𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚛

one

Too loud.

It was all just too loud. She pushed through the crowd of a thousand conversations, stumbling over herself.

And the lights. Fuck, they were so bright.

The air was thick and hot, pressing relentlessly down on her from all sides while pure and unbridled panic broiled in her gut. She fought not to scrunch her eyes and clamp her ears shut.

"You could never begin to comprehend how much I sacrificed for you..."

It didn't feel right that the world was still spinning after what had just happened. Tara wanted it all to stop. She wanted the clouds to shade away the sun and the whole world to sit in a moment of silent darkness and mourn.

"You never think of anyone but yourself, do you?"

But the sun kept shining. And the babies cooed. The birds still sang. And the earth just kept spinning.

"I was-"

The world was shamelessly mocking her. And Tara felt she was completely deserving of  it all.

"You were what? Leaving?"

Her shaky hands pulled the black overcoat she'd stolen tighter around her body, feeling it the ultimate sin for even the slightest part of her to show through the dark veil she clung to.

"Do you know what they would say about us if you left like that? Stealing away from the house like a thief?"

It hid her from the world, but more importantly, it hid the dark, incriminating red pooled on her chest.

"I worked so hard on you. I taught you so much and... and you'd throw it all away like it means nothing?"

It wasn't her own blood. She wished it was. All it had taken was a single second to ravage the very fabric of which she'd weaved her entire life.

"Tara, you can't ever come back."

Tara couldn't seem to keep her glassy gaze ahead. Needles of discomfort stabbed at the back of her mind, crawling their way forward until it was all she could think about. Without ever realizing it, she found herself glancing over her shoulder every other second.

"He will kill you."

She was terrified. She didn't mean for it to happen. It would be a lie to say she'd never considered it, perhaps once or twice in a wild fantasy. In dreams she'd dismissed mere seconds after waking.

The train whistle blew loudly, silencing her engulfed senses only for a brief moment. Her shoulders clenched like iron from fright and didn't relax again.

"Run."

Tara barreled forward through the waves of people, barely sparing a glance for the ones she shoved aside in her quest to get on the train. Get on the train and get far away. That was the plan, or at least a miniscule semblance of one. She couldn't remember much else about the original scheme in her current state.

"You can't stay here."

She stumbled on the front steps of the train in all her hurry, but it didn't seem to affect her speed in the slightest.

"Keep moving."

Frantic eyes closely inspected every room of the carriage before she picked one facing the crowded platform.

"Oh God, how did it ever get to this..."

Even when she finally sat down and violently slammed the door to her car, Tara's eyes never stopped feverishly raking through every face in the mob of people outside her window.