Page 257 of Fragments
I should’ve known this would happen…
I don’t get a normal life, a relationship… Love.
Those things aren’t meant for me.
I get pain, and torment, and despair.
I scratch the jagged scar on my wrist.God, I just want to bleed right now…
The sun goes down with me hiding, and not a single clue what to do next. Eventually, I break into a shed in someone’s backyard and curl up into a ball on the floor.
“Lexington…” I sob, rubbing my eyes as sleep steals me. “Where are you, baby…?”
I’m startled awake again in the morning to sounds that remind me I need to keep moving. But with every step, the truth is following me like a raincloud of depression.
Lex might be dead.
He might be…
The hard truth to this devastating situation is I need to get the hell out of here. I’ve been here too long as it is. I need to disappear, and it kills me inside to think of going anywhere without Lexington. But I fight to stay determined, locating an old junkyard and slipping into a car that looks decent.
I have a long way to go to our meeting place.
That fucking voice in my head tells me it’shopeless. The voice I’ve ignored, stuffed down, locked up far away for months. But with Lex slipped from my grip, it’s coming back. Fighting its way up harder, and louder.
He’s dead.
You’re chasing a ghost.
He’s fucking gone, Warren… And it’s all your fault.
“No…” I growl, holding the wires together, flicking them over and over like a match that won’t strike. “He’s not dead. He’snot.”
He is… You know he is.
You watched him die.
“No!” I shout, flinching at my stupidity. “Be quiet…”
The engine finally roars to life, and I breathe out of relief. Stuffing everything away, I slump into the driver’s seat of the old Lincoln I just hot-wired. A useful skill I picked up for literally no reason when I was a teenager, just because I felt like being an exhausting troublemaker.
I’ll drive this thing for a while, across state lines at least, then I’ll steal another. I’m going to drive across the country. I’ll get to California, and I’ll find Lex there.
Hehasto be there. I refuse to accept any other possibility.
At least it’ll be warmer there…
He’s dead.
You killed him.
Because you don’t deserve love.
“Shut up,” I sniff, shifting into drive.
Cruising up the road, I give the ocean one last glance.
He’s not dead. He’s alive, and he’ll know…
