He’s walking. Not running. Walking toward the car with his arms out at his sides, palms up, and I can hear my heart beating in my ears.
So to anyone who might see this moment. I look like the crazy one.
“Lola, come on. Let’s talk about this, honey.” His voice has shifted. Smooth again. Like he didn’t just call me every name he could think of and attack me in my own home.
I jam the key in the ignition. Turn it. The engine catches, and I throw it into reverse.
He steps behind the car.
He actually steps behind the car, hands on the trunk, leaning his weight into it, probably thinking he can hold a moving vehicle in place with his body.
“You’re not leaving,” he shouts. “This isn’t over!”
I look in the rearview mirror. See his face. His bloodshot eyes. That smile that isn’t a smile.
I floor it.
He throws himself sideways. I see him hit the ground in the mirror, on his hands and knees like a dog—a part of me hopes it hurts. A part of me hopes it hurts the way my wrist hurts, the way my hip and hand hurt. The way my chest hurts from the adrenaline flooding my veins so fast, I can taste metal.
I don’t stop.
I pull out of the lot and onto the road, and I drive.
I drive with no shoes, no jacket, blood on my hands. My wrist is swelling, throbbing in time with my heartbeat. Tears are streaming down my face so fast I can barely see the road, and I keep swiping at them with the back of my hand, smearing blood and mascara across my cheeks.
I don’t know where I’m going.
That’s a lie. I know exactly where I’m going.
I have nowhere else. Not even a phone.
Violet is out with Luke. I don’t know a single other person in this town. I have no family within a thousand miles, no friends outside of a woman who begged me not to do exactly what I’m about to do.
I drive for twenty minutes with nothing but the sound of my own ragged breathing and the hum of the engine.
I let the tears burn from my eyes. The fear. All of it. Until I feel like I can’t breathe.
And then I see the gate.
Sterling Ranch.
The letters on the iron arch are backlit by a single light. Beyond it, the driveway stretches into darkness, flanked by fence posts and fields that I can’t see the end of.
I pull through the gate. The gravel crunches under my tires. The house comes into view. The porch light is on, a warmglow behind the downstairs windows, the birthday banner still hanging above the front door.
I park next to a row of trucks and kill the engine.
And then I sit there.
My whole body is trembling so hard that the seat is vibrating.
I don’t know what I’m going to say. I don’t know how to explain why I’m here, at his ranch, in the middle of the night, after he told me to forget he exists.
But I’m here.
Because I have nowhere else to go.
And he is the only person in this town who has ever made me feel safe. And I need help. Even if it is from his best friend.