Baseball, track, soccer—I needed to run, to feel my feet digging into the soft earth, the wind whipping past me, cutting through my jersey and stinging the sweat on my face. I wasn’t content to sit still and be. I needed to feel my muscles burn, to be free if even for a moment.
Did it give me hives sometimes when I held a magnifying glass to the possibility of my future? Sure. I wasn’t good enough to go pro. I’d made my choices in life to, as horrible as it sounded, escape my ex. And the gnawing, ugly, broken part in me she left behind when she left this earth.
And me.
After class, I headed straight for the gym for practice. The locker room was alive with activity. I shared a locker with Bank, and he was already there, lacing up his cleats. He gave me a grin when he saw me.
“Where’s the girlfriend? You two sleep okay?”
“Why do you have to be a pig twenty-four-hours out of the day? You do know that it’s okay not to be an asshole every once in a while. In fact, it might just do you some good.” I started changing into my practice gear, tugging my shirt over my head.
“My, my, you’re touchy about this one.”
“You’re obnoxious.”
“I’m curious, Wade. You’re single. You literally never hang out with a girl more than once. I want to know why this one. That’s all.”
“Why?” I snapped. “You don’t like her?”
He rolled his eyes. “I don’t know her. She’s gorgeous and she’s got one hell of a body, but that’s not enough to keep you interested. If it were, you’d be in love every day.”
“I never said I was in love.”
He shoved at my shoulder, dropping the pompous edge that constantly clung to his face. “I have questions. Let me ask them and then I won’t bring it up again.”
“Fine,” I sighed, sitting down on the bench beside our locker. “Go ahead.”
“Where’d you meet her?”
“She’s my roommate. Was my roommate. Still is? I met her at the place I was renting.”
“Is she why you haven’t been hooking up with anyone?”
I considered that. I hadn’t consciously thought of Esmaie over the weeks, but I hadn’t slept with anyone since she spewed her guts to me. Cassandra had been a weak moment. I felt like such a shit head, and Esmaie was doing her best to drive that point home, and I’d just wanted to spend an hour with a woman and not suffer for it. But she’d stopped me, coming home and blowing up on me.
“I don’t know. Look, this whole thing is weird,” I admitted, finally letting him in. “She’s intense.” I told him about how she’d let loose on me, giving me an ultimatum so huge there was no way I could ever make it.
I’d never seen him so shocked and quiet. He licked his lips and blinked at me. “She called herself Mrs. Wright?”
“Yeah, she did. Now, so she goes all out, right? But she doesn’t really. She doesn’t even act like we’re all that compatible. But we are. We so fucking are. And I hate myself for wanting someone I don’t know, wanting someone who isn’t Sabrina. She’s messing with my head.”
“Sabrina or Esmaie?”
“Both,” I admitted in a pained rush.
He looked away, working his mouth. “This girl sounds like me, Wade.”
“And what’s that?”
“So fucking empty we’re willing to ruin everything just to see if we’re still alive.” He looked at me, blinking a sheen of pain out of his eyes. “You want my advice?”
“No.”
He gave it to me anyway. “Ditch her. If she’s anything like me, we’re too much trouble.” He got up and left me there staring after him.
Chapter Ten
Esmaie
I swung my legs over the edge, unable to see my shoes in the dark.
The hill behind the university had the best reception in town. If I called anyone from here, they were sure to get it. No mistakes. No reception getting in the way. No static ruining my attempts.
My cell rang, and rang, and rang on the other end. If the call was missed, that was because the person on the other end didn’t want to talk to me. I felt so down when I heard it go to voicemail one more time. My chest ached from the emptiness. It was almost one in the morning. I’d been calling my father for the past couple hours.
Desperate to hear him pick up. Did I have to have a mental breakdown to be relevant enough? What was it about straddling the line of sanity that made me somehow emotionally independent?
As I stared at the screen, hoping beyond hope that it would ring, and Dad would be happy to hear from me, instead of rushing me off the phone, it did ring. But it wasn’t Dad calling me.
I answered it, bringing it to my ear. “Hello?”
There was a rush of hot air on the other end. “Where the hell have you been?” Wade roared.
I blinked the tears from my eyes. “I went for a walk after my shift.”
“Your shift ended like three hours ago. I’ve been calling you all day.”
“I’ll see if I can catch an Uber.”
“No. It’s too late and risky. Just tell me where you are. I’ll come pick you up.”
I tried my best to convey where I was. The hill behind the university sounded good in my head, but as a direction, it sounded like the beginning of a science fiction novel. I hugged myself as I waited for him, staring out over the university. At night, it had a medieval quality to her. Castle-like turrets, lights flickering in the windows, and a glow surrounded the buildings. It wasn’t hard to believe there was magic down there, but so far, I hadn’t found a single, shimmering drop of it.
“I never even knew this place was here,” Wade grunted behind me, sinking down next to me. “Wow, look at that view…”
As he studied the view, I studied him. It was consuming, the amount of peace I felt around him. I’d been up in the sky all day, floating and unhindered, unable to see the ground, and the moment he sat down, I’d come back to earth.
I touched my hand to his face. When he looked at me, I brought his head close and his lips down on mine. Kiss to kiss, I felt whole. Tongue to tongue, I wanted him to break me and put me back together. He tasted like warm, hot mint. I savored the taste on his tongue.
He gently eased me back, breathing hard. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. Not because I didn’t want to answer him, but because I didn’t know. I tried to kiss him again.
He leaned back, keeping his hold on my neck. “Don’t try and distract me. What’s wrong, Es? Tell me,” he said softly.
I sagged in emotional defeat. “I don’t know.”
“Well, tell me how you’re feeling.”
I moved away from him, bringing my knees to my chest. “Like the last twenty-one years of my life have been a complete and utter waste. Like I’m empty. I feel like I wouldn’t know what happiness was if it was right in front of my face screaming at the top of its lungs. College was supposed to be fun. I was supposed to make it count. I—”
“Whoa, stop. Stop putting so much pressure on yourself. You think you’re the only one who feels that way? You’re not. Most of us do. Most people in the world have no clue what they’re doing all day long, until they figure it out. Until it clicks, and everything makes sense.”
I wiped my tears away, staring out over the hill. “I feel like I’ve been asleep my whole life. Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming.”
“Then wake up,” he stated. “Wake up, Esmaie. I feel that way, too. I’ve been in a nightmare for years. I want to wake up, too.”
I refused to look at him when his voice wobbled. “How, Wade?”
His breathing was too deep to be normal. He slid close to me, pressing his forehead to my temple. “Let’s get the hell out of here. What are we doing here? Tell me, Es. Tell me what you’re doing here right now, and I’ll leave you alone.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted in a rush, hating the pain that caused me.
That it caused him. “We’re putting so much pressure on ourselves to be this, or that, or we’re running e
ntirely from ourselves it’s leaving holes behind. Let’s take ourselves to a place that it wants to go.”
I turned to him, resting my forehead against his. “Where?”
“Wherever we want to go. We won’t stop until we know. Until it clicks.”
In the dark, his eyes were brilliantly blue. Sparkling and tormented. They were beautiful. “What are you saying? You want to ditch everything? And, what, runaway?”
“We’re not kids. It’s not running away. We’re adults. It’s trying to save ourselves. We already have our necessities packed. Why don’t we do it? Take a break. Leave college, leave our shitty friends, leave the place that we didn’t even know was trapping us. We can spend… the month… driving across the country. Just you and me. What do you say?” His eyes were wide with hope.
“I say that sounds… irresponsible and unfeasible.”
His hope crashed. “Why?”
“Because we have no money.”
He deflated, sitting back on his ass. “I have about eight hundred bucks saved up. What do you have?”
Still clutching my phone in my hand, I opened my banking app. “I have four-hundred and fifty-six bucks.”
“That’s almost twelve-hundred dollars. That’s more than enough. We can do it. I don’t want to do this without you, Esmaie.”
It struck me then, what he was asking me to do. He was asking me to do what I had asked him to do. Take a major leap without understanding why. And though he’d tried to deny me, and we’d fought, and hurt, he never left. He’d been there, so I could be there for him, too. “Okay.”
A slow, relieved, hopeful grin slowly spread across his face. It was the first true smile I’d ever seen him smile. It was heartbreakingly beautiful, turning his face into a state of handsome I wasn’t quite sure I could look at for long. Like the sun, he’d scar my eyesight, until I only saw him.
“Okay?”
I felt my lips rise, and a spark of his emotions rubbed off on me. “Yeah. Let’s ditch this freaking place.”
He laughed, wrapping his arms around me. I wrapped mine around his waist, inhaling the scent of soap and cologne on his body.
“What about soccer? The team? Our jobs?”
He froze, and then immediately unthawed. “They can live without me for a month. Are you really going to miss washing dogs?”
I shuddered. “No,” I admitted. I didn’t need to think that through.
This was crazy.
But wasn’t that what everyone was calling me lately?
May as well be crazy and have some fun in the throes of insanity.
“Are we really doing this?” He shot to his feet and paced. “When do you want to leave?”
I let him spaz out and remained calm for once. I tried to call my dad again.
It went straight to voicemail.
“Right now,” I said. “Let’s leave right now.”
He extended his hand to me. “Don’t take my hand immediately. This is your choice. I don’t want you to feel pressured. If you truly don’t want to go, then you don’t have to. If you take my hand, we’re doing this until everything makes sense. Again, or even for the first time.”
I didn’t need to think anything through. I already had, a million times over. I could fear my choice while still wanting it. I placed my hand in his and matched his wide, excited grin.
Hand-in-hand, we ran down the hill together. The wind that high up whipped past us, kicking up my hair. His truck was parked at the bottom of the trail. Recklessness and escape tasted like metal in the air before a storm.
***
Wade
I didn’t know for sure what tipped me over the edge.
Maybe it was when I started rifling through my things and found an old picture of Sabrina tucked into the corner of my bag, crushed under the years. The corner was bent, and the edges yellowed. What hurt the most was that I hadn’t remembered taking it. I couldn’t remember what she was doing standing in front of that truck, or why I’d shoved it down in the bottom of my bag. I was losing memories; they slipped through my fingertips like air I’d never breathe again.
Or maybe it was trying to get a hold of Esmaie all day. Dialing and dialing with no answer. It had been hard not to go to that place in my head. The place I had once gone with reason, and dire consequences. It had been ages since I cared enough about another person to stress over their wellbeing. And it both shocked and scared the hell out of me.
It could have been all of that, or none of that, which sent me over the edge.
Or it could have been the intense and burning emotions in her eyes when I got to the top of the hill tonight. She looked like a little bird trapped in a cage, who wanted so badly to fly but didn’t know she still could. I couldn’t stand the idea of taking her home and forcing her to remain in her mind one more day. I knew for sure that I couldn’t. We were both dreaming and thrashing in our nightmares, while the whole world walked by us, unaware.
Uncaring.
It was time we started caring about ourselves.
We couldn’t do that here.
We had to get away.
Maybe running one more time would be the one thing that ruined us, but we had to try because it could also be the one thing that woke us up.
Chapter Eleven
Wade
YOU’RE LEAVING IOWA.
Thank fuck.
I looked over at Esmaie and away from the road sign, who was passed out in the front seat. The irony of her passing out just as we were going to wake up wasn’t lost on me.
Her head rested on the window. The rising sun brushed over her face, knocking the air out of me. Her lips had turned into the softest shade of peach. Her cheeks were flushed gold. The light turned her lashes into amber feathers, glimmering on her sleeping face. I wanted to lean across the seat and kiss her. I felt like a demon watching an angel sleep, and all I wanted was to drag her into my dark and dirty lair. Stare all day and night at her beauty.
I cleared my throat and looked away, hating myself even more when I refused to conjure up Sabrina’s face to counteract the image I had of Esmaie’s. Guilt overcame me in droves, but I let her in, until she eclipsed Sabrina’s image. The guilt grew worse, and I got sick to my stomach, but still, I let Esmaie win. Let her golden beauty eclipse my dark and bitter pain.
What kind of boyfriend was I? Technically, Sab and I had never broken up. We couldn’t, not when one of us was in the stars and the other was doomed on earth. I was cheating on my ex with a woman, who was the first woman who made me want to accept that that wasn’t true. I wasn’t cheating. I was breaking.
I ran a hand through my hair, absolutely loathing the sting in my eyes. “What do I do, Sab?” I whispered, peering up at the sky.
The sun became brighter, blinding, and it seemed to entirely radiate off of Esmaie’s sleeping body. She was illuminated, lit up from within. My heart raced, and I felt warm liquid seep down my cheeks. I brushed my tears away and glared at the sky. “Subtle, Sab,” I grumbled, picturing her airy laugh when it got even brighter.
Esmaie groaned, reaching blindly for the visor. “Why is it so bright?” she whined.
“No, don’t,” I said, stopping her hands. “Open your eyes.”
She did.
“Look at me.”
Her head turned. She was trying to blink the light from her gaze, but it was everywhere. Her green eyes had gone from beautiful to breathtaking. Clear, perfect green in the sun. There were flecks of gold I hadn’t noticed in regular light. The damn woman was taking the air from my lungs. Turning it into air I wanted to breathe, instead of air I had to breathe.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she whispered.
“Looking at you like what?” I asked just as softly, blinking and turning my eyes back to the road. I cleared my throat.
“Like you’re the one dreaming.”
I looked back up at the sky. The sun was rising, painting the entire world in light when I didn’t feel it in my soul. It was sickening for m
e to miss Sab so much and want to look at the woman next to me just as badly. My hands shook on the steering wheel. “Damn it, Esmaie.” Damn it, Sabrina.
Why’d she have to leave me?
I needed her.
I need her.
She was my best friend.
My every-fucking-thing.
My first love.
My first heartbreak.
“What are you doing to me?”
“I’m not doing anything,” Esmaie argued.
Why’d she have to show up?
Why’d she have to take my breath away?
Why’d she have to show me how hard it was to live this nightmare? Willingly. To force myself to stay in the pain because that meant that my love for Sabrina was still alive. To make me realize how badly I wanted to let go.
But that meant letting Sab go, too.
I couldn’t do that.
But how could I keep this new, scary, beautiful relationship with Esmaie if I didn’t?
I told Esmaie all of that, spewing my guts, not making any sense at all. She could have said anything, I wouldn’t have listened; it meant so much more to me when she took my hand instead and clutched it on her lap, not saying anything at all.
A few minutes later, she went back to sleep. Maybe she’d think it was all a dream. Maybe it was.
Not having practice, games, work, or class to worry about left my mind with a lot of free time to think. I’d crammed my schedule full to the brim for that reason, and that reason alone. Time to think was dangerous.
A few more hours on the road, I had to stop and get gas in Nebraska. I ran across the street to grab some breakfast from a fast food place, finding Esmaie awake and leaning against the driver’s side door of my truck, gazing into the nearby corn field that stretched for miles on the other side of the road.
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