Page 90 of Because I Liked A Boy
A One Way Ticket
The drive to Texas was long, heavy, and silent. My car felt like a coffin with wheels, the radio off, the hum of the engine the only sound. I refused to think about Ruby’s hug or Hunter’s voice. Just the road. Mile after mile until the station finally rose ahead, glowing in the dusk.
I left the car in the lot, keys buried deep in my bag like evidence. Maybe I would never come back for it. Maybe that was the point.
The train to Los Angeles was crowded but anonymous. No one looked twice at me. Just another girl with a suitcase, staring out the window as the night blurred past. The scenery rolled by in shadow, but my reflection stayed sharp in the glass. Pale. Hollow-eyed. Hunter’s ghost still clinging to me.
Every station felt like another nail in Maplewood’s coffin. Another step away from what might have been.
By the time we screeched into LA, exhaustion sat in my bones. The airport was too bright and too clean. Families huddled together. Couples kissed goodbye. I stood alone with a one-way ticket burning my palm.
I ordered a vanilla latte without thinking. It tasted wrong. Bitter, burnt, nothing like The Maple Bean. Nothing like home. I forced it down anyway.
The boarding call came too soon.
On the plane, I curled against the window. Strangers fussed with bags. A child whined. A man snapped at his wife. Normal life kept moving while mine had split open.
The engines roared and the city lights scattered beneath us like sparks.
Eleven hours to London. Eleven hours trapped with nothing but my thoughts.
Hunter’s voice clawed at me. I never wanted to be the reason you stopped believing in love.
My father’s venom threaded through it. You killed him. You abandoned her. You destroy everything you touch.
Tears blurred the horizon. The Atlantic stretched endless and black below. I pressed my forehead to the glass and let the silent sobs roll through me.
And in the middle of it all, Penny. Fifteen now. Not a stranger, not anymore. We had tried after Nathan. We had sat on back steps and talked about books and bad TV and how grief crawls into every corner. I had left anyway. I told myself she would be safer if I disappeared. That staying would poison her the way it had poisoned me.
Maybe that was a lie. Maybe he was manipulating me. Maybe he was not. I could not make her pay for my fear.
My hands fisted in my lap until my nails bit skin.
This was not about Hunter now. It was not even about me. It was about her. I had left because I thought leaving would protect her. I was wrong. If I did not show up, she would believe I had left her too.
I leaned into the thrum of the cabin and carved the words out of guilt andlove and all the years we had lost.
“I am coming for you, Penny.”
The landing jolted me awake. Wheels slammed the tarmac. The pilot announced Heathrow and the cabin filled with rustling coats and scraping luggage.
London.
The word alone made my stomach twist. The air already felt heavier, pressing against the windows like it knew I did not belong here anymore.
I stayed seated until the aisle thinned. My body ached from folding in on itself for eleven hours, but it was dread that made me stiff.
I stood, slung my bag over my shoulder, and joined the stream of strangers. The terminal was too polished and too loud. Voices carried the cadence of a past life.
Each step forward felt like sinking.
My phone buzzed. Ruby’s name lit the screen before I could unlock it.
Made it?
My thumbs hesitated. I typed anyway.
Yeah. Landed safe. Don’t worry.
