Chapter 1 #3
“We’ll have someone get your car. I just saw you in there and figured you’d need an escape. You do know this town,” she repeated.
I looked down at my hands, and I let out a breath.
“Do you know what happened?”
“Felicity just texted me. He didn’t even tell them. The news just broke, and I have a feeling that the family group chat is going wild.”
Atlas had kept his attack secret from his family. Had it really been that bad? Or maybe everybody was just blowing things out of proportion.
Yet my spine tingled, and I couldn’t help but come up with disastrous situation after disastrous situation.
“Felicity said that he was going to let everybody know what happened, but I’m not sure.” Teagan, my friend since we were children, gave me a cautious look, and I tried to put on my brave face.
“I’m sure if it were a real issue, he would’ve told his parents right away. Atlas doesn’t keep secrets like that.” I said the words with such conviction that I hoped Teagan would believe me. And I wasn’t lying.
The problem with having an ex-boyfriend the world thought they knew was that they thought they knew you as well.
Atlas was a good person. And that was why it was so hard to hate him—even though I didn’t want to even try.
“I’m just going to drop you off at home, because I sort of panicked when I saw you in there, and everybody was staring. I hate when this town stares at you.”
As Teagan Ashford had grown up the daughter of the town drunk and recluse, and had seen more loss than I could ever deal with, I knew she understood.
She had secrets of her own and had dealt with a town that wanted to do right by her but couldn’t help but look down on her for who she was and where she had come from.
I loved her and called her a friend. But I knew there were only so many things that we could be for one another, and we each had our own histories to overcome.
“I appreciate it.” And I did. Because I wasn’t sure how I would’ve been able to get out of that situation.
Because as soon as one person said a pitying remark or asked a question, everyone else would pile on.
Because, of course, I was supposed to know everything about Atlas.
And again, these are the same people who also thought that I had no right to him because I was no longer with him. I was the rejected girlfriend.
When Teagan dropped me off in front of my house, I let out a breath. “In case I don’t get added to any group chats because they’re worried about my feelings, will you let me know if you hear from them?” I asked, doing my best to sound strong.
Teagan gave me a soft smile and squeezed my hand. “Of course. And I know they’re just trying to respect your boundaries.”
I snorted. “I know. But that doesn’t mean I want harm to come to Atlas. Despite what some in this town may think.”
“Some people in this town need to have an enema or four,” she said dryly.
I burst out laughing, grateful for my friend, and headed inside. It took all within me not to look to the right, to the side of my house, at the property next door.
Because while my tiny home was part of my heart, I shared a boundary line with the other part of my heart.
Atlas’s home stood there under the trees in the distance, behind the privacy fence that kept onlookers out, and stayed empty for the majority of the year. In fact, when he visited, he rarely stayed under that roof. I still never knew why he had bought the house or the land, and I had never asked.
I was afraid of the answer.
I stood in my house, the door locked behind me, and shot a quick text to my parents that I would be late.
I would have to get another pie and figure out what to do.
They wouldn’t be watching the news, so they wouldn’t be worrying about their daughter like they always were.
I needed to find my sense of normal once again.
My phone buzzed, and I glanced at the screen, expecting it to be my parents. Instead, my heart leaped into my throat, and I looked down at the familiar name.
Atlas
I’m five by five, Lizzie.
Everything stopped. Right then and there, it stopped. I hated myself just a little bit more. Because the world didn’t know everything. I wasn’t the forgotten girl with stars in her eyes.
I was an adult who had made a choice and had found a life perfect for herself.
Because Atlas and I texted often. We always had. He was my person. And I was his. We just weren’t each other’s. It was a delicate line where I was fine but never fine.
And it was how I could move on in life knowing that Atlas Carter was a brilliant light in the world, and I was just a shadow in the distance.
Me
That’s not what that saying means.
I let relief flow through me because Atlas was checking in. And he was fine.
Atlas
I blame the drugs. But you’re always the teacher. Correcting me.
Me
Always the jock.
Atlas
I’m really okay. And I’m coming home.
I set my phone down on the table in my entryway and let out another shaky breath.
I couldn’t respond to him. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say.
Home.
He was coming home.
To my home.
Not his.
Not anymore.