Run

Chapter Eighteen

The eyes play tricks on you when you're tired, and they like to play extra special ones when you're stuck in hotel rooms. The shadows kept moving, shifting around, flowing into the corners and back out again. An occasional bright, reflective spot would dance over the darkness, and I'd blink and it would disappear.

I hadn't slept this poorly in over a year. If I'd known returning to Bend would signal the return of my anxiety and insomnia, I would have wimped out and asked my mother to close out the storage unit she'd rented for my stuff and empty my bank account.

Four days. Four long, dragging days of taking care of all the little details I'd left behind, driving around the city with my mother, sitting in my room at night and trying to do what Trevor said I should - decide once and for all where I was supposed to be.

I kicked free of the blankets and rolled over to stare at the opposite wall. It wasn't any more entertaining than the one I'd been looking at.

Giving up on sleep, I reached for the lamp switch when there was a knock on my door. Mom was out cold; I could hear her snores through the wall. I couldn't imagine any of my friends showing up, not after the way I'd left, and the front desk would have called, not knocked.

My hand shook in mid-air, and I lowered it, my breathing shallow. I wanted to scramble for the bathroom and lock myself inside, but the noise I might make stopped me. As long as I held still, whoever it was on the other side of the door couldn't know I was actually inside.

Then my phone buzzed with a text, the vibration agonizingly loud against the fake wood of the bedside table. I snatched it up and almost dropped it again when my hand slipped around it. Holding my breath, I willed my racing heart to calm, straining to hear any hint of sound from the other side of the door.

The phone buzzed again, and I thumbed off the lock.

You still awake?

C'mon and open the door.

Trevor. Somehow, he was here, outside the room. I dropped the phone on the bed and slid out, padding over to the door. The peephole distorted his face, but it was definitely him. I undid the locks and pulled open the door. "Hey."

His smile was tired and worn. "Hey, darlin'."

I stepped aside to let him in, and he shuffled through, a large duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He nodded to the disordered blankets. "I didn't wake you, did I?"

"No." My tired brain finished processing his sudden appearance. "Why are you here?"

He dropped the bag on the floor and sat on the end of the bed, toed off his shoes. "Because this is where you are," he said simply.

Rather than join him on the end of the bed, I returned to my original spot, sprawled on my back and rearranging the lumpy pillow under my head. Four days, and I'd missed him more than I'd wanted to. "I thought you were giving me space." There was no mistaking the bitterness in my voice.

The bed shifted and squeaked as he crawled up to stretch out beside me, braced on one elbow. "I tried. Thought I was doing a damn good job of it, too, considering it's just about killing me to think you'll leave Austin for good."

I'd always laughed at those people who claimed "when you knew, you knew." That it didn't matter it had been mere months since they'd met, this was it. This was a lifetime discovered in an instant. I knew since the night out with Celia and Trevor's friends that my heart wanted Trevor, and it didn't care how fast we were going.

Somehow, knowing and believing had remained separate until now.

He lifted a hand, tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. "Do you want me to stay?" I asked.