Easier to Run Read online

  All my life, I’d thought of him as my hero for putting up with me. For helping me become more confident, but he only did that by letting me be myself.

  And what on earth did he ever get out of it?

  My phone buzzed, and I was so lost in thoughts I opened the message without thinking. One side effect of having my phone charged and turned on to listen to music was that it was once again receiving messages.

  Whoever had taught my grandma to text had done the world a major disservice. She knew I never answered the phone, and half the time I didn’t listen to my voice mails, but when the texts appeared, I read more than I intended to.

  GMA: We’re going to report you to the police if you don’t call and tell us where you are.

  The police. Even at twenty-one I was supposed to report every movement. It wasn’t because they wanted to help. They just wanted control over everything. They didn’t think I was capable of functioning on my own.

  I’m fine, I typed. Then, I dragged my bag closer and sat against the side of Ben’s bed.

  GMA: You can’t just take off and disappear without a word. It has been a month.

  My body shook like I’d just grabbed ahold of an electric fence and couldn’t let go.

  GMA: You need to grow up.

  Cas: I’m trying.

  Every time I talked to my grandparents, the thoughts came back full swing. Reminding me of all my failures. A speeding train of doubt and regret. The things I couldn’t change, the things I held onto in the light because they made me who I was and simultaneously hid away in the dark because they scared me to the core. My hand sifted through my bag, spurred on by a mind of its own, and closed around the pill bottle.

  In fifteen minutes, the train could be reduced to a dull roar. I’d be free from the cages everyone tried to shove me into. Free from the ones I stuffed myself into.

  GMA: Cassie Ann Bryant.

  Oh, even in text form it had the same effect.

  GMA: You think running off like a child is going to solve anything…

  Nothing I ever did was right. I squeezed the phone in my hand. I didn’t know which would give out first, the plastic shell or my skin and bone.

  It buzzed again. I couldn’t see through the tears, but this message was an image. Not thinking I clicked to open it, then deleted it just as quickly.

  Fucking perverts. As soon as I blocked five numbers ten more started in.

  “Decent girls….” My grandmother’s voice began in my head. Decent girls don’t do this. Decent girls don’t do that. Decent girls don’t go on trips in a semi with grown men.

  But I was a grown woman. No less indecent in my grandparents eyes though.

  They didn’t know about the videos. Thank goodness. That’d only prove everything they’d ever said.

  I was incapable of making my own decisions. Adult decisions. But, damn it, I wasn’t really incapable. I never had been. Why did people get it in their stupid heads that just because I didn’t talk like someone straight out of a Harvard classroom, I must not be able to think for myself either?

  I didn’t need the world dumbed down. I needed it smartened up.

  Hell, on most days the only way I dealt with the world was dumbing down my brain—slowing it down to a snail’s pace when everything became tolerable again. It was a last resort, usually saved for panic attacks or when my brain decided to go on a thought murdering spree right before bed.

  I wrapped my arms around myself and moved to the bed, my cord barely reaching. With the music blasting in my ears, I couldn’t tell if Ben and his ex were still going at it, but I had to assume they were since he hadn’t come to get me. Bit by bit, I struggled to pull myself back together. Breathe. Focus.

  “You should have known better.”

  My brain screamed with my grandmother’s voice. My hand fisted around the pill bottle.

  “Your mother would never listen either. How do you think she ended up married and pregnant by nineteen?”

  I doubled over, pressing my forehead to my knees. They acted like our life had been so bad. Then again, anything that didn’t go along with their narrow view of reality was horrible. As long as I was with them, I went to class, took my meds, and came home to “study”. As if I needed to study after being sent back two grades. I could do most of the work in my sleep—but I never really bothered with any of it.

  The more I rebelled, the more they cracked down. The less I could breathe. The more anxious I got. Until one day I literally curled up in the corner of my room and refused to get up. I stopped functioning. Stopped feeling anything except the relentless onslaught of thoughts in my head. Voices screaming, telling me I wasn’t good enough.

  Telling me I had nothing left.

  I had nowhere to go.

  I’d thrown it all away.

  It was my fault!

  All my fault that my parents were gone. That my sister was dead. That I’d lost my best friend.

  I stopped talking.

  Stopped trying.

  Stopped living.

  I didn’t think I’d ever dig myself back out of that hole. My school counselor forced my grandparents to get me into therapy. They handed me drugs. I took whatever they gave me because at least it calmed the raging of my brain.

  I didn’t care.

  They wanted to talk. Wanted me to express my feelings. But I had nothing left.

  I had meetings twice a week with the school counselor, once a week with a child psychologist. Of the two, my counselor was more tolerable. Sometimes that felt like the only place I could go where accusations didn’t fly around. Not that my psychologist ever accused me of anything. He just made me uncomfortable. Coaxing me into telling him the things Mitchel had done. The thoughts of it made me feel dirty all over again. Speaking them revolted me, filling my mouth with venomous bile. Nothing could make the taste go away.

  I was so numb I tuned it all out. They all sat around me talking all the time like I wasn’t there. And really, I wasn’t.

  I was trapped so deep inside myself.

  How do you escape when your own body and mind create your prison?

  My playlist ended and I suddenly snapped back to the present like a breaking tension wire. The shock was so extreme my chest hurt. I twisted free the lid from the pill bottle and dropped the tiny white pill in my hand. So tiny, you wouldn’t imagine it could do anything. But it held the power to set me free. To stop the buzzing in every cell that threatened to rip me apart, and the colliding thoughts in my head that sought my destruction.

  I swallowed it down, closed my eyes, and turned on a new song.

  Three songs in and I was ready for a nap. I curled up in Ben’s bed and surrounded by his smell, I relaxed even more.

  Ben

  “You been sitting outside waiting on me or something?” How she always kept tabs on me was a mystery, but once the words spilled out of my mouth I desperately hoped it wasn't true—then she'd already know about Cassie. Wouldn't that make for an even more perfect spat? She cocked her head and invited herself right in to take a seat on the couch.

  Just make yourself at home. “You don't want to talk. You call me to tell me you're having an abortion, then you go to my parents?”

  “I didn't go to anyone,” she said, her voice high with tones of annoyance. “I ran into your Mom at the store.”

  “So you spilled everything?”

  “I was emotional.” She dug the pointed heel of her shoe into the floor and twisted her ankle. “What if I didn't have the abortion?”

  “What if? Dad said you didn’t.” I sat on the coffee table facing her. “What if you started being straight instead of acting like you're playing me with everything that slips out of your mouth?”

  She scowled at me, so I composed myself and tried again. I wanted to fight, tooth and claw, to let my anger boil to the surface, yell, and challenge everything she said. That was my instinct when I saw her, but that wouldn’t get us anywhere. “Can't we just go in one direction instead of around and around in
endless circles? I'm sick of the back and forth.”

  “Isn’t that what we do?” She pressed her red lips together and shook her head. “You want a lay, you come to me. Then the open road calls and it’s back to your life and to hell with me. What do you want Ben?”

  Not to be in this situation to begin with. But hearing it all laid out like that. I’d been a fucking asshole, and I never figured she cared. “A straight explanation about the pregnancy would be nice.”

  “I didn't have an abortion. I wasn't sure what to do when I ran into your mom. I had skipped the appointment, but I was still freaking out and needed someone to talk to. Your mom's nice.”

  And a good actress, I thought. Mom hated her more than Dad did, but they'd never tell her that to her face, especially if they knew there was a possible baby involved. It wasn't like I'd be the first in my family with an out of wedlock baby, but at least big brother was engaged now. I was a jerk without a plan.

  “What do you want?” I asked rubbing my hand over my forehead in an attempt to scrub away some of the tension. I wanted a clean break. It was something I'd wanted over and over with her, but then our paths would cross again and... Old habits really are hard to break. Especially when I’d had too much to drink.

  “We’ve had good times. We used to get along and then you started staying out on the road more and taking longer trips. I want you, Ben.”

  I shook my head. “Things didn’t change because of my job. We were already rocky. If anything, my not being around meant we had less time to fight over stupid things.”

  “You complain but you kept coming back.” She leaned forward against her thighs, drawing my attention to her short black skirt, and the low cut of her top.

  How could someone I couldn’t stand to talk to be so tempting to look at?

  No strings attached. It’s impossible to develop feelings for someone you can’t tolerate outside of the bedroom. Perfect arrangement until it backfired.

  “I think you have commitment issues,” Liz said, suddenly straightening her back and giving me a pointed look.

  My jaw dropped. “I. Have. What?”

  “Commitment issues. Maybe we should see a counselor. We could work all of this out.”

  “I don’t have commitment issues.” Okay, maybe I did, but only where she was involved. I stood and rubbed my hands against my jeans.

  “Then why are you always running?”

  I spun back to face her and threw up my arms. “I’m not. I was straight with you all along. I wasn’t looking for a relationship. You knew that.”

  “But I thought—”

  “You thought that by getting pregnant you might change my mind?” I snapped.

  She chucked her purse at my head. That probably wasn’t the most intelligent thing to say.

  “Sorry,” I kept my hands up in case she decided to throw something else in my direction—especially if it happened to be one of her pointy shoes. “I’m tired and I’m still a little in shock here.”

  “How the hell do you think I feel?” She jumped up and grabbed her purse like I was trying to steal it, then stalked away.

  “Look, I’m sorry, Liz.” I rubbed my temples. What the hell else was I supposed to say? I knew a million things I should have said, but I couldn’t bring myself to spit any of them out. I didn’t want to believe any of this was truly happening. Denial. Bittersweet denial. My brain’s refusal to accept something that was about to irrefutably change the rest of my life no matter what.

  “You called to talk,” she huffed. “You wanted to talk. You didn’t want me to have the abortion, so here I am.”

  I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Thank you.” I had to give her that one. “Where do you want to start?”

  “We could make up.” She smiled, swinging her hips as she took a step toward me.

  I rolled my eyes. Making up between us amounted to sex. Every. Time. “I told you two months ago that I couldn’t do this anymore. I meant it. I was turning into someone that I didn’t like.” And now I was even more determined to keep that from happening.

  “Is there someone else?” she asked.

  I avoided the question and paced behind the coffee table. “Liz, you and I never worked for more than sex—usually crazy, hate sex. That should tell you something. You hate football, you hate my job, you hate most of the foods I like, you hate everything I watch on television, every movie I’ve ever talked about and every conversation we’ve ever had ends up in an argument.”

  “And then in bed,” her voice was a smooth purr full of false promises. She licked her lips and sauntered closer to me. When we’d met, I could have sat around and stared at her for hours. She was gorgeous, curvy, and worked every inch of her body just to see me squirm. I could get off on that alone. Within a few weeks, she replaced alcohol as my numbing drug of choice.

  I buried my face in my hands just so I didn’t have to face her for a second. “You don’t see the problem here?”

  “You never tried.”

  “What do you want me to do? If you want to reinvent someone and mold them into everything you want, I hear there’s a good clay working class down at the college.” I tried to rein it in, but this was where every conversation went. That’s why we made our arrangement and never talked about it. I didn’t have feelings for her. I didn’t want feelings for her—or anyone else—so I stayed with the woman I knew I’d never fall in love with.

  “Well,” she leaned forward. “What you and I want isn’t really relevant anymore.”

  She spun on her toes and headed to the door, leaving me a blinking mess of questions. Why the hell did I ever think fucking her was a good idea?

  “Are you keeping the baby?” I asked.

  “How about you come over to my place for dinner? We can fight and make up properly.” She smiled seductively and cocked her hip.

  It always went back to that. “No.”

  She pursed her lips. “So you won’t even try to make nice for the baby?”

  I felt like she was just dangling a carrot in front of my face. “Liz, there is no ‘make nice’ between us. When we talk, we fight. This—what we’re doing right here—is the very epitome of what happens every time we talk. Wouldn’t you prefer to find someone who makes you happy all the time?”

  “You could make me happy if you’d stop holding on to whatever it is that makes you keep your distance from everyone.”

  Whatever that was. Cassie. The girl I shouldn’t be thinking about. The girl in my bedroom. Damn it. When did anything about her become anything more than wanting to protect her?

  Part of me knew I should stop being so stubborn. This was partially my own damn fault. But I couldn’t. My instinct rebelled against the very thought. Selfish idiot.

  Just make nice until the baby’s born. That would be a tall order between people who could barely have a conversation without fighting. Is it selfish to put a kid through that in the first place? Is it selfish to think there’s no way we could hide our real feelings? Selfish to know that no matter how much I tried to make nice, I’d be miserable and no amount of good intent could keep me from taking everyone down with me eventually?

  I wanted to work things out, but I couldn’t stomach the thought of being together.

  Should have thought of that before.

  “Why didn’t you just have the abortion?” I asked.

  “Now you sound like you want me to.”

  “Just curious. You seemed dead set on it and against talking. Now you want to get back together and work things out?”

  “You’re my weakness, Ben.” Her expression softened, and she closed her eyes. “I want you in my life and not constantly driving out of it.”

  That was the last thing I wanted to hear.

  “Do you see other women when you’re out on the road?”

  “What?” My temper cracked through again.

  “That wasn’t a no. Must be something better out there for a man like you.”

  That was for sure, but currentl
y Liz wasn’t hard to beat in that department. “I can’t believe you would ask me that. If you trust me so little that you have to ask me that question, we never had anything.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  I raised my eyebrows. After that accusation, she wanted to tell me what not to say.

  “I just want to understand, Ben. You’d spend your entire life on the road. On the run.”

  “I’m not on the run, Liz. It’s not running when I’m where I want to be.” I didn’t get what was so difficult to understand. “I like driving and I make good money doing it.”

  She snorted. “You want to be a perpetual bachelor? Or is your idea of ‘settling down’ leaving your wife at home to take care of the kids while you’re out playing nomad without responsibilities.” She cocked her head and grinned. Part of her loved taking everything I wanted and rubbing it in my face.

  “I make good money so that one day I can provide for a family.”

  “That ‘one day’ might be here.”

  “Might?” The word slipped out on a breath of air.

  “I’ll let you know.” She shrugged casually.

  “That’s the problem, Liz. You’re the control freak. You can’t stand that I’m out on the road because you don’t control it.”

  She charged at me and swung her purse first, then her open hand.

  “Holy fuck, Liz.” I tried to block her repeated swings, but I stepped back and tripped over the coffee table. The impact radiated up my spine, but even with me sprawled out on the floor, Liz didn’t stop. I rolled to the side and she kicked me in the hip with her damn pointy heels. Then, nailed me in the gut with her purse before suddenly stopping.

  I scrambled to my feet while I had a chance and saw my open bedroom door with Cassie standing in it.

  “Thought there wasn’t anyone else,” Liz spat in my face, then sung again. I was distracted by Cassie and didn’t see her hand coming until it was too late.

  With my face and lip burning, I backed out of Liz’s reach. “She’s an old friend. I told her she could stay here.”