I’m not even sure if I’m making sense, but it feels so good to say it aloud, feels so good to not be the girl lying all the time, the girl handcuffing people up to protect themselves, the girl who does anything to hide who she really is. Not with Ryland. With him I’m just me, good or bad. I feel like he really understands me on a level no one else can. I wish I could just finally get the courage to touch him. God, I could only imagine how amazing it would be. I should just open my eyes and do it. Lean over and press my lips to his, like I’ve did with River just moments ago, only this time I would just be me and maybe, just maybe it’d finally mean something—I’d finally feel something.

It grows silent again. I can hear my heart beating steadily in my chest. Thunder rumbling. Birds chirping from somewhere. The fire crackling in the fireplace. I wish I could die right now and sink into the earth and never come back. Death would be so peaceful. So renewing.

“Maddie, open your eyes.” His voice is so soft, so breakable.

My eyelids flutter open and I blink against the raindrops, my body magnetized, tingles kissing my skin, my heart dancing. River is leaning over me. One eye blue, one green taking in every inch of me. Wisps of his sandy hair dangle across his forehead and his full lips are only inches away. His arms are next to my head, close, but still not touching me. He doesn’t say a word. Simply leans down like he’s going to rest his forehead against mine, but leaves a sliver of space between our skin. “I want to kiss you, but I’m afraid…” He shuts his eyes, his hand coming up beside my cheek, but again not completely touching me, yet I find myself shivering in anticipation. He lets out this soft groan as if this is the most human contact he’s had in ages and I shiver more, moaning. His body leans over me and I nearly stop breathing from his closeness. All I’d have to do is lift my body up an inch and we would finally physically connect with each other after all these years. That’s all it would take, but I don’t do it, fearing the moment we do, all this peace will shatter, that everything I have with him will be ruined—changed forever.

“I want to kiss you, too,” I say so quietly the sound of the rain sweeps it away. I close my eyes and lie there as the rain seeps down on us and dots my clothes and hair. Any craziness in me stills.

We remain that way until it stops raining outside, until the sun goes completely down, then he takes a deep breath and rolls to his side, lying next to me again. It’s dark, except for the fading fire. Night surrounds us and my insomnia wants to surrender. I try to let it, but even next to Ryland I can’t get my mind to a state where it’s okay to go to sleep. So we end up lying there for the entire night, underneath my blanket, not touching.

If I was smart, I’d let things stay that way forever. I’d never move until time really did standstill. But I can’t do it. When the sun comes up, I know it’s time to go home. Something’s telling me to go back there—to get some answers. To face what I ran from. Plus, there’s also a voice inside my head saying I can’t stay here forever, that I need to let it go—let Ryland go. I think it might be Lily, but it’s so faded that it’s hard to tell for sure.

“I have to go,” I finally say with a sigh as the sun shines down on us through the window. The rain has saturated the wood floor and my clothes. I’m dirty and smelly but I’ve never been so content in my own body.

Ryland doesn’t argue, getting to his feet with me and brushing the dirt from his damp jeans. He walks me to the door without saying a word, but as I’m getting ready to duck out he whispers, “I don’t think you should come here anymore.”

I turn to face him, hitching my thumb under the handle of my bag and hugging my blanket to my chest. “Why not?”

He swipes his fingers through his hair, slicking his hair back out of his eyes. “Because… I…” He lets out a frustrated sigh. “Because I just don’t think it’s healthy for you to come up here anymore—I’m not healthy for you.”

I get that Ryland must have his own problems, otherwise he wouldn’t be living up here, secluded from society, but I still need him. “But I don’t want to stop,” I say, wringing out my wet hair. “I like it up here with you, good for me or not.”

“If you want to keep coming up here, then you can,” he says miserably. “But I just don’t think it’s good.”

I explore his eyes for signs he’s gotten sick of me, but all I see is the comfort and tranquility. “What do you want me to do?”

He gives me a torn look. “You know it’s not about what I want. It’s about what you want.”

“I’ll see you in a few days,” I tell him, stepping out of the cabin and into the dewy grass.

The sadness in his eyes deepens as he watches me walk away. “If that’s what you want.”

“That’s what I want,” I say then hurry away through the grass, feeling my peace slip away with every step I take.

Maddie

My mom about loses it when I get home, especially when I won’t tell her where I was. I let her get her anger out and when she tells me to go to my room, I confront her about what the detective said about me being drugged that night.

“I have no idea why he’d say that,” she says in shock with her hand pressed to her heart. We’re in the living room, the alarm light blinking red, telling me it’s set and I’m trapped once again. “I would never, ever just let someone hurt you and get away with it. I already told you that I want to protect you.”

“So you didn’t know I was drugged?” I ask, letting my backpack fall to floor as I drop down into a chair, tired to the point that I might collapse. “And you’ve been trying to track down the person that hit me, right?”

She doesn’t miss a beat. “Of course. I’m your mother. I want that man caught as much as anyone else.”

“Who said it was a man?” I dig my fingers into the armrest until my knuckles turn white. “I never said anything about a man and from what I understand, the driver was gone before anyone showed up.” I pause. “But I think what I really want to know is why I was out in the road to begin with. What was I running away from, mother? A hospital maybe?” She has to know that I know since she had to have seen the article on my computer that day.

Her eyes narrow as she lowers herself into the chair across from me and folds her arms. “Why would I ever put you in a hospital? You were in the hospital afterward but that’s it.”

“Then why was I out in the middle of nowhere?”

She shrugs, rolling her tongue in her mouth and examining her nails. I can nearly envision lunging out of my chair and tackling her to the ground, wrapping my fingers around her neck, making her tell me her secrets. “That’s what no one really knows.”

“Except me,” I say. “If I could remember.”

“Well, you can’t. Trust me. Preston’s tried a lot and you know as well as anyone that you can’t,” she says, then glances over my muddy, filthy clothes and hair. “Now go change. You look like you crawled out of a dumpster. And tomorrow you’re going to see Preston. It’s been too long and I’m not going to let you skip anymore appointments—I’m not going to let you regress back to the girl who woke up confused in the hospital.”

“I don’t want to see him anymore.”

“Well, you are.”

“I’m an adult, mother. I can make my own choices.”

“No you can’t.” She rises to her feet and adjusts her floral dress. “Trust me, you cannot make your own choices—you never have been able to. And when you try, you end up in the middle of the road, half dead.” It’s the last thing she says before she walks out of the room.

You need to get some answers, Lily whispers. Stop being such a pushover and make her tell you. Or let me do it. Just make her tell you. Think about the girl in the cabin and how you made her bleed. Either be that girl or be me.