Chapter 20
AMELIA
I felt like a ghost, lost in a terrifying fever dream.
We left the beach a day after I received the phone call, and soon I found myself standing outside Shane and Sabrina’s house again, the world spinning.
My bags laid by my feet, and I watched everybody, feeling like an invisible outsider, as if I were drowning beneath the waves, screaming, yet nobody could hear me.
My car was still at my home, since Alex had picked me up when we were on our way to the beach. I told him to just leave me at Shane and Sabrina’s house. I couldn’t be alone, not now.
“You can stay in the guest room, sweetie.” Sabrina led me inside the house towards the room, where I set my bags down. Looking around the room, I remembered the last time I had stayed here.
After our escape from the wilderness.
Flashes of Caiden swept through my mind. I remembered our kiss on this bed, the spark igniting a fire that had burned too bright, too fast. I had kissed him in a moment of vulnerability, only to lash out, confused and scared, when those feelings became too intense.
Then, my mind went to our moment in the beach house.
His hands. His lips. His eyes. Our unraveling madness as we lost ourselves in each other.
“Thank you, Sabrina. You’re a good friend,” I whispered, my voice brittle with exhaustion and sorrow. The ache in my chest felt heavy enough to crush my ribs.
Sabrina’s warm hand pressed against mine, her eyes soft. “I know this is the hardest time of your life. You stay here with us as long as you need. When you’re ready, I’ll drive you home.”
I glanced out the window at the late-afternoon light sinking behind the pines, washing her living room in a bruised orange glow. “I’ll only be here a few days,” I managed. “Just enough to plan, to weep, and to prepare myself for returning to my hometown…to face her death.”
Sabrina nodded solemnly, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear. “Understandable. You haven’t seen her since graduation, right?”
I swallowed a jagged breath. “It felt right at the time,” I muttered, the guilt surfacing again like a slow, cold wave.
She squeezed my shoulder. “You did what you needed for your own peace of mind. Don’t carry more blame. She chose her own path.
I closed my eyes, letting her words settle around me like a thin blanket. “I’ll try.”
Sabrina left to go unpack.
In times of sorrow, I'd retreat, a self-imposed exile. The world faded to muted grays, a macabre silence floating in my heart.
I curled into my bones, a fetal shape in the suffocating darkness of my mind, a black void smelling faintly of dust and forgotten things.
I still remember the shock that coursed through me as I listened to those words that fell from the sheriff’s lips through the phone.
Your mother is dead. I’m so sorry.
Before leaving, I gave my phone number to a few trusted people, including the sheriff, in case of emergency. I also left a note with my contact information written for my mother.
She never called.
Years later, though, the sheriff finally used the number she'd kept all along.
The sheriff instructed me to come down when I felt ready to deal with my mother's situation. She also mentioned a note my mother had written before she did what she did to herself.
The thought haunted me. My mother dying, alone, in that cold and dark house. The image, aching and haunted, wouldn’t fade.
Come home.
A hushed voice drifted in my ear, and I screamed.
The oak door creaked open, revealing a shadowy interior; I stumbled back, a cold suffocation seizing my breath, my muscles rigid with fear.
“Are you okay?” The shadow spoke, and I blinked.
It was Caiden.
I nodded, placing my hand to my chest, feeling my rapid heartbeat beneath my fingers.
“Yes. Something startled me. I’m fine,” I lied, my voice quivering like a leaf in a sudden gust. My eyes darted to the dim corners of the room, searching for some hidden threat.
He closed the distance between us in a few silent strides, brow furrowing as he studied my pale face. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Amelia. And you’re shaking.”
I sank onto the edge of the unmade bed, the thin cotton sheet twisting beneath me. Wrapping my arms around myself, I felt the old ache bloom in my chest. He saw right through my act, and the exposure stung.
“I…I don’t think I’m handling my mother’s death very well,” I admitted, voice trembling. I lifted my gaze to meet his eyes.
Caiden sat beside me, the mattress dipping under his weight. His voice was gentle yet edged with grit. “There’s no right or wrong way to grieve, especially with everything you had with her. The world doesn’t stop, though we wish it would.”
I swallowed, tasting the metallic tang of tears. “How did you deal with your father dying?”
His jaw snapped shut as if I’d struck him. I winced. “Sorry,” I murmured. “That was a dumb question.”
He exhaled, a rough, humorless sound. “No…It’s fine. Months after you left, I came home to find him face-down in his own vomit. He’d drunk himself to death.” He gave a low, bitter laugh that vibrated in his chest. “I was relieved. I know how fucked up that is.”
My heart lurched. “You…you found him? I didn’t know.”
He shrugged, as though shrugging off ash. “I didn’t say. After that, I joined the military. His death broke the chains that kept me there. I’m haunted by him, but at least I’m free of his living presence.”
Freedom. The word echoed in my mind like a distant promise. Guilt, thick as tar, coiled in my veins. My mother and I had had moments of light. Sunlit laughter between storms. That memory made the pain of her absence ache.
No closure. No redo. Time flowed only forward. Like he said, life didn’t pause. I pictured myself plummeting into a cold, empty void.
She left me emotionally, then she was gone physically, and now forever.
My voice cracked. “I envy your strength, Caiden. I wish I could find freedom too.”
His hand rested on mine. Warm, steady. “You are strong, Amelia. I’ve seen you survive worse. You’ll get through this.”
Maybe it was his nearness, or my raw vulnerability. Maybe it was the need for someone who truly understood. “Could you come with me?” I blurted, eyes pleading.
He drew back, stunned. “Come with you?”
I nodded, heart pounding. “Back to our hometown. I can’t face it alone. You’re the only one who understands.”
He hesitated. “What about Sabrina?”
“She wouldn’t understand, her world’s too different. She can’t carry this.”
He fell silent for what felt like an eternity. Each second, regret gnawed at me. It was selfish, asking him to return to his own nightmares.
“I…need a day to think,” he said quietly. Rising, he walked to the door.
I reached out, wanting to hold him back, but my hand fell limply to my side.
He paused, silhouette framed by the hallway light, then slipped away, leaving me clutching the thin sheet and the echo of his absence.
Once daylight simmered, and the coolness of evening took its place, I threw on some shorts and a loose shirt to prepare to go running. At the end of the neighborhood sat a patch of woods with a narrow trail.
“I’ll be back before it gets dark. I’m going running.” I passed the living room on my way out. Sabrina and Shane sat on the couch, while Caiden sat on the single, cushioned chair.
His eyes caught mine, and I couldn’t look away for a moment, trying to place the expression in his eyes. Then it hit me.
Longing.
“Okay! I’m about to start on dinner.” Sabrina replied, smiling warmly at me. I glanced at Caiden again, but he had looked away. His jaw tight, staring at the screen.
I left the house and began to run.
My feet flew on the road, a blur of dust and heat rising behind me as I ran towards the cool, deep shadows of the woods.
The scent of pine filled my nostrils the moment I broke the tree line; I didn't pause, a ragged, gasping breath burning in my lungs, my muscles screaming with the effort, but still I ran, the unseen pursuers of ghosts and demons hot on my heels.
The trail twisted and turned, a labyrinth of shadows and sunlight. Each rustle of leaves, each snap of a twig, sent a jolt of adrenaline through me, fueling my desperate flight. I didn't know what I was running towards, only that I couldn't stop.
The woods seemed to close in, the trees becoming menacing figures, their branches like skeletal arms reaching out. The fear and grief, raw and primal, propelled me onward, deeper into the heart of the darkness.
Flashes of my dead mother and childhood rippled throughout my mind.
I ran faster, as if trying to outrun my pain.
The sorrow climbed higher. I tried to shut the door, but it tore through the shock and emptiness, threatening to overspill and engulf me like a wave crashing over a seawall.
Then, up ahead, a clearing. As I reached it, I tripped over a root in my distracted haze and fell forwards, tumbling onto the soil mixed with grass and leaves.
I laid there.
Heaving.
My eyes shut.
The dam broke.
A crushing weight of everything piled on at once.
Mother's death, a cold stone in my gut; Caiden, a phantom limb aching with conflicting love and hate. Being trapped in Blake’s cabin, a darkness in my mind.
Childhood pain, a dull throb behind my eyes; Caiden's cruelties, festering wounds that sting with each memory, colliding with the bittersweet pull of my present feelings for him.
I screamed.
A raw, burning agony clawing its way up from my throat with each desperate sound. Hot tears streamed down my face, a relentless torrent mingling with the rasping cries, each drop a burning sting.
My chest constricted, closing in on my shriveled heart. With each scream, each cry, my breath became shallow and uneven, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to breathe.
My vision wavered. Black spots filled it, replaced with white, in a disorienting cycle. Everything collapsed within my body.
I screamed until I couldn’t scream anymore.
Exhaustion overcame me, and I could stand. I could walk. I couldn’t go on.
How much grief could somebody take before they collapsed entirely?