3. Natalie #2
“Of course I will,” she replies with reassurance. Ceecee starts whining in the background. “I’m sorry, I have to go. I promised Ceecee I’d give her a cookie and read to her before nap time.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
“Text me when you stop driving for the night,” she says hesitantly. “Or wherever you decide you’ll end up. I want to know you’re safe.”
“I’ll be fine, but I’ll text you anyway.” We hang up, and I’m alone again.
Who even am I right now? How did I become someone who makes crazy, life-altering decisions? Someone who leaves loved ones behind in my wake?
I left Emma, who relies on me for childcare, and I’ve left Luke, who did nothing wrong but choose to not be a dad.
I left my parents, my brother, my sister.
A prickle of guilt pokes at my heart, and I want to scream.
I’m repeating the choices I made years ago, the ones that pushed my anxiety to the level it is now.
With only the road and my thoughts for company, I turn up the radio dial to drown out the voices inside of me.
After several hours of sad music and a bag of stale potato chips I found in my car, I finally need to pee. And get a cup of matcha.
I pull off the highway near Jacksonville, where I’m relieved to find a coffee shop right next to a gas station. My eyes flit down to the fuel gauge.
Yup, I’ll need to get fuel for me and fuel for this tank.
And I don’t just mean the gas tank—I mean, this vehicle literally drives like a tank.
I’m not a tall woman, standing at five-eight, so driving a Chevy Suburban makes me feel like I’m in a literal monster truck.
Luke didn’t like the idea of me being in something smaller.
He said if I was involved in an accident, a car any smaller would get crushed. He’d rather my vehicle do the crushing.
I agreed with him. The height of the SUV makes me feel like a freaking boss babe. Only it’s not the most comfortable to drive long hours when my legs are stretched to reach the pedals. Short drives are much more pleasant.
After pumping gas, going inside the coffee shop to use the bathroom, and ordering caffeine, I’m feeling ready to get back on the road.
It’s just starting to get dark out, but with a hot sip of matcha currently warming my belly, I feel I have a few more hours left in me to put distance between myself and Luke.
I should probably nail down where I’ll be staying tonight.
Make sure there’s an available room. Sitting in my SUV/tank in the parking lot—with the doors locked, of course, because I don’t know what sort of people are hovering around—I open the map application on my phone, pinching the screen to zoom all the way out.
There are tons of cities on the map and a lot of options laid out for me.
I scan the roads north of Fort Lauderdale.
I-95 passes Daytona Beach and Jacksonville, then Savannah and Charleston before eventually going right through Philadelphia.
I sip my matcha and worry my lower lip with my teeth, wondering what it would be like to show up at my parents’ door. There are two scenarios.
Scenario number one: they yell at me for ghosting them and slam the door in my face.
Scenario number two: my parents are happy to see me, and they pull me in for a hug, the kind that always made me feel safe, warm, and loved.
Tears prick at my eyes when I imagine being back in my father’s embrace as my mom brushes back my hair and rubs my back. But could it really be that simple? Could they really forgive what I did and forget about the heartache I’ve put them through?
No, it wouldn’t be that simple. I put my parents—and my brother and sister—through hell.
I’m sure I did. When I first left, they called my phone a million times until I blocked their numbers.
Juliet and Tyler flooded my social media accounts with private messages asking where I was and telling me to “come home right now because Mom and Dad are freaking out and calling the cops.”
I should have at least told them where I was … but my chest still tightens at the thought of them taking me away from Luke.
A third scenario comes to mind, popping up in my brain like a new tab’s been opened on a desktop. The image elicits emotions of both happiness and immense dread.
In this third scenario, which is the most probable, my parents are apprehensive of my return.
They hug me, but not tightly. They don’t know how long I’ll be there to stay, so they keep me at a distance, not holding on too firmly in the fear that I’ll wriggle out of their grasp and fly away again.
They’re not angry with me, but they are hurt.
They don’t look at me like they used to.
Why would they? They don’t know me anymore.
I’m not eighteen, but instead I’m a successful twenty-seven-year-old woman.
If running away from my husband could be called successful.
I scoff at myself. I ran away from home to be with him, and nine years later I’m running away from him to go back home.
A maniacal laugh escapes my lips, and I cackle so vehemently at my own actions these past nine years that the laughs quickly shift to sobs, and I have a full-blown panic attack.