Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
Salem
This is the worst trip of my life.
The highway stretches ahead endlessly as I tighten my grip on the wheel of the RV. Elle King blasts through the speakers, my best gal pal is beside me and Utah's far behind. You'd think I’d feel more free at this moment, but I don’t.
Glancing in the rearview mirror, my gaze once again lands on Logan. He’s sitting in a window seat, stiff as hell with his head resting on his arms. Totally ignoring his uncle across from him, who seems to be giving him the same treatment. They both look like they'd rather be anywhere else.
Which, honestly? Same, dudes. Same.
Arya yawns, stretching her bare legs out on the dash, purple toenails sparkling in the evening sun.
We’re nearly seven hours into the drive, and in another hour or so, she'll take over for me while I sleep.
Tay and Christian are driving Tay's truck behind us, towing a trailer with their bikes and equipment.
It had been a huge fight to decide who drove the RV first. Nobody wanted to do it, and ultimately, it came down to either being a passenger princess for one of the boys or Arya. I chose Arya.
She catches me the next time my eyes drift to the mirror, large sunglasses slipping down her nose when she levels me with a blue-eyed smirk “This is weird, huh?”
A snort leaves my nostrils. “That's one word for it.”
Who in their right fucking mind agrees to go on a road trip with not one, not two or three, but four exes? Me, apparently:
Taylor, my former on-again-off-again boyfriend.
Christian, a one-night stand—years ago.
Devon, my ex-fuckbuddy-slash-drug dealer.
And…Logan. My soon-to-be-ex-husband who refuses to sign the divorce papers. Which I rescued from underneath a stack of trash when we stopped by his apartment to get his shit.
I am clinically insane.
“Could be worse,” Arya muses, twirling a bleach-blonde curl around her manicured finger.
I squint at her sideways. “Yeah? How?”
“You could be in love with one of them.”
Rolling my eyes, I ignore the painful thump in my chest and return my attention to the road. “I hate you.”
Her giggle fills the RV, but she doesn’t respond, pulling out her phone to doomscroll instead.
The music shifts to something softer—Familiar Taste of Poison by Halestorm—and before I can stop myself, my gaze flicks to Logan again. His golden eyes meet mine, fingers playing with that wedding ring he kept, and fuck, I hate that I notice he's overthinking.
I hate that I still know him better than he knows himself.
Before everything went to shit, I used to love being able to relax him when nothing else could. Taking him to a headspace where thoughts didn't exist, only the current moment, the pleasure I could bring him. But that's no longer my job.
He fucking ruined it by dumping me in Vegas, after I got drunk and married the asshole just so that I could claim his virginity.
Jesus, there’s something really wrong with me.
Forcing my eyes forward, I inhale deeply and clutch the necklace hidden beneath my bra. I don’t care that Logan looks like he's hardly slept in weeks or that he's clearly eaten his feelings over the last few months.
I don't.
But the RV feels smaller than it should. The air feels stale, and I know that no matter how many miles we put between us and home, there’s no outrunning the past. Not when I've got four different mistakes nipping at my heels like wolves out for blood.
Three months, ten different cities trapped inside this metal box with nowhere to hide while every bad decision rips me apart and eats me alive.
Maybe I'm my mother’s daughter after all.
Her words haunt me now, echoing in my mind like a death knell. I haven’t seen her in three years—not since I moved in with Xed.
“This is your future, Salem,” she’d slurred, gesturing to her mascara-streaked cheeks after her husband had stormed out for the thousandth time. “All that beauty will fade, and then you'll be alone. Just like me. No one stays.”
I remember the smell of cheap perfume and vomit clinging to her skin as I hauled her off the kitchen floor—not for the first time in my life.
I can still feel the weight of her body in my arms, red hair the shade of mine dirty and tangled around her frail shoulders.
A pill bottle rattling in her hands. It was always the same shit: blaming me for him walking out on her.
It was my fault that he stuck his hands down my pants when I was seven. Again at eleven when I kicked him in the dick for crawling into my bed. My fault at fifteen when I threw a hot curling iron at him for recording me in the shower.
It’s always my fucking fault.
Those memories make me swallow hard, my knuckles whitening on the steering wheel.
No one stays.
I glance in the rearview mirror at the guys, both staring out their respective windows with a mile-wide chasm between them.
No one stays. Not even me.
Not when loving someone means losing yourself in the process.