Zach and Abby

29. - Edited

Abby - Edited

The TSA agent eyed my phone, shaking in the little gray bin with an incoming call. I tried to give her an apologetic smile but it probably looked more like I was terrified than anything else. It stopped vibrating but picked right back up again. I turned it off, setting it back in the bin just as the conveyor belt moved forward and sent my things through the scanner.

I got out of security and found Gate 9, picking a seat in the corner for my two hour wait until the plane took off.

Bridget had agreed to pack a few bags for me. She asked how long I thought I’d be gone and I told her I didn’t know yet. The only thing, she said, was that I had to promise to come back eventually. She’d actually miss me if I never returned.

Winter break started yesterday and lasted until mid-January. I didn’t tell her but I knew I’d be back by then. School credits cost too much to throw it all away on some boy. Plus, I couldn’t leave my mom for that long. If something happened and I wasn’t there, I’d never get over the guilt.

I’d stayed in a hotel the past four nights, living entirely out of the small bag I’d packed to spend the night at his house. The only times I left my room were in the morning for breakfast and to get some kind of take-out for dinner. After a while, I didn’t have much money left to spend on my grand plan of avoiding Zach for the rest of my life.

Going home was always an option. Annie and I had been talking about it for a while and how convenient it all turned out, me needing to get as far away from here as possible just as winter break started.

 Once I started college, and Mom moved with me, we sold our house back in Michigan to help pay for expenses out here. I hadn’t been back because I didn’t have anywhere to go. Austin used to ask me to go home with him for the holidays but after being rejected so many times, he stopped offering. I didn’t want to feel like I was intruding and I couldn’t leave Mom for that long.

I saw her last night, I told her what I was planning to do and she said she’d support me no matter where I went. I was taking the easy way out of this, I was too much of a coward to face the light. I couldn’t stand seeing my mother wither away in front of me, I hadn’t answered anyone’s calls for the past five days.

It was like I was dropping off the radar entirely and I realized I’d missed that feeling. In high school, no one paid the least bit attention to me. No one cared when I didn’t show up for class, the only texts I got were from other students asking for homework answers.

Zach had arrived so suddenly and everything happened so quickly, I never got a chance to take it all in. I needed to get away, I needed to feel like I could breathe again.

Annie was my best friend from high school. She’d moved into town our senior year but it was like we’d known each other forever. She was the first person to care when I missed weeks at a time of school. We kept in contact even after graduation, she knew all about Zach from the time he showed up on my doorstep.

Annie and Austin were the two people I had left. The two people who proved they’d never abandon this sinking ship.