The Search for Lily Myers ✓

09 | Took This Dagger in Me and Removed It

Amelia had grown accustomed to spending her Sundays with Colton, so when she woke up alone for the second day in a row, she felt lost. Like she was someone other than herself, like her body was here in her bed but her consciousness had become untethered from it and was floating away. Time felt like an illusion, her existence felt inconsequential, and yet she didn't find herself necessarily wishing the sensation away, either. This was at least better than feeling like her life had contained a profound meaning that she had completely screwed up with.

Deciding that she should rip the Band-Aid off sooner rather than later, Amelia texted both of her parents a very succinct message about the fact that she and Colton were no longer together—mostly for the purposes of making sure they wouldn't keep asking her about him—and then proceeded to ignore their barrage of replies. Maybe that was unfair of her, but she assumed that they'd both have some misguided sympathy for him, and she was nowhere near ready to navigate that yet.

Slowly, she pulled herself out of bed. She'd been able to keep herself busy for most of the day yesterday by returning her belongings to where they'd originally been before she brought them over to Colton's, but now there was hardly any unpacking left to be done. And she was determined not to bother Natasha too much today after she'd already done so much to help out yesterday. Amelia knew that Nat had plans to see Asher, who was now officially her boyfriend, and she wanted her to be able to go enjoy her date without worrying too much about her.

So she started her day by sitting in the bathtub for a very long time, until the water had already been cold for a while, and when it crossed her mind that maybe it wouldn't be so terrible to allow her head to slip under the surface, she immediately extricated herself from the tub.

Colton was disgusting, and it was likely that Amelia was depressed and had been depressed for a while now, but she still maintained a sense of awareness that her life was not over because her relationship with him was over. She didn't feel like she believed it, but her mind must have been keeping secrets from her, because she would have let him do anything he wanted to her if she hadn't held it somewhere in her heart that she was worthy of better than whatever his greedy hands had wanted.

Washing her face and pulling on a clean set of clothes helped to improve her mood, at least marginally. She went to the living room to start unpacking the rest of her things, and although the pain of feeling like she'd failed at love was still very fresh, it still brought her a small, simple satisfaction to put all of her stuff back where she felt like it belonged. It reminded her of how much fun she'd had decorating this apartment in the first place, and that at least she didn't have to compete with Colton's questionable design taste anymore.

Yesterday afternoon, Nat had suggested to her that if she started feeling too glum about living by herself again, Amelia could try to find a little bit of joy in this fresh start by treating herself to a couple of new pieces of decor, maybe do some rearranging. It didn't sound like such a bad idea. The living room could use a throw rug, she thought, and another small lamp in her bedroom wouldn't hurt. So she decided to reward herself for putting everything away by taking herself on a date to her favorite secondhand furniture store that evening. For one, it was downtown, and it would be good for her to get out and go somewhere. And it'd be the best way to find something she actually liked without spending a fortune on it.

When she stepped outside and locked the door behind her, Amelia noticed herself getting goosebumps. But it couldn't be from the cold—she'd pulled on one of her favorite, snuggliest jackets and the temperature was hovering somewhere around fifty. It was only once she'd shut herself in her car and suddenly felt much safer than she had a moment ago that she realized that being outdoors at all was what was making her uncomfortable.

She inhaled slowly, then exhaled. Was it paranoid of her to be worrying that he was going to come and find her? She'd blocked his number after she'd run out on Friday night, so there was no telling if he'd tried to be in contact with her. And yet she wouldn't have put it past him to show up at her door, either. She hadn't given him a key, but he obviously knew where she lived.