting my best friend daily—multiple times. Now all I have to show for it is a phone full of missed calls and voicemails. After everything that's happened, I just… don't feel like I fit into his world anymore.

For a second, I debate pulling over to clear my head before I have to act normal. As soon as my foot hits the brake, though, Devon shifts and pulls out an earbud.