53. FIFTY-THREE
FIFTY-THREE
The snow outside has been calming down, yet I don’t feel nearly as good about it as I thought I would. I’m running out of time. Everything is fleeting and somehow I’m being left behind. I have to get out of here.
“You look cute when you sleep,” Finn tries to cut through the idle background noise of the TV but I barely even register it at first. My attention is glued to the screen as some form of distraction. “Everything about you is really cute.”
We’re laid up on the couch, his arms wrapped around me while I rest on top of him. How can someone so soft and sweet be capable of such horrible things? The truth is ugly.
“Thanks,” I say dryly.
“Are you mad at me?”
My head tilts. “No, I… I’m just… processing. I can’t get over all this in a day, Finn.”
“I can make it up to you,” he offers weakly. “Breakfast tomorrow. The whole works. You liked it last time, right?”
“Yeah…” Wait. “Y-Yeah, okay. That would be good.”
He’ll wake up early and be totally distracted. That should give me just enough time to crawl out to the back. It won’t be easy, but it will work. All I need is to make it to a road or something. Someone will find me.
Someone has to find me, right?
“The community is still reeling over the disappearance of twenty-three year old Duncan Armette.” The neutral-voiced news anchor recites.
Hearing my name immediately makes me perk up, but it’s not like I can sit up with Finn holding me so tight.
“Friends and family say he was struggling with personal issues, with one friend issuing a heartfelt message to him.”
The shot cuts to Haley, but something is amiss. She isn’t halfway across the country in the California sun. Her long black hair is flowing effortlessly in the wind. The snow, the dingy mall behind her… She's here. She came for me. A lump begins forming in my throat.
“Duncan is my best friend,” she says while staring right into the camera with those bright honey eyes of hers.
“Things were hard, I know that. But please, Duncan. If you’re out there…
please come home. We love you so much. We all miss you.
I miss you. I really hope…” Watching her take a moment to recompose herself makes me want to get out of here so much more.
“I really hope you’re okay. I love you, Dunk. ”
The news anchor returns, and just like that the one sliver of hope I had is reduced to another moment lost to time. Can I really ever get out of here? What would getting out of here even entail, anymore?
What is a life without Finn in it? The past few weeks have been nothing but him. Am I dependent? I could lie to myself and say I’m not, but I am. It’s hopeless and awful, but it’s the truth. I can’t even go to the bathroom without Finn, and the one chance I had at freedom I managed to blow.
I need this. I need this to work. I need to crawl at just the right time. Some trucker can save me, and I can go to the hospital, and—
“Did that make you sad?” His head tilts, planting wet kisses all over my temple. “You know… I care about you too. M-More than she does.”
“You’re jealous?”
“No,” he blatantly lies to me, “just… worried. W-Worried that you think life with them is better. She won’t stay with you forever. She won’t take care of you. She’ll stick around for what? A week? Then she goes back to her life.”
Finn’s breathing quickens.
“But you’re my whole life. I-I’m nothing without you, so…” he gulps. “Choose me. Please? Can you do that? P-Please?”
What’s really awful is how it almost works. It’s almost convincing enough for me to give up on leaving entirely. “Finn…” But I can’t do that. That’s not an option. This game or whatever we’re doing here needs to end. It needs to end before it’s too late. “Okay.”
I’ve never been a liar. But this is a lie that needs to happen. A lie that will save my life. The breathy laugh he gives is shaky, but it’s enough for me to know he believed me.
Haley’s words are on my mind in a constant repeat. She’s been searching for me. She wants me to come home. She was searching for me. Fuck, she even came all the way to this stupid, shitty town for me.
How could I not try? I have to try. Not even for myself, but for her. I’ll get to show her everything she’s missed in person. My apartment, my cat, my life. It might not have been much, but it was mine and mine alone.
Not crying is harder than it seems. I want nothing more than to melt down—to cry, kick, and scream. Finn needs to know how badly he’s ruined everything, and he needs to know how much I fucking hate him.
“Finn?” I make my voice as little and weak as possible. “I’m tired…”
“You wanna go to bed?”
“Yes, please.”
His smile is so genuine that I almost forget it’s not. “Alright. Let’s go to bed, honey.”
How could I ever think I loved him? What is love without choice? It’s pretend. It’s always been pretend, and I’m done playing a game I was never meant to win in the first place.