30. Lucie
Words from her mother were absorbed into her soul. Greedily, she read letters from moments past: graduation, birthdays, first dates, college acceptances, and going to the beach for the first time. All the while, she memorized the swirls of her mother’s handwriting.
As she sat in the darkness of her room, Lucie listened to the only sound in the stillness: the faint rustling of the wind rushing through the leaves on the tree outside her window. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at the balcony without thinking about Finn.
Her hands were holding the edge of her blanket; the same blanket she’d clung to since that night.
Her heart ached in a way she couldn’t describe.
She needed to paint—to get all her thoughts and feelings out.
She needed to be free of the heaviness of her thoughts.
For the first time since the accident with her father.
Lucie found patterns in the ceiling as the weight of her father’s and mother’s words pressed down on her chest. She missed her mother.
She missed who she should have become with her there.
She would have loved Finn—his sweetness.
Unexpected kindness. The way he saw her.
Really saw her. And his tattoos. Phewww. Her mom would have loved his tattoos.
A giggle bubbled up out of her and popped, short and sweet.
The sound surprised her. She almost forgotten what laughing felt like, or sunshine, and summer nights.
Her fingers brushed over Finn’s communicator on her bedside table.
She hadn’t used it. Not once. Every night, she reached for it, her thumb hovering over the button.
Desperate to hear his voice and tell him what had happened.
She dreamed he would come to her window and take her away, but he never did.
Each night, when she woke up alone in the dark, her heart broke a little more. She was alone. He didn’t want her. But how could he? Especially not now, after what her father had done. She couldn’t be seen like this. Not until she healed. But would she ever heal?
Lucie looked around her pink-painted cage and rose from her bed.
Using a paint palette knife, she pried up a loose floorboard.
After the money Finn had given her was stolen by her father, she kept the rest of her tips from Finn in a jar along with the rest of the money she had squirreled away from her meager paychecks over the years.
If she was ever going to heal, it wasn’t going to be here. Hope burned inside her chest as she clutched the jar. It was enough to get out of here. Get a hotel and food for a couple of weeks, even if she stuck to a spaghetti diet.
Tonight was the last night she would stay at this house.
She looked at the wooden chest her mother had left behind, along with all the letters. There was so much life she hadn’t lived yet. She wanted to go to the beach again.
Paint again.
Loved herself again.
She wanted to be brave. Brave for her mother, and so many other women who never got to leave.
Wiping the tearstains off her face, she began to grab the few things she knew she couldn’t leave behind: journals, the chest with her mother’s letters, clothes, and her paints.
She donned a lilac strapped blouse she’d never worn and jeans looser than they used to be—time to go.
Her whole life was packed up in three small bags.
It didn’t feel like a lot to show for, but she knew something better was waiting for her out there. She just had to be brave enough to take it.
As she took one last look around the room that had held her captive, it was an empty shell. Sort of like her dad. All of the good parts were removed. Flowers. Paintings. The doodles she’d drawn that gave the place a life were gone. An empty, lifeless husk. She didn’t belong here anymore.
There was one last thing she needed to do. One last person she needed to say goodbye to.
She looked at the silver bracelet on her nightstand.
Nobody had shown her they loved her. Not the way Finn did. Full of tenderness and promise. She wondered if she’d ever feel that way again.
Once, Finn had promised her that no matter what, he would answer her call. He was the one person who had never broken a promise to her. Lucie hoped he wouldn’t start now.
So with her last bit of bravery and defiance, Lucie pressed the button on the Way Station communicator.