Page 19 of The Road to Ruined

The camera pans the street before it shuts off, and I quickly hit pause when it captures a mailbox across the street. Zooming in, I try to make out the address. It's blurry and incomplete, but the numbers 1141 and the letters "Zep" are visible. I grab my phone, type in "1141 Zep," and watch it auto-populate different versions of 1141 Zephyr across the country.

Zephyr Way, Zephyr Street, Zephyr Hill, Zephyr Drive.

But only one of those is in a place I know would have graveled front yards, and that's Glendale, Arizona. It checks out; the two of them grew up around Phoenix.

Five and a half hours. Is it possible that River and Hazel are just five and a half hours away in that little bungalow? After being sequestered from the world, it feels like nothing.

An alarm on my phone lets me know I have only ten minutes until my appointment. And I have a curfew. But tomorrow…

Tomorrow, I could leave early and still be back before curfew if I have the balls to risk having the wrong place or worse—having someone I love slam the door in my face.

But maybe they would want to see me. The way Hazel said my name last night on television…it sounded like she cared about me.

I pull my hair into a bun and put on a fresh t-shirt before logging into the app and waiting for Dr. Miller.

"It's been a while, Teagan," Dr. Miller says. "How have you been?"

Since I don't know where to start, I explain to her that I'm just kind of tired of talking about what happened, and I'm perpetually exhausted from thinking about it. She tells me she has my records from Rancho San Flores, so she's up to speed, and we can just talk about right now instead.

And right now, I'm tired, too. I'm not sure how to move through the world anymore. I don't tell her about any of my imaginary friends or the kiwi.

And in the end, she tells me to try to get some fresh air, spend time with my family, and do the things I used to love before all of this happened.

"The things I used to love?" I ask, my brow furrowing in confusion. "All of the things I used to love are things I was explicitly told not to do."

"Well, maybe instead of social media, you could go out and meet people in real life—for friendships, not anonymous sex."

"I don't think I've ever had anonymous sex. I always introduced myself."

"You could start reading again," she says, ignoring my comment. "Maybe stay away from horror, start with something less violent."

"Reading makes me think of Declan," I tell her. "That's what we used to do together, not kill people. We used to lie in bed and read. He liked it when I'd read to him out loud and play with his hair. I haven't read since."

"And you still miss him?"

I falter for a moment, a small crack in my facade I'm sure she notices. Dr. Watkins never asked me if I missed Declan. The focus was always on convincing me that the way I felt wasn't real and the things that happened were wrong. How can you miss someone you hate? Someone who broke something inside of you that you can't fix, ensuring you'll never have a place in the world again?

"Am I allowed to miss him?" I ask.

"Sure," she says. "Your feelings are your own. It's okay to miss what you thought was real as long as you know the difference now and remain rooted in reality."

I shake my head. "I miss Luca. He loved me. He was the first person who ever took care of me, and he always smiled. He wanted to get married, andhewasn't lying. And he couldn't sleep alone. Sometimes, I think about that—I wonder what Declan did with his body, and I hope he was cremated because if he wasn't, then that means he's in the ground somewhere…eternally sleeping alone. It makes me want to find the hole and crawl inside. I don't want him to be alone like me."

"I find it interesting you say he's the first person who ever took care of you. What about your family?" Dr. Miller asks.

I shrug. "How long have you known me? I said what I said."

"And you acknowledged that Luca is dead on your own. From what I understand, that's been hard for you; that's a big step."

"Yeah," I say. "Yeah, he would never leave me. He's dead."

"Okay, well, our time is up. But I am looking forward to hearing about how your job search is going during our next session; hopefully, you'll have good news for me. And Teagan, I'm going to ask you to do something for me."

"What's that?"

"Find things you enjoy—constructive ways you can fill your time—then do those things, and report back."

Sad naps and pho?

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