Beth whirls and her nostrils flare. “Get out, Ryan.”
“Not without you.”
Her fists curl and she smacks her leg with the words. “My. Mom. Is. An. Alcoholic. And a heroin addict. Her boyfriend’s favorite pastime is beating the shit out of me and if I’m not around he has no problem taking his aggressions out on my mother. I have maybe minutes to get her out before he comes back and kills us all.”
An eerie calm courses through me. Nobody hurts my girl. “He hits you?”
“Yes, Ryan. He hits me and kicks me and slaps me. I’m his own personal violent video game. If I don’t get my mom out of here he’s going to kill her and if he doesn’t, then the heroin will.”
Every word Beth says is probably true, but I don’t care about her mother. Beth is my only concern. “What’s going to happen to you if I let you walk out this door with your mother?
Do you honestly think that getting in a car and driving to a different town is going to make HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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anything better?”
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Beth
“YES,” I AUTOMATICALLY ANSWER, but a voice in the back of my head screams no. “It has to.”
Looking out of place in his baseball
uniform, Ryan takes up almost the entire living room thanks to his large body. “You know what I think?”
“I think you lied to me.” He did and I try desperately to hold on to that.
“I screwed up. I’m not perfect. I lied to my parents about us, but I’ve owned up to dating you. They know I love you.”
It’s the right words, but… “You’re too late.”
“Bullshit!” Anger blazes out of his eyes.
“For months I thought you were the most
courageous person I knew. You’ve never
apologized for being yourself, but standing here right now, I realize you’re a coward.
You’re so terrified of feeling anything that HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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you’d rather give up everything good in
Groveton in order to feel safe.”
My head jerks to the side and my eyes
narrow. “Safe? I’m standing here in a fucking drug den trying to save my mother from a boyfriend who will be thrilled to kill me, then torture her. There is nothing safe about this.”
“This is your safe. You’d rather struggle in this life than live in Groveton.” He glances at the squalor of the apartment. “You feel in Groveton. In this life, you don’t have to feel a thing and that makes you a coward.”
I drop the bag in my hand and raise a shaky hand to my forehead. He’s wrong. He has to be. That’s not why I’m running. I need to save my mom because if I don’t, who will?
Ryan closes the gap between us. My heart
stutters when he places a hand on my waist. “I wish I could say that I’m the one that drove you away, but I’m not. I don’t have that power.
You’ve been running from the moment I met you and I’d bet you were running before that.
“You’re a lot like that bird in the barn.
You’re so scared you’re going to be caged in forever you can’t see the way out. You smack yourself against the wall again and again and HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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again. The door is open, Beth. Stop running in circles and walk out.”
His other hand brushes the hair from my
face and my lower lip begins to tremble. “If I leave her she’ll die.” My gut twists and my eyes burn.
He cups my face with his hands and I lean into his touch. Ryan can always do this—make me feel safe. He continues, “If you stay it’ll kill you. Maybe not physically, but you’ll die on the inside. If you don’t want me, I’ll give you your space, but you have built so much more in Groveton besides me. Give up on us if you need to, but don’t give up on you.”
The instinct is to flee. Instead, I grab on to his arms. Fear claws at me and I don’t like how naked it makes me feel. “I’m scared.”
Ryan lowers his forehead to mine. “So am I, but I’ll be less scared when we leave here.”
The front door opens. Bright sunlight blazes through the door and a gust of cold air announces the entrance of the devil. Trent’s looming figure stalks into the living room.
Losing control of my body, I feel my hands drop to my sides as my heart jumps to my throat. Ryan edges his body in front of mine.
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Trent slams the door behind him and
chuckles when he sees me. His eyes dart to the bag by my feet. “You should have stayed away.”
Behind me, I hear the soft shuffles of my mother. “Elisabeth was just leaving.”
Urging me in the direction of the door, Ryan presses his hand into my back. My mind screams run. My feet cement to the floor. It doesn’t matter if I move or not. Trent won’t let me walk out that door again.