The Runaways

Chapter 30

Caleb

            There are nights in your life where you just want the stars to stand still, for the world and all it’s wild ways to soak into your skin, just so you can remember what living feels like.

          For as long as I’ve been breathin’, I've hardly held onto anything good for more than a little while. But I wanted to hang onto tonight, to all the little things about it that dulled the sting of my sadness, to her.

            I didn't want her to leave. Not for a minute. But Hailey walked outta that room about as quick as she'd come in, while I choked on the dust of her ghost trails. She wasn't scared of being lonely, you could tell just by watching her eyes, the way she found comfort in never looking at anybody for too long. She could run a hundred miles just by looking away, and lately I kept having this feeling that as much as I wanted her to stay, she'd end up running away from me.

            Maybe that was the right answer, for her anyway. She had a life outside all of this just waiting for her to come back to. Waiting for me to give her up so she could start living the way she was supposed to. But every time she came around, I stopped thinking about all that.

          I stopped thinking about a lot of things, except her. She let me forget where I came from for a little while, and as selfish as that sounds, at least it meant a minute or two of peace for me. Couldn’t tell you if it was happiness exactly, but it was something a lot like it.

            God knows I needed the change.

            I'd been walking around the world the last few days with death on my shoulders. Every step I took further from the place where I left half my family to die, my feet sunk deeper into darkness. It was always there, like the pain, but quieter, waiting for me to let it catch up. She was the only thing left standing between me and all that terrible loneliness, but knowing she was somewhere nearby was enough to keep going.

            The rain outside stole the heat out of the room through the rafters. The bath went cold a while back, but lying there watching the steam soar to the ceiling was better than trying to get to my feet without killing myself. Waiting for Dad's pain pills to kick in was one thing, trying to live through them wearing off was another story—the kind you didn't want anyone to see.

            Pride is pride. But pain's a whole lot worse. Thirty seconds into pulling myself up outta that tub, the little hole over my hip starting burnin’ like it was brand new.

            The heat hit me so hard that the whole room went black. Couldn't tell you much about what happened after that.  I remember reaching for a towel but never really gettin' to it. The strength slipped outta my legs, and my back hit the cold bathroom tile.

            I remember hoping to God that if I died like this, that Hailey wouldn't walk in on me sprawled on the floor, bare-assed naked, all cause I tried to get up on my own. If I’d clocked out right then, at least it would've saved me the trouble of having to explain why I'd decided on being stupid instead of asking for help.

            But I kept on breathing, and woke up staring at the rain poundin’ puddles on the bathroom skylight.

            Someone had my head in their hands, someone who I hoped was Hailey, but life never plays out how you want it to. Instead of looking up at my girl, or God’s pearly white gates, I got an upside down view of Georgia Jane’s pearly white dentures biting trenches into her bottom lip. Like I said, life never really plays out the way you want.

            "You tryin to kill me boy?" She said.

            All the wrinkles in her face must've multiplied cause she looked more scared than I'd ever seen her, that or I wasn’t seeing straight just yet.