Leave: go away from.

Now

Montana

If there was a day where I absolutely hated having tear glands, it was today. The tears were an endless stream down my face and I doubt it was going to stop anytime soon. Everyone takes turns standing just outside the bathroom pretending not to be standing there waiting for me to cry it out.

"Monti, it's been an hour." Sierra taps on the door again. She's been sitting outside of it, sending me reassuring comments every five minutes. I'm well aware that I'm a big fat cry baby with cracked bravery. I needed to get my act together. But I also want to sit in this tub and cry for the rest of my life or until I die of dehydration. Whichever comes first.

"You better not be having suicidal thoughts in there," Sierra taps on the door again ten minutes later.

"Stop reading my mind you freak," I call back but get out of the tub. Sierra chuckles from the other side.

I turn the faucet on and splash my face with cold water. It feels like a punch in the face and the cold doesn't do anything to stop the redness so I wipe away the water with a towel and try not to look in the mirror.

I open the door, talking myself through each step. Pull the door towards you, one leg in front of the other, walk out, don't forget to breathe. Don't die of embarrassment. Whatever you do don't look at or for Calum. And for god sake don't cry again.

Sierra is now in front of me, staring with her arms folded against her chest. "All good now?"

The "yes" is a silent huff of air that leaves my mouth and I wonder if people are capable of forgetting how to speak?

Sierra nods hesitantly like it's the last thing she believes and we head for the living room. I realize that I don't know what time it is, all I know is that it has been the longest day of my life. I haven't had one of these days in a long time and the last time I had hoped it would be the last but apparently not.

"You know what, I think I'm just gonna go to bed. I don't feel like socializing right now." Sierra pauses at the top of the stairs and makes her way back to me.

"Okay, that's fine. But maybe eat something first? Addy made a whole lot of lasagne."

"I can't eat anything even if I wanted to. Just...I need to sleep." I feel like I'm stuck in a bubble of my own words. Repeating the same thing over and over. I need to sleep. I need to sleep.

"This way." Sierra leads me down a corridor.

Their house is massive. I wonder if ghosts walk between these walls like they did in my house at night when I'm not there. Maybe they are there right now too. Maybe they are floating over the ashes and wondering if I burnt along with the rest. I hope they don't miss me much.

"If you need anything, just click the buzzer and I'll hear you down in the kitchen." Sierra opens one of the many doors along the corridor and shows me inside.

Sierra turns on a lamp and I look around the dimly lit room. There's a huge bed in the middle and an oak dresser towards the side with a table and a chest of drawers to match. "I will."

"Your clothes from last time are still in the drawers." She points.

"You kept them?"

She looks puzzled for a second. "Of course."

I don't open my mouth because I know I will start crying again if I do. "Monti, do you want me to sit with you while you fall asleep?"

I turn away so she can't see the fresh tears that spring into my eyes. "No, I'm good. Thank you."

Sierra stands at the door a moment longer. "I love you, you know that don't you?" She says it in her voice, the voice that says she's dying inside too because she cannot fix this. And that she's sorry.

"I love you most." The door shuts gently behind her.

---

I turn over in bed, shaking out the arm that has gone numb again because I keep sleeping on it. The curtains are shut tight but I can see slivers of morning light under them. My stomach rumbles with hunger and I groan into the pillow.

"Morning."

My heart leaps into my throat and I sit up straight. "Don't do that, Jesus!"

Calum is silent for a moment until my heart rate climbs back down steadily. "Sorry. It's just me. I didn't open the curtains because you don't like that."

I groan again, pulling the covers up because it's freezing. My throat is scratchy and my eyes are heavy with all the crying they did last night.

"I think we should talk."

"Oh? You think?" I murmur into a pillow.

"Don't be sarcastic." The lamp on the side table is turned on and I see that he has gotten closer to where I am on the bed.

"What else can I be? Clueless? Dumb?" I continue my senseless retort to fill the emptiness.

"Just hear me out all right? That's all you have to do."

What I wanted was to pull him closer and feed off his warmth. But I'm angry. Angry at him, so I press my lips together to keep myself quiet.

"Five years ago...I had a gambling problem."

It's as if we have been thrown inside a vacuum. All the air leaves the room at once and I push the pillows away, sitting up straighter in bed. "I had the money, but I didn't want to give it to him. He cheated me. They all did. They broke in and trashed my apartment in LA, took all the valuable things in there.

"You didn't tell anyone?" I push the covers away, moving closer to him until my knees bump his thigh.

Calum chortles. "Who was I going to tell? The police? If I didn't pay them back they were gonna come for me. They found Luke and threatened him but you know Luke, he threatened them back and they went quiet for awhile."

I was freezing a moment ago but now my entire body was overheating. I wanted to run outside and feel the grass and pull air into my lungs. "Do they still want money?"

"No."

"What do they want then?"

"Revenge."

"But Luke said...you said you didn't know who they were."

"I didn't know until this morning. I got a text...I didn't think they would come after you. A fucking gambling addict."

I place my hand on his leg. "Show me the message."

He pats around the covers where he was sitting and hands it to me. Calum never locks his phone. A swipe of the lock screen takes me to the message.

"Leave her and run, or don't come calling when you both go down." I read out loud.

Calum's face is taken over by a painful expression. "Look, It doesn't matter. None of this matters. We can go away. You and I. We can go places, anywhere but here. We can be together again."

I run a hand down my face. "Calum. Do you understand what you're saying? Do you understand the meaning of the words coming out of your mouth?"

"What? Of course, I do." He looks bewildered.

"The two of us run away? Run where Calum? Our life is here. Here, with our family, with our jobs. We work here. I know the last couple of months have been a blur...but there is a whole world watching us Calum—"

Calum shoots up and steps away from the bed like I have stung him. "Since when do you care what the world thinks?"

"That's not what I meant."

"Then what the fuck do you mean?! Explain this shit to me because I don't fucking understand!" His fingers pull at his hair and I want to tell him not to do that.

"Where do you suppose we go, huh? Where do you think we should go? Alaska? Antarctica?"

"You don't want to go with me. At least go alone." He paces the room like a trapped predator, large strides pounding against the carpet.

"If there's nothing to worry about, why are we running away?"

Calum stops momentarily to look at me. "Because...it's better if we do. There's too much here that's pulling us apart."

"There's nothing that pulled us apart but the two of us. There was nothing external Calum. It's always just been the two of us."

Calum shakes his head furiously, pulling the curtains open and letting the bright light in. "I can't fix this."

"That's why we are going to do it together. Calum, please."

Calum lays his head on the glass of the window and it mists when he breathes against it. "I don't want to fight with you."

"We're not fighting." I sink back down onto the bed. "—you never told me you gambled."

"I wanted to leave it all behind. I never thought this would come up again." I reach for the phone again to look at the message.

"How do you know it's them for sure? Did you show it to Luke?"

He doesn't answer, staring into space. "I'll die if they get their hands on you. I'll die if something happens to you because of me."

"There's nothing they can do to me." I want to go to his side. But my limbs keep me weighed down onto the bed.

"They set up explosives in your apartment. You were in a jail cell for the first time in your life. Has Gia called you? Do you know what the media is saying? This is all because of them, because of me."

I bury my head in my hands, the weight of everything squeezing against my heart. I almost forgot I was in jail. And that my family probably knows by now. And where the hell is my phone? Gia must have completely lost her mind by now.

Everyone was going to fire me, who would want me to model for their campaigns after this? Everything was tipping. Everything has become a disaster. "Come here and kiss me."

"What?"

"I said come here and kiss me. If everything else goes wrong, at least I have you. And you're the only mess I volunteered for."

Calum is on the bed in two strides. He slips off his t-shirt before I can tell him to and his body is on top of mine. I wrap all my limbs around him and his wrap around mine. We stay there, entangled and quiet, his skin warming my internally bruised one.

"I'm sorry I'm a mess."

"Stop talking and fucking kiss me already."

He cups my cheek and kisses me like he did the first night I knew he would break my heart.