Page 8 of Rejected Hollow

"Yes," she said. "But staying here is dangerous now too. They know your name, and they know the seal responded to you. Things changed the moment that happened."

I looked at her. "What about you? If I leave, are you safe?"

Her eyes dropped to the untouched tea between her hands. "Safer than you'll be if you stay."

"That isn't an answer."

"No," she said softly. "It isn't."

I went back upstairs and lay down again, staring at the plastic stars on the ceiling while I tried to rebuild the list.

This time, it refused to hold together.

Whenever I got as far as I have a job, I remembered all the times Dr. Adeyemi had asked about my plans and I had answered, maybe next year. Whenever I told myself I have a life here, I thought of Daniel on one knee on the jetty, Chloe with both hands over her mouth, and the comment underneath the photograph.

Someone who actually makes an effort.

Lying there in the dark, I finally admitted something I had been avoiding for years. I had built a life around postponing things. I went to work, came home, paid bills, remembered birthdays, booked appointments, and kept telling myself that the parts I actually wanted would begin later, once I was more certain, more prepared, or somehow better suited to them. Somewhere along the way, waiting had become so familiar that I had stopped noticing I was doing it.

Then I looked at the photograph of my mother.

She was laughing on a cold beach, her hair blowing across her face, with the same white streak running through it as mine.

I was twenty-two years old, and I had never known a single true thing about her.

Somewhere at the end of that car ride, there might be someone who did.

Once I let myself acknowledge that, everything else became harder to argue with. I wanted to know who she had been. I wanted to know why nobody had ever told me about her, why that seal had reacted to me, and why a car had been appearing outside Marion's house since I was four years old. I wanted answers more than I had wanted Daniel back during those first miserable weeks after he left, and more than I had wanted to become thinner, prettier, easier, or whatever version of myself I had once imagined would make people stay.

At four in the morning, I opened my messages and texted Dr. Adeyemi.

Family emergency. I'm so sorry. I don't know when I'll be back.

I stared at the message for nearly ten minutes, feeling sick with guilt, before I finally pressed send.

She replied at twenty past five, which meant she was already on shift and had seen it almost immediately.

Go. Whatever it is, go.

I read the message twice before I got out of bed.

I packed the photograph of my mother and the drawing of the deer first, sliding them carefully between two sweaters so neither would bend. After that, I packed whatever else I thought I might need, which turned out to be less than I expected.

By around five thirty, the sky outside my window had begun to lighten, and I finally admitted to myself that there was no real decision left to make. Marion had made that brutally clear. They were taking me whether I agreed to go or not.

The only choice I had was whether I got into the car on my own and tried to find out what was happening, or waited until someone came inside and took me by force.

I decided to walk out.

When I checked the window again, the black car that had been parked across the road was gone. In its place sat a gray one, and a thin man in a gray suit was standing beside it.

I carried my rucksack downstairs and stopped in the narrow front hall with one hand resting on the blue door. The house smelled of old wood, Marion's lavender soap, and the toast neither of us had been able to eat. For a moment, I wanted to drop my bag on the floor, lock the door, and behave as though the letter had never arrived.

Then Marion opened her arms.

She hugged me so tightly it hurt, pressing her cold cheek against mine.

"Eat properly," she said into my hair. "And don't let anyone make you small."