Page 71 of Haunt Me

For one second, Raven’s mouth moves. This time, I hear her. Or I think I do.

Not yet.

I stop fighting.

The men mistake surrender for weakness.

Maybe it is.

They drag me uphill toward the parking lot, toward the vehicle waiting beyond the trees, toward whatever Ridgeback has planned.

I look back once more.

The river keeps moving.

The bank is empty.

But high above it, balanced on a snow-covered branch, a raven watches them take me away.

Astra

The Pennsylvania Driver’s Manual is one hundred and four pages long. I know this because I checked before downloading it, then stared at the number long enough to question every decision that led me here.

Leaving law school before it started.

Ending my engagement.

Running away to a town where I don’t know anyone.

Buying a pink scooter I can’t legally drive.

Somehow, the scooter feels like the most impulsive choice.

I sit at the small table beneath the motel room window, my laptop open beside a notebook and the manual glowing on the screen. Outside, a thin layer of snow covers the railing and softens the edges of the parking lot. The sky is the flat gray of a day that hasn’t decided whether it intends to do anything.

I’ve been staring at a diagram explaining right-of-way for nearly ten minutes.

It shouldn’t be difficult. I graduated near the top of my class. I survived constitutional law seminars taught by professors who treated humiliation like a legitimate teaching method. I can read case precedent until my vision blurs and pull the relevant argument from three hundred pages of opinions.

But apparently, four cars arriving at the same intersection is where my intellect gives up.

I lean closer to the screen.

“Whoever gets there first,” I read aloud. “Unless two vehicles arrive simultaneously, in which case the driver on the left yields to the driver on the right.”

That seems unnecessarily dependent on everyone being honest about who arrived first.

My gaze shifts to the motel coffee cooling beside me. One sip this morning confirmed that it tastes like someone whispered the word coffee over a cup of hot water and hoped no one would notice.

Studying here isn’t going to work. The walls feel closer than they did yesterday, and every time I look at the bed, I remember that I slept for more than fourteen hours. My body may have needed it, but the idea still unsettles me. At home, sleeping past seven meant losing part of the day.

Here, I don’t have anything to lose. That should feel freeing. This morning, it feels suspiciously like having nowhere to belong.

I close the laptop and slide it into my bag with the manual, notebook, and enough pens to prepare for the unlikely possibility that five of them stop working simultaneously.

Some habits don’t disappear simply because I crossed a state line.

Before leaving, I trade the leggings I slept in for the outfit I found at the little thrift shop two doors down from the diner yesterday afternoon. It’s a rust-colored corduroy skirt, thick tights, and an oversized cream sweater with a small hole near one cuff that I’ve decided to call character instead of a flaw. I also found a pair of chunky gold hoops shoved in the same bin as the sweater. They were still on their original card. Those go on too, along with a swipe of concealer, mascara, and a warm brown floss that makes me feel slightly more prepared for life than I am.