Page 56 of Haunt Me

“How many nights?”

I glance out the window. “I’m not really sure yet.”

“That’s okay. Give me your best guess,” she says. “We can change it any time.”

“A week? To start.”

“I can do that.” Paper shuffles in the background. “Nonsmoking?”

“Yes.”

“Upstairs or down?”

“Whichever’s quieter.”

“Upstairs, then,” June says. “The Henderson boys are staying in twelve while they work on the bridge. They leave before sunrise with all the subtlety of a demolition crew.”

“Upstairs sounds perfect.”

“When can I expect you?”

I look down at the suitcase beside me. “As soon as I can get a ride.”

“See you shortly,” June says before hanging up.

"All set?" Marge asks as she tops off my coffee one last time.

I nod. "All set."

"Good." She smiles, and there's something reassuring about it. "Everybody deserves a place to land."

The words settle somewhere deep inside me.

For the next week, at least, I have somewhere to sleep.

It isn't a plan.

But it's a beginning.

Astra

I book another car and sit on a bench outside the diner. My suitcase rests beside my knees. Everything I own for the foreseeable future fits inside it. It’s terrifying and strangely freeing at the same time.

Ashbourne moves at a different pace than Brooklyn. No one seems to be in a hurry to get to their next appointment or staring at their phone as they walk. It’s quieter, as though life here is something to be lived rather than chased.

Back home, they’re probably starting to realize that I’m gone. My phone’s been off for hours, which is completely out of character for me. I’m sure Graham’s probably tried to call and text a dozen times already. He’ll be confused at first, then worried, then finally annoyed enough to call my mother’s office instead.

I wonder if she stepped out of a meeting to take the call. Whether she’s standing in some marble hallway right now, heels clicking, trying to sound calm while she asks him what he means by Astra’s not answering her phone.

I hope Dad hasn’t canceled any surgeries. He has patients counting on him, people who don’t care that his daughter picked today to disappear.

I hope Mom hasn’t done something drastic either and called security or the police. Some part of me knows she’s capable of both if she’s scared enough.

Whoever finds the letter first—it won’t be until tonight, once one of them finally comes home and climbs the stairs expecting to find me in my room getting ready for dinner instead of gone.

The mountains rise beyond the rooftops. I look toward them and breathe until the pressure in my chest eases.

Leaving people I love doesn’t mean I stopped loving them. Choosing myself doesn’t erase everything they gave me. Both things can be true.