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The warm May night settled weightlessly on Natalie’s shoulders, brushing against her skin with barely–there breaths of cool air. Everything around her seemed to exhale calm – the strange night birds that only ever began to sing after sunset; the asphalt still smelling faintly of rain; the lonely clerk in the twenty–four–hour cigarette stand, dozing off at his counter; even the insects circling the streetlights were moving with an oddly slow grace.
But not Natalie. Inside her, everything ached and creaked with the uneasy tension of something inevitable drawing closer – heavy, pressing. The concert she’d gone to with a few new friends still had another hour and a half to go, but she was already gone. A rare thing – even at her worst, Natalie always stayed in the pit until the band disappeared backstage, squeezing every last note out of the show, giving back as much as she took. Respect and attention, she knew how much that meant, especially for new musicians.
Tonight was different.
That feeling under her ribs wasn’t the usual post–alcohol anxiety – the kind that irritated her but stayed within the familiar rhythm of tears.
Even if the devil himself had clawed his way out of the ground, crawled up with a soldering iron straight from hell and welded her soles to the club floor, Natalie still would’ve found a way to break free and run. That’s how unbearable the pull toward that place, the one temporarily called her home – had become.
No matter how much she wished otherwise, the animal instinct she’d gained in the wilderness – that sixth sense for danger, sharp and premature, long before it became visible, would never leave her. And when every inner radar, every nerve of that instinct starts screaming that loud… it’s better to listen. Before it’s too late. Again.
She and Jessica had moved in together a couple of months ago, and to be honest, these were the most stable and certain months of Natalie’s love life in all seven years since the rescue. Everything was right – the way it’s supposed to be for normal people.
Jessica was behind the bar, smiling and easygoing, moving with that practiced grace, balancing five pint glasses at once, and adored by every regular who walked in.
Natalie was the lost customer – the one who needed a couple of shots and someone warm to sit next to.
And that night, they didn’t drive off to some cheap motel. Not this time. Not with Jessica. They started seeing each other in daylight, without the drunk haze or the bar noise. Walks, gifts, a kiss not before the second date, hands staying politely above the waist. It was all by the book, and it was sweet.
No, really. Sweet.
An interesting experiment, and, surprisingly, a working one.
The night they first met, Natalie had only been out of rehab for a week, and sober for six months. A solid result, one of her best.
Taissa was proud of her, kept saying Jessica had a “positive influence,” that living with someone steady and predictable was good for Natalie. And she wasn’t wrong.
“With someone who’s not Travis.”
That part Taissa forgot to mention. Or maybe she just avoided that territory altogether – safer that way.
Even so, Natalie hadn’t seen him in almost a year. Nine months and thirteen days, to be exact – not that anyone was counting. Only obsessive addicts and hopeless idiots keep track of things like that.
Tomorrow wasn’t some vague idea anymore, it was real, dull, and predictable. Taissa was happy. Natalie was loved. She had stability, she wasn’t changing girlfriends every week, and she actually made it to work on time.
A house in a decent neighborhood.
And Natalie was almost starting to forget the habit of keeping a knife in her pocket while walking home in the dark.
It’s all so sweet it makes her sick – the kind of nausea that hits harder than the cheapest vodka.
But Natalie tried. She really tried to convince herself of the thing everyone else somehow found so easy to believe:
That she could have this.
That this could be her life.
And Travis, apparently, was doing fine.
In his last letter, he’d written that he broke up with his girlfriend – the last one, the one Natalie never liked.
He’d moved into a smaller apartment, sold that weird car with the surprisingly comfortable back seats.
At the very end, he added a new home phone number.
Natalie rolled her eyes.
So old–fashioned – he’d keep ignoring those new portable phones till the day he died.
Jessica was different.
She had the newest camera model, and in its lens, Natalie lived.
Her photos covered every wall.
With every glance, every gesture, every smile and furrowed brow, her face shone back at Natalie from dozens of frames – love pouring out of each click of the shutter, so strong it spilled over onto the lost girl standing in the frame.
Natalie didn’t like herself in any of those incredibly well–shot portraits.
In his last letter, Travis had included a photo of his battered balcony. Half the frame was taken up by his finger, awkwardly creeping into the shot. Natalie studied every detail so many times that she could close her eyes and still see it: the delicate pink of the sunset, the throw draped over the threadbare chair, the overflowing ashtray. She couldn’t shake the image of Travis sitting there. Tired from work, eyelids heavy, a cigarette smoldering between fingers streaked with grease. He would have stayed silent, and she would have listened carefully.
Even this couldn’t calm the storm of anxiety inside her. For months, it had helped even against insomnia. Just imagining the picture, filled with every detail, and sleep would wrap her up, carrying her to a place where things felt calmer. Safer. A place that was, in essence, like twin siblings – one ugly as death, the other beautiful, but meaningless without the first.
Natalie’s lungs burned from the steep climb, but she didn’t slow her pace. She just needed to get there faster, to find out what had happened to make her heart feel so restless.
Part of her wanted to find something terrible. Something disgusting, that would chill her to the core. Something that would prove that nothing ever happens for no reason, that this whole beautiful picture wasn’t meant for her.
But another, tiny part, the one where she’d endlessly debated that she needed to accept Jessica’s love, allow herself to be loved more than she could love in return – hoped it was a false alarm. Because she really did like her.
The right person for her would probably never exist. So why couldn’t she accept the one who wanted to be accepted, the one who was a good fit? And Jessica really was that person.
Taissa had managed to break the cycle, to keep moving forward, and she had learned to be okay. She didn’t return to painful connections; she had the strength to lie to herself about how happy she was. About how she wasn’t tempted every night to leap from her place, leave her unsuspecting, peacefully sleeping girlfriend, and drive off anywhere just to find Van.
Shauna had gone even further, learning to lie not only to herself but to the whole world. She didn’t feel guilty about the lies that built her marriage, the ones her daughter was born into.
They were stronger than Natalie, sure, but that endless abyss of lies would never make them better than her. They were all the same. Carrying the same ugly trauma – the difference was that Natalie’s mask slipped too often, exposing the scars beneath.
The door swung open easily with a single turn of the key. Somewhere inside, lights were on, and the tape player hummed quietly. Natalie didn’t immediately recognize which disc it was.
“Jess?” Natalie asked cautiously into the emptiness.
The sense of impending disaster screamed louder with every passing second. All it needed was a trigger, something to set everything in motion, to finally make clear what the hell was wrong.
The trigger came in the form of the song changing on the tape player. Exactly in the order they had been on that worn–to–death disc from five years ago. Her favorite. They had listened to it endlessly in the car during that two–week summer trip to the ocean.
“T<\3N” – written in her blue nail polish on the plastic case.
In an instant, all the anxiety surged into rising anger. If the disc was playing in their player now, it could only mean one thing. Jess had gone somewhere she never should have.
Natalie didn’t bother slamming the door, leaving the argument, ready to erupt any second, on display for the curious neighbors. She didn’t care.
Heavy boots thudded roughly across the varnished floor, scratching it.
“What are you doing?!” Not yet a scream, but already on the edge, Jess burst into Natalie’s bedroom, frozen in cold horror.
Jessica was sitting on the bed, one of the letters crushed tightly in her hands. Scattered all around her were dozens more just like it, along with everything else that had once been neatly packed inside the box – a big one – that had been sitting under the bed only this morning.
Her gaze drifted over the concert tickets, lipstick–smudged receipts with tiny notes scribbled across them, the little scraps of paper that had once been taped to kitchen cabinets and fridges in the places she and Travis had lived. Books he’d given her, filled with his handwriting in the margins. More discs, a couple of shirts, a dried bouquet wrapped in newspaper. Everything Natalie had so carefully saved, now thrown across the room in chaos.
Tears spilled down Jessica’s face, soaking into the page and smudging the ink as she lifted her furious eyes to Natalie.
“What the hell?” Natalie stepped further into the room, trying not to step on anything lying on the floor.
“I should be asking you that! What the fuck is this?” Jessica snapped, waving the letter right in her face as she jumped to her feet.
Her bitten lips were swollen and trembling, twisted as she fought not to break into sobs. Her messy curls fell over her shoulders, wild and uneven. Natalie had always liked when Jessica didn’t bother straightening them, but right now, every detail about her felt disgusting. And she didn’t feel a shred of pity for the shaking hands or tear–streaked face. She wanted to explode, to scream, to lunge at her like a rabid dog slipping its leash.
The worst part was the way Jessica was looking at her. Waiting for an explanation, hoping, wanting to hear something that would calm her down. And Natalie didn’t care.
“You shouldn’t have touched this!” Natalie ripped the letter from Jessica’s sweaty hands. Already ruined. Just the feel of the damp paper between her fingers made her wince. She didn’t even know which letter it was, and it didn’t matter. Whatever it was, it was precious – hopelessly ruined. She wanted to press it to her chest, protect it.
“I told you it’s private!”
“No! It’s private.” Grabbing several items from the nightstand, Natalie clenched them tightly in her fist. She could make out Shona’s wedding invitation, a postcard of the Swiss Alps, a few letters from Misty that Natalie had never answered.
“And all of this…” Jessica kicked a brown plaid shirt with a patch on the shoulder. “All of this is Travis!”
“And he’s mine!” Natalie bent down, snatching the shirt. Her scream got stuck in her throat. How could she even say his name out loud?
“You have no right to him!”
Natalie didn’t want to stay in that house anymore. Later, when her anger had cooled a bit, she would feel sick, ashamed for the pain she’d caused Jessica. But right now, she was glad to feel rage and disgust, rifling through the room for her travel bag, scooping up everything Jessica hadn’t yet ruined.
Jessica didn’t seem to understand what Natalie was about to do, because she kept arguing, her fire unabated. As if she could provoke in Natalie the same feelings gnawing from the inside with sharp, terrifying teeth, the ones that surface when you fight with someone you love.
But she didn’t stand a chance, especially now, when emotions could no longer be hidden behind logic. The one Natalie loved lay scattered across the room in pieces of memory, and it was precisely him that she was trying to protect from the hysterical, infuriating girl chasing her.
“You kept this crap in our bedroom! It’s disgusting!” Jessica followed her, heating the atmosphere to dangerous levels. Natalie had never tolerated having no space to breathe.
“You read my fucking letters! That’s what’s disgusting,” Natalie snaps, sharp as a knife, leveling a wild stare at Jessica. For a moment she straightens, eyes blazing. Rage rattles through her so hard her words tangle on her tongue, endings swallowed, sentences replaced by flailing hands and aggressive gestures.
“You kept the music you fucked to – under my bed.” Jessica flinches under her thorny look, trying not to show it.
“You listened to it again? Goddamn it, you listened to it again!” Jessica stops, covering her mouth with her hand as the realization hits like a punch.
Natalie has an unbearable urge to smash the nearest thing, just the thought of someone else’s fingers touching that disc makes her want to break things.
She shoves everything she can grab from the box into her bag in a panic – any scrap, some clothes, and the sight of the crushed, dead bouquet Travis had sent her at rehab makes her want to cry.
Only when Natalie reaches her documents does Jessica finally realize what she’s doing – what she does best. Damn it, she’s a pro at midnight escapes, torching bridges as she goes.
Not Jessica’s brightest move was trying to grab Natalie by the elbow when she’s teetering between full awareness and the fog of rage where nothing else exists.
“And that’s what you’re doing? Running away? After everything between us, you’re taking only his things?” Jessica sobs.
Natalie yanks her arm free with a sweeping motion, just enough to make Jessica stumble back, but not enough to hurt her. She could never make Natalie become her father. Not ever.
Racing down the stairs, Natalie deliberately knocks photos off the walls; glass shatters with ringing crashes against the steps one after another behind her.
Jessica jumps over the shards, following down.
“Nat!” she cries.
Natalie glances back, feeling nothing but disgust.
“I only asked you one thing – don’t go rifling through my head!” Natalie spits, venomous. Right now she wants to pin every sin on Jess. “This is your fault, that it all ended like this!”
Lights wink on in the neighbors’ windows. Curious faces peek through curtains, trying to make out Jessica on the doorstep, hugging herself, shuddering with sobs, and Natalie, exploding out of the house like a witch out of a chimney, sparking with fury.
She hadn’t driven drunk in a long time, but the few drops of alcohol that might still be in her blood were the least of her problems now. Tossing her bag onto the driver’s seat, she remembers the tape player back in the room. Going back over the broken glass would bruise her pride, but pride had never come first when it was something to do with Travis.
She slips back inside past Jess, gritting her teeth, forcing herself not to meet her eyes. Not even for a half–second, she won’t give her hope.
The tape player’s lid jams. Natalie could take the disc with the player, but she doesn’t want anyone else’s things. Only what belongs to her – the rest can burn in a blue blaze; she wouldn’t care.
“Baby?” Jess tries one last time. She’s already cooled down – she’d forgive her by now. Natalie hates that. She mustn’t forgive. She must stay angry, fling the rest of the junk after her as she goes.
“Don’t call me that!” Natalie hurls back at her, the last words before slamming the car door and sliding the disc into the player. With a crackle, music starts pouring from the speakers, and a neighbor’s dog barks in reply to the screech of tires on asphalt.
Natalie doesn’t look back. She knows she won’t go back to the woman she spent the last months with, the woman she tried to build a life with. The only thing that really bothers her now are the things she didn’t manage to grab.
The question of “what now” doesn’t linger long. Her options are few, she could count them on one hand. Going to Tai? Not tonight. She’ll tell her everything later, once she’s calmed down, once she’s gathered the energy to deflect Tai’s criticisms and lectures about cruelty and instability. Later, Natalie will have the strength, just not now.
A cool breeze flows in through the open window, tangling her long chestnut hair. Only in the car, focusing on the night road, exhaling and taking a slow, steady breath in, does Natalie realize how hot her face had been, how off her breathing was, and how her hands shook on the wheel.
After driving through a few neighborhoods, Natalie finally stopped, parking her car on the roadside near a payphone. She might have been nervous, wondering if that piece of paper with the phone number had made it into the bag she’d grabbed in her rush to leave, if it hadn’t been sitting in her glove compartment for months, tucked inside a half–smoked pack of Travis’s cigarettes, left there long ago.
Natalie didn’t hesitate before dialing the number. After all, this was bound to happen sooner or later. It always did – only the amount of time it took varied from one time to the next.
A few long rings whistled into her ear, reminding her that it was, in fact, already late, and dawn was closer than sunset. At this hour, most people were deep in their tenth sleep. Only she, nervously twisting the coiled phone cord, stood in a strange neighborhood, clinging to a fragile hope.
Only she… and…
“Hello? Who is this?”
Travis’s voice on the other end of the line made her pulse spike, catching her breath with excitement. Hoarse and half–asleep, Natalie couldn’t suppress a smirk, imagining just how cozy he must look, leaning against the wall in the hallway, or wherever he kept that phone.
And there she was, fifteen seconds already breathing silently into the receiver, calling in the middle of the night like some kind of maniac. Damn it.
“Natalie, baby, is that you?”
Hot, betraying tears welled up in her eyes. Her name, always tender on his lips, let her admit to herself just how much she had missed him.
“Hi, Trav,” she said, laughing nervously as she swallowed back the tears.
At this hour, Travis would only pick up if he had been expecting her call. That oddball always turned off his phone when they lived together. He said those who needed him knew how to find him, and there was no reason to keep ringing.
“Are you crying? Are you okay? Where are you now?” Background noises filtered in –muffled sounds, probably Travis pulling on some shoes.
“I’m fine.” Natalie smiles through her tears. “Now put the keys down and talk to me a little longer.”
She’s only half–joking. But on the other end, she hears the clatter of keys hitting wood, and her smile widens, purer and lighter. Travis really was about to drop everything in the middle of the night and head off somewhere unknown just because he heard her tearful voice over the phone. What an idiot.
Natalie doesn’t even know if they’re in the same state. Travis hadn’t included a return address in his letter. Maybe thousands of miles separate them.
There’s a sharp metallic taste of blood on her tongue from a bitten cuticle as she pulls her hand away from her lips and asks,
“Where are you?” Natalie asks, weary, pretending that if she braces herself for a bad answer, it will somehow be easier to take. A childish trick that never actually works.
“Boston,” Travis exhales. Natalie wants to cut him off before he even starts apologizing for not giving her his new address.
“Westerly. I’m in the next state over, Trav.”
Better than it could have been. A couple of hours’ drive. She wants to sleep, she wants to hold Travis even more. Strangely, she wants to see that balcony in person–the one she’s been dreaming about for months.
So Natalie refuses Travis’s suggestion to come meet her halfway, at Fall River port.
She hadn’t seen Travis in too long for their reunion to take place in some worn–down roadside motel in a port town. She needed – physically needed – to fall asleep on pillows that smelled like him, in his clothes. After telling him everything, like a confession. About rehab, about Jessica, the fight, the dreams. After Travis calmed her soul and helped sift through the surviving precious memories, promising to make even more new ones. Then Natalie could take a shower, wash her hair with his shampoo, and fall asleep sweetly, finally home, in the apartment she would see for the first time in two hours.
That’s how long Travis said it would take to get to him. Natalie had scribbled the address on her wrist with a forgotten ballpoint pen, and her life snapped back onto its track. She lit a cigarette, spreading out the map that had survived dozens of trips, checking key landmarks.
With each kilometer putting Jessica further behind her and bringing Travis closer, the air felt cleaner – though maybe that was just the nicotine. These were Travis’s cigarettes, the ones Natalie only touched when longing hit too hard. And now, with him so close, the waiting had become unbearable.
An hour later, having passed through that very port, Natalie slightly regretted refusing to meet Travis there. After all, they could have gone further together, just to catch their breath for a bit.
But beyond that point, once she crossed the line, the count shifted from “Not yet” to “Already,” and the minutes began to melt like ice on scorching sand. As if Natalie were under the gaze of Travis’s warm brown eyes, waiting for her loyally.
As she drove up to the house, still without headlights illuminating the stretch, Natalie knew that the lone flicker in the pre–dawn gloom was Travis’s cigarette burning down.
He stood there, a bag from the convenience store in hand. Almost unchanged since their last meeting. Only his hair had grown considerably – he never liked anyone cutting it but Natalie. And he’d lost weight; the nightmares must have returned. He could never eat after a bad night, replaying the dream all day.
Travis’s expression showed visible relief that Natalie didn’t look as tear–streaked as she had feared. Not anymore.
To her own surprise, Natalie doesn’t break down or run, collapsing into his arms. She wants to savor every second of that all–consuming, soothing, quiet happiness, wrapping around her completely with each slow step, each swaying stride.
“Hey.” She smirks, nudging a pebble that Travis tries to catch but can’t.
“Hey.” He catches on, studying the features of her face. Natalie doesn’t think she’s changed all that much. But Travis looks at her every time as if it’s the first time, falling in love all over again. His gaze drifts to her lips, freezing there, riveted. He swallows hard, Adam’s apple trembling beneath his skin.
To hell with everything, Natalie thinks. She’s had enough.
She closes the remaining distance between them, rising onto her toes, cupping his face in her hands and pulling him into a kiss. Hot and impatient. Teeth knocking, just like back when, years ago, they’d done this for the first time. Natalie laughs into the kiss, biting his lip. Pure bliss. How could she have lied to herself, pretending she hadn’t been waiting for his lips on hers every minute, every hour, every day, every month since the last time she’d pulled away?
Travis turns into that same boy every time he kisses her, though far more confident than back then. It’s taken them a lot of time and practice to get here.
Natalie can tell he’s a little flustered by the sudden changes, by how just a minute ago it seemed like she wasn’t in any hurry. She feels it in his hands, wandering awkwardly over her waist. The bag hanging from his wrist bumps against her hip, and Natalie is almost certain there’s a bottle inside – something like whiskey.
Travis pulls away first. His lips tremble from the loss of contact; he wants more. They both do, but he’s always been stubborn that way.
“Wait, hold on.” He steps back, resisting the urge to kiss her again. “Let’s go upstairs, and you can tell me what happened. For starters.”
Not a question, but a statement. Once, Natalie had been strong enough to resist that calm tone Travis used when he wanted her to listen – a gentle, velvety voice with a soft insistence. But not anymore; there’s not that much stubbornness left in her.
Natalie nods, following Travis into the dark stairwell, straining to make out the steps.
His apartment is almost exactly as Natalie had pictured it. On a small table in the narrow hallway sits the very phone they’d spoken on just a few hours ago, though now the receiver is off the hook, so no one else can call him.
Straight down the hall is the bedroom, and Natalie wouldn’t mind collapsing right onto the bed, burying herself in Travis’s arms and spilling everything – anger, chaos, all of it. But Travis heads into the kitchen, and Natalie decides to behave herself, following the apartment’s owner. At least for appearances, for the first hour. Maximum.
Natalie hops up onto the table, ignoring the nearby chairs, and starts rummaging through the contents of the bag left beside her.
“You hungry?” Travis rustles through his shelves without waiting for her answer, pulling out a carton of eggs and some spices. “I’ll make us breakfast while you tell me everything, okay?” He glances over his shoulder at Natalie, curiously twirling the whiskey bottle in her hands.
“Mm.”
It looks as if they haven’t been apart for almost a year. As if there was no fight, no rehab, no Jessica. No breakup with that other girl, no moving. As if Natalie had just gone away for a couple of days and returned to the apartment she knows so well.
They had always been like this, not really knowing how to measure each other. All the years since the rescue, their relationship had never been stable. Mostly a hundred small ups and downs, but no proper reconciliation ever followed an argument.
They needed space to breathe. Sometimes it took weeks, sometimes long months. And maybe it was because, in essence, they hadn’t been a “real” couple since that first summer in the wild, but even the longest separations never broke the strange thread of connection between them.
Natalie could only ever have nightmares about not being able to reach Travis. No matter how angry she got sometimes, no matter how much he pulled away or shut himself off, knowing that the connection existed, and that she could reach out and touch it at any moment – was more vital to her than air itself.
Now Natalie chews a way–too–salty omelet with tomatoes, swinging her legs on Travis’s kitchen table, spilling everything like a confession. Not hiding a single detail. He was the only person in the whole world she could tell everything to, and that couldn’t be lost.
With Travis, she didn’t have to skip over the plane crash in the woods, lie about how many days she’d been clean, or pretend she felt nothing for this person or that. She didn’t have to be someone she’d never been, and couldn’t be, even if she tried. And she had tried. Really.
Natalie didn’t want to waste time chewing over it, coughing a few times, choking on the omelet as the emotions spilled over.
Travis squints occasionally, parsing her words. A mouth full of food and her rapid Italian accent don’t make it any easier. The chairs remain empty, but he isn’t rushing to claim one, leaning against the fridge, rubbing the bridge of his nose sleepily.
Natalie felt only a little sad that they were separated by meters, when they could have been mere centimeters apart. But Travis, sitting at her feet and looking up at her with those soft, tired eyes, certainly didn’t help her focus any better.
“She read all your letters to you!” Natalie waved her fork; Travis didn’t even flinch.
“Holy shit.” Travis grimaced, as if Jessica had committed an armed robbery. And, in a way, she had.
It wasn’t the first time they’d discussed each other’s new – or former – partners like this. And though Natalie’s jealousy was more obvious, barely contained, Travis wasn’t doing much better. After all, they hadn’t stopped trying to maintain the facade of being friends.
“And I couldn’t carry everything she tore apart…so many memories…” Natalie sighed desperately, looking helplessly at Travis. Now that he was here, the sense of loss wasn’t as sharp, but it still burned.
«Hey, baby, no one’s dead, you know.» Travis steps closer, brushing strands of hair from her face, wiping away tears that aren’t even there.
Natalie shrugs, giving a sad little smile at his touch.
«We just need to sort out what’s left and start making new memories.» Travis reaches for the keys to her car, his thumb brushing her leg for a fleeting second.
«So I can stay?» Natalie asks with devilish faux–innocence, as if it were ever a real question. She presses her lips together, batting her eyes at him.
He rolls his eyes, muttering something under his breath, heading out of the kitchen.
«And get off my kitchen table! What audacity!» He tries to sound serious, but the escaping chuckle gives him away.
Natalie doesn’t mind. She slides off the table, trailing behind Travis again. After all, she’s a good guest.