Leave: Part 2

Can’t sleep cause the REM is too much. New bedtime is eight on the dot. Cut the grass, cycled for forty-five minutes, cooked the lunches. No doubt I’ll still feel like crap in the morning due to an unexplained blood sugar spike and more dreams where I’m trapped in Jim Carrey’s underwater torture castle — don’t ask. 

Wishing I could have an American history class with you like we used to.

But that’s just it. I didn’t do the one thing I was supposed to do. And then I was castrated. Castrated in the middle of cooking my dinner. So I stopped, and now I will have no dinner at all. No big deal. Blood sugar has never really been my friend anyways — not even on the best of days. Hopefully I dip low enough to have a seizure and die in my sleep. Is that selfish?

I miss you. Perhaps you would react differently in this situation. Perhaps you would react just the same. You are a bit of a perfectionist after all.

I miss you though, so the rest of it doesn’t really matter.

Leave: Part 2

Seventeen thousand, six hundred, and fifty-two dollars. That’s how much Lily had in her personal bank account and she was almost certain that Rob knew nothing about it. Outside Kmart she had the sudden state of mind to withdraw cash, which she did. Four hundred, even. Transactions on her card would be traceable, even this one at the ATM, but this particular one didn’t matter because it wasn’t a secret that she’d been at the Kmart. The secret was where she was going. Her phone was already turned off, seeing as she didn’t have a charger on her for now, but it wasn’t just to save the battery. Rob would be worried by now. Probably even freaking out.

She caught a taxi instead of using the Uber app, used cash to pay, and then cash again at the bus station. Where was she going? It was a secret, even to her. She was going wherever the next bus out of town would take her. That happened to be Shelter Cove, CA. It wasn’t direct — there was a connecting bus in Santa Rosa — but it was cheap as chips for a five hour one way trip. A little over a hundred and fifty. There was only a fifteen minute wait, but to Lily it seemed like an eternity. She couldn’t stop her foot from tapping the linoleum floor inside the bus station so eventually she got up and moved outside into the cool night air. 

Her breasts were full and aching, swollen against the soft fabric of her maternity bra. She cursed herself for not grabbing the pump from the pram. The twins were already on formula but that hadn’t stopped her from blowing up like jersey cow. 

The twins. Was there sadness there? Regret, even?

Lily shook her head to herself and sat down on an icy-cold metal bench outside the station, where she would be able to see the bus as soon as it arrived. Despite her sadness and/or regret, she was not going to miss that damned bus. 

Shelter Cove. 

Lily had been to California many times but she’d never heard of Shelter Cove and that in itself reassured her. It wasn’t a glowing yellow beacon and so she figured it wouldn’t be a place that anyone would come looking for her. She had no special attachment to it and if it hadn’t registered with her it certainly hadn’t registered with Rob. 

Eventually the bus arrived and Lily boarded it with the seven other tired looking people who had been waiting inside the heated bus station. She sat up the back, eager to be out of eyesight of any of the other passengers, though commonsense told her the majority of them were heading to Santa Rosa, the connection stop. Only Lily herself and perhaps a few others would get off at Shelter Cove. Or so she hoped. 

Against her own will, and her better judgement, she fell asleep against her shopping bag before they’d gone ten miles and didn’t wake until the sun was just breaching the horizon along the lonely shoreline of Shelter Cove. Lily was roused by the mutterings of the few bus passengers that were left in the sparse seats in front of her. She quickly gathered her things and followed them out into the grey light of morning.

It was a cove for sure, but it didn’t shelter them from the wind at all which made Lily laugh internally. Shelter my ass. 

She followed the other passengers away from the bus and towards what looked like the main street. Main Street turned out to be about a hundred yards long and not particularly populated. Lily wondered if anyone was even awake in the town until a bus passenger in front of her — an elderly man with a walking stick — rapped on one of the storefront doors with his cane and it opened almost immediately. Lily risked the biscuit and followed him inside.

Most of the chairs were still up on the tables but the coffee grinder was whirring and there was steam pouring from behind the counter.

“Be with you in just a sec!” called a voice from within the steam.

The elderly man didn’t seem to even notice the voice as he sat down at a table close to the counter. Lily chose one further away, in the corner near a window that looked out onto the water. She watched as the wind whipped a stir into the ocean and the grey clouds grey ominous and dark. She breathed in the smell of coffee and central heating, feeling what might have been elation washing over her with the help of a certain freedom.

Freedom.

Someone was saying something.

“I’m sorry?” Lily asked.

It was the coffee shop lady whose voice had come from behind the steam. “You want a latte, love?”

Lily shook her head. “No thank you. Just a short black with a side of milk please.”

The coffee shop lady smiled; impressed perhaps. “Cold or hot?”

Lily wasn’t about to disappoint. “Cold, please.”

The coffee arrived within a few moments and Lily was happy for it’s warm embrace. She drank it in total peace, he only companion was silence itself. 

Eventually the coffee lady approached her again and lingered while collecting the dirtied plates. “Was everything alright?”

Lily nodded. “Absolutely. Best coffee I’ve had all year.” And it was the truth. 

The woman lingered further. “You’re looking for a room, then?”

Hesitation on both their parts. 

“I suppose so. Do you have one free?” Lily asked.

The woman didn’t flinch. “Not right now. But there’s a nice place closer to the water that’s available. It’s on the shore. Very secluded. Holly Spring. I’ll go get the number for the owner if you’re keen?”

Lily nodded. “That would be kind of you. I’d like to get settled down tonight if I can.”

And so it was done. Lily would stay at Holly Spring. She finished her coffee and wondered if all her decisions would some day lead to her demise.