Roots [Completed]

Chapter 5 - Part 3

Ours is not a love born of tragedy.

By this I mean Topher and I did not fall in love because of a catastrophe. Like - like people who have shared trauma. People who get together because they finally found someone that can read their disaster. I think that that is love, still, but -

I'm being confusing. It's the panic. I will explain soon.

When Sam took me, or even when Topher left all those years ago, that was a disruption of the natural order. That was not some part of the grand plan. We did not need these things. Ours is not a love born of tragedy. In a kinder, more beautiful world, we would still have fallen in love.

Oh, I wish I lived in a kinder, more beautiful world.

-

What if I never come back here?

It's the classic conundrum. If your house was on fire, and you only had time to grab three things, what would they be?

More aptly, if you were running away from home, and you only had one duffel bag, what would you choose to sacrifice?

It's been over an hour and I haven't exactly been proving myself up to the task.

I'm staring at this pair of heels, my favorite pair of heels, the heels I was wearing when Alec Montgomery kissed me at a dance in junior year, and I'm not quite able to convince myself to leave them in my closet. I love those shoes. I paid $60 for those shoes.

I stomp my foot on the floor like a three-year-old, stomp to the shoes, and fling them into my bag, already overflowing with other items that I'm stubbornly pretending that I will bring with me. Favorite books, journals, jewelry, a little black dress too loose on me since I got back, momentos, an old leather necklace I got from who-knows-where.

It's, unsurprisingly, not fitting into my duffel.

And I still had no idea what I would say to my parents. What if they got home before we left? Could I leave them, then?

I pick up the item at the top of my bag pile. It's a comic book, the one that Topher got me for my birthday. I haven't had a chance to read it yet. I couldn't leave this behind.

My phone rings and my pulse spikes. Topher's been packing up his own things and making arrangements. Is it already time? I stare at the tableau of my room in dismay. I hadn't had time to say my goodbyes to this house.

The phone stops. It takes three seconds for it to start ringing again, and I can practically feel the worry starting on Topher's end of the line. I search through the disaster of my room. What if it's one of my parents? What would I tell them?

But when I finally find my phone underneath one of the miniature disasters across my room, Topher's name is bright on the screen.

"I'm okay," I say instead of a hello. My voice is heavy with reluctance. It couldn't already be time to leave, could it? "I lost my phone for a second, but I'm okay, Topher. Are you already here?"

"Yes."

I pause.

My eyes reflexively trace the cover of my comic book, the bright, printed colors beside the black shadows. My hand falls to my side, barely gripping the spine.

"Come downstairs."

It's not.

I take in a breath.

It's not Topher's voice.

The memories come so quickly I wonder if I'm going to drown. I've recalled some of them so many times they're almost habitual, now. Damp walls, a wild animal snarling at me from the other side of the cell; a bed too warm, hands bruising my body; a snarl, bones snapping, a giant wolf. Some of them seem new, repressed so deeply that it's almost as if they happened to someone else. Burning kisses, painful embraces, and skin touching mine, touching me, touching touching -