For hours, I held in the tears. The words. The anger. The betrayal. Bobby didn't come to my door. He didn't demand to know why I didn't come. He kept his word that he would leave if I didn't show. And I sat on the bed, my head pulsating with pain, next to a frightened, drunken man determined to self-destruct. I was haunted by a dead friend (if I could still call her that), and a future that was as barren as a tundra.

Bobby could make me feel limitless and swollen with love. But with that same love, he could steal all of my hope and joy. He could make me whole, but with that power he could turn around and leave me in misshapen fragments. Fragments so warped and destroyed that no one else could figure how to put me back together; not myself, not his brother. That's what happened the first time around. Rory did try. But he couldn't fix what Bobby had demolished. No one could.

Rory played record after record, as I sat in a state of numbness. I was growing tired, but still determined to stay awake in this passive standoff with Rory. And so, I found myself in a trance-like state. Staring into nothingness, back to the hell of hollowness, as Rory's raspy, drunk voice sang along to song after song to keep himself awake.

That is until the popping and crackling of the end of a record broke my fog. Rory's slurred voice wasn't crooning in the background. I looked over at him to see if he was going to address the record and saw what, only to me, looked like a shred of hope: Rory sunken into his chair, the bottle of whiskey barely perched on his fingers, the neck of the bottle supported on the floor, dripping the last drops onto the carpet.

I opened my lips and moved them, but only a broken gust of air escaped my throat. I tried again.

“Rory?”

A snore. The most beautiful, glorious sound I had heard all day. The numbness was overtaken by a surge of adrenaline. I was so close to being free, but I knew what it was like to taste freedom, only to immediately become shackled. I slowly slid my legs to the floor and tiptoed out the room. Rory's snoring picked up and I let out a hushed sigh of relief in the hallway. The house undulated as I leaned against the bannister and hurried down the steps, which proved to be more difficult that I had anticipated.

I ran to the kitchen. The keys. Where were the keys? The last I remembered, they were in his pocket when he wrestled me for the phone.

“Come on. Come on . . .” I coached myself as I searched each drawer. Then I remembered, I could hear jingling when Rory was moving around in his clothes before he showered. But I hadn't heard that jingling in hours. They were in his pocket in the heap on the floor. I would have to go back up there.

I filled with dread as I realized I would need to risk going back to the place of my captivity to gain my freedom. But the freedom I was seeking wasn't just outside the door. I needed to get to that motel. That's all I cared about. I had fixated on the idea that Bobby might still be there. I didn't want to run to a neighbor, who might call the police, and hold me up further. Every second was precious.

I steeled myself with a lungful of air and tiptoed back up the stairs. No matter how light I was on my feet, the stairs creaked, forcing me to go even slower and add to the tension. Rory's snores could be heard from the hallway, which gave me a slight assurance. He only snored when he was very drunk. Still, I knew that once I could be in his sights, if he woke up, I would have lost the one shot I had.

I made my way into the room, holding my breath as I knelt down in front of the heap of muddy, wet clothes. Rory shifted in his seat and I clenched my eyes shut, preparing for his outburst. But the symphony of his snores resumed. My shoulders dropped in relief when I realized he was still asleep. I pulled his pants out of the pile, and slipped my hand into an empty pocket. Maybe I had imagined the jingling. Maybe the keys were on his person. Then I slid my hand into the other pocket and felt the cold, jagged metal.

I could have sang at that moment, but instead I bit my lip and slipped the keys out as quietly as I could. I rose to my feet and turned on my heels. Just then, Rory snored so deeply that he began to choke. His eyelids fluttered, and he took a gasp of air. The bottle that was barely perched on his fingers fell out of his hand and made a loud thud. He began to squint. I didn't know if he was waking or if he was still passed out, but this time, I ran. Without regard for noise, or caution.

I raced down the stairs, and halfway down, vertigo kicked in from the concussion. I missed a step and tumbled down to the bottom. The fall wasn't too painful, but it was noisy. And when my eyes met the top of the staircase, there he was: looking down on me.

“Lilly?” he asked, confused and half awake.

“I'm not telling anyone,” I said, as I shot up and made a run for the door. I hoped my words would persuade him not to chase me. In a welcome stroke of luck, my purse rested at the small entry table where I rested it when I walked in and discovered Rory the night before. I snatched it on my way out the door. I banked on the fact that Rory didn't want to be seen so he wouldn't follow me outside.

The streets were quiet as most families were in their homes for dinner. I ran to my car barefoot, my dress stained with blood from my head wound, and hoped no one had seen.

I sped out of our neighborhood and down the county highway to the motel where Bobby had stayed. Tears streaked my face as I finally was able to let out the mix of emotions I had held in for the entire night. I had started with so much hope and peace, swinging from a tree with views of my favorite place in the world. I was going to be Lilly Gale again. The girl with endless possibilities and a passion for life. The girl whose heart belonged to Bobby Lightly.

But I was assaulted with the reminder of who I really was: the woman who made a cowardly choice, and who paid for it with the loss of all the things that made her, her. Whose complete lack of fulfillment was mirrored in a drunk husband who had killed his mistress, her closest friend.

I pressed the gas as hard as I could, nearly spinning out at turns, running stop signs and red lights, until I swerved into the motel driveway, planting my car on a random location in the parking lot. My eyes scanned the place for Bobby's signature pickup, but of the few cars there, none were his.

I fixed my hair in the side view mirror and tried to compose myself before walking in to the front desk.

An older man who had his feet propped up laughed at an episode of I Love Lucy on a small TV behind the counter. The lobby was just as humid and hot as it was outside, but he had a little fan hitting him directly, keeping him from perspiring as much as me.

“Hello.”

He put his feet down and turned to face me.

“Hello, ma'am. Looking for a room?”

“No, um, actually, I am looking for someone who was staying here.” I tried not to sound anxious, but I oozed with restless energy. The sweat soaking through my dress and pouring from my brow didn't help.

“He give you a room number? A name?”

“Ye . . . yes. Well, not a room. But his name is Robert Lightly, goes by Bobby. He's . . . I'd say six feet maybe taller. Brown hair and eyes.”

“Ooooh, yeah. That nice looking fella. Looked like he should be playing football or baseball or something.”

I let out a big sigh. “So he's here?” I asked, wide-eyed and hopeful.

“Oh, no ma'am. I'm sorry. He left a few hours ago. Kept coming over as asking if we had gotten any calls for him—” he stopped. “Was it you?” Before I could answer, his eyes scanned me. As if he hadn't really looked as me before. “Are you okay? You look a little . . . you have some blood—”