Chapter 1
MAYA
The highway blurs in front of me, white lines disappearing under my tires too fast. Seventy-five in a sixty zone. My foot lifts, and the engine's hum drops an octave.
Everything I own is in this car. Two duffel bags in the trunk, a few garbage bags full of clothes in the back seat, because I didn't have suitcases.
I didn't exactly have time to be dignified about leaving.
My laptop, the screen cracked in one corner.
A box of nursing textbooks I can't bring myself to throw away, even though I'll never open them again.
That's it. Twenty-six years of existence reduced to what fits in a shitty Honda Civic with busted air conditioning and a Check Engine light that's been on for six months.
My phone buzzes in the cup holder. The screen lights up, casting a blue glow across my lap.
I don't look at it. It's probably another email from the hospital's HR department.
Another passive-aggressive message about "completing the termination paperwork" or "returning hospital property," like I stole something.
I've got nothing left to return. They took everything when they fired me.
The sun sits low, turning the sky into layers of orange and pink that bleed into each other like watercolors.
It's beautiful in that way that sunsets are when you're too numb to feel anything.
I should appreciate it. I should pull over and take a picture or some shit.
Instead, I'm counting the miles until I reach Hartford, watching the green signs tick past. Forty-three more. Forty-two. Forty-one.
My wrists itch.
I know I shouldn't scratch them. I know what's under the long sleeves of my sweater—old scars that have faded to white lines, raised welts that throb if I bend my wrists wrong.
I have a few that are fresh from last night, when the walls of my apartment closed in, and I couldn't breathe, and the only thing that made sense was the bite of metal against skin. The release. The way everything goes quiet for just a second.
I grip the steering wheel tighter, my hands aching. I force myself to focus—on the road, on the textured rubber beneath my palms, on getting to Emma’s. On pretending I’m okay.
He raped me.
The thought surfaces before I can stop it, dragging me under like a riptide.
I see his face—the way he smiled before he locked the door.
Feel his hands, rough and too big, pinning my wrists above my head.
Smell the antiseptic of the hospital mixed with his cologne, something expensive that I used to think smelled nice before it became the scent of my nightmares.
A horn blares.
I jerk the wheel right, heart slamming against my ribs so hard it hurts.
The car swerves back into my lane, tires squealing, barely missing the guardrail.
Metal flashes in my peripheral vision. That was too close, way too close.
Another horn, longer this time. A truck speeds past me, the driver's middle finger visible through his window, his mouth moving in what's probably a string of curses I can't hear.
Fuck.
I pull onto the shoulder and slam the car into park. The engine idles, rattling the whole frame. My hands tremble so badly I can’t hold the wheel. My chest is too tight, ribs constricting like someone’s squeezing me. I can’t breathe. Can’t—
"You're okay," I say out loud. My voice sounds foreign, thin, and shaky. "You're okay. You're okay."
I'm not okay.
I haven't been okay in over a year. Not since Lily.
She was only six. Had a laugh that could light up the whole pediatric ward, this bright bubbling sound that made even the sickest kids smile. Blonde pigtails that her mom braided every morning. A stuffed elephant she carried everywhere. Pneumonia that turned septic before anyone caught it.
I was her nurse. I should've caught it.
I didn't.
She coded on my shift. I did chest compressions until my arms gave out, until my shoulders screamed, and someone pulled me off her tiny body. It wasn't enough. Nothing was enough.
I'm still not over it. I still see her face every time I close my eyes. Her skin was going gray, her lips turning blue, the way her hand went limp in mine.
Three months ago, I went to my supervisor for help.
Told him I couldn't do it anymore, couldn't watch another kid die, couldn't trust myself to keep anyone safe.
I was falling apart. Having panic attacks in the bathroom.
Crying in the med room. I needed someone to tell me it was okay to step back, to take a break, to not be strong for once.
He said he understood. Said he needed help with something in the supply closet, and that we could finish our talk there while he grabbed what he needed.
Then his hands were on me. My back slammed against the shelves, pills and bandages digging into my spine. I told him no. I said it over and over. He didn't stop.
No.
I force my eyes open and stare at the dashboard until the cracks in the plastic come into focus. I need to count things.
Four cup holders. Three tree air fresheners. Two air vents. One crack in the windshield that spreads like a spiderweb from the passenger side.
I reported the rape. I went straight to HR with the evidence.
The bruises on my wrists where he held me down, purple and yellow and ugly.
Security footage showing me leaving the supply closet in tears, makeup smeared, clothes disheveled.
His semen was still inside me when I went to the ER for a rape kit.
They fired me two weeks later.
"Budget cuts," they said. The HR director didn't even look at me when she said it, just shuffled papers and avoided eye contact. "Your position is no longer necessary."
His position remained necessary, though. His six-figure salary remained intact. His corner office with the view of the park remained his. I was the problem. The troublemaker. The nurse who couldn't handle the job, who should've kept her mouth shut.
My phone buzzes again. I don't look at it this time either.
Instead, I pull back onto the highway. Thirty miles to go. The sun's almost gone now, just a sliver of orange on the horizon.
The city appears like it's rising from the earth itself—Hartford's skyline cutting into the darkening sky. It's bigger than Pinewood, with actual buildings and actual traffic and actual life happening around me instead of the sleepy nothing of the town I left behind.
I navigate to Emma's neighborhood on autopilot, my hands making turns before my brain registers the street signs.
I've been here before. Christmas two years ago, when Emma was just starting to show with Ethan, and everything felt possible.
Emma's birthday last summer, before my life imploded.
That awkward shopping trip with Jackson two months ago, when we bought Ethan his first ice skates and barely spoke except to comment on prices, the silence between us was so thick I could've choked on it.
I park in Emma's driveway and kill the engine. The sudden silence is deafening.
The house is dark. Every window is black, no porch light on. Nobody's home.
For a second, I consider leaving. Just starting the car and driving away. Going back to Pinewood or maybe somewhere else entirely, some town where nobody knows my name and I can disappear. Anywhere but here, anywhere I won't be a burden.
But where would I go? I have three hundred dollars in my checking account. No job. No references that won't tank an interview. No apartment because my lease was up last week, and I couldn't afford to renew it, couldn't even afford the security deposit on a new place.
Emma is the only person in the world who might let me crash on her couch without asking too many questions.
I dig through my purse until I find the spare key Emma gave me when they moved in. She told me I always had a place with her, said it with that fierce certainty Emma has about everything. I'm about to test if she meant it.
The key turns smoothly in the lock. I step inside and shut the door behind me, locking it out of habit. The house smells like Emma. Her vanilla candles and whatever laundry detergent she uses.
I drop my bags by the door and stand in the entryway, suddenly frozen. My reflection stares back at me from the hallway mirror. I look hollow-eyed, too thin, my curls a mess. I look away.
What am I doing?
I can't just show up here with no warning and expect Emma to take care of me.
She's pregnant. She has a toddler who needs her attention and energy.
She has her own life, full and complete without me.
And I'm about to dump all my shit on her because I'm too much of a coward to handle my own problems. After all, I've got nowhere else to go and no one else to turn to.
My chest tightens again. The walls are moving closer, the air growing thinner. The familiar panic creeps in at the edges.
I sink onto the couch and press my palms against my thighs. The fresh cuts sting under my jeans, a sharp burn that grounds me. Good. Pain, I can understand. Pain makes sense when nothing else does.
I should leave before they get back. Pack up my stuff and disappear before Emma finds me here like some kind of pathetic stray. She doesn't need this. Doesn't need me falling apart in her living room, bleeding my trauma all over her perfect life.
But I don't move.
I sit here in the dark and wait for my best friend to come home so I can lie to her face and pretend I'm fine.
Because that's what I do now, I perform while I'm drowning. I smile while I'm bleeding out. I act like I'm okay when every morning I wake up, and the first thought in my head is that I wish I hadn't. That maybe it would be easier just to stop fighting, to let go, to finally rest.
The numbers run through my head like a countdown. Like I'm waiting for something to hit zero and finally be done.
I bury my face in my hands and try to remember how to breathe. In for four counts. Hold for seven. Out for eight. The breathing exercise my therapist taught me before I stopped going because I couldn't afford it.
They'll be home soon. Emma will hug me and tell me how happy she is that I'm here, and will squeeze me tight the way she always does.
Chase will be welcoming and friendly, and will probably offer to help carry my bags even though I showed up unannounced.
I'll smile and joke and make some comment about how their couch better be comfortable.
I'll pretend everything's fine.
And maybe if I pretend long enough, it'll become true.
Or maybe I'll finally break, shatter into so many pieces no one can put me back together.
The sound of a car door slamming outside makes me jump, my whole body jerking.
They're home.
I stand up, smoothing my sweater with trembling hands, checking that my sleeves are pulled down far enough to hide the scars.
The old ones and the new ones, the roadmap of my pain carved into my skin.
I paste on a smile, pulling my lips into the right shape even though it feels wrong.
Rebuild the mask. Become the Maya they expect—loud, funny, wild.
The girl who drinks too much and laughs too hard.
Not this broken thing, trying to remember why she's still breathing.
The key turns in the lock. Light spills in from the porch.
By the time Emma walks through the door, I'll be fine.
I have to be.