Reborn to Leave Her Behind novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Bus Stop

Erin sneaks out in August to say goodbye and Rhett's truck is waiting. Rhett warns Alec off.

The bus to Fairmont left Garrity Falls at six every morning, and in August I was the only passenger waiting for it.

My mother had cried in the kitchen and gone back to bed, because she hates goodbyes in daylight.

I stood on the curb with one duffel bag and a box of mechanical pencils.

I had not seen Erin in eight months.

Her mother had taken her phone and locked her in, and I had kept away from her house.

Last night I had broken that once, with a text.

Every night I had sat at my desk and told myself I did not miss her.

Then I heard sneakers slapping the road.

Erin came around the corner of the feed store at a dead run, with her hair coming out of its tie and her shirt on inside out.

She stopped in front of me and put both hands on her knees.

"Four minutes," she said between breaths. "Mom's loading the car. I told her I forgot my charger."

"You look good," I said.

It was true, and it was the stupidest thing I could have said.

"Don't be nice to me yet." She straightened up. "I want to be mad first."

"Okay."

"You took my side and then you vanished."

"Your mom told me to vanish."

"Since when do you do what my mom tells you?"

I almost laughed.

For ten years I had done everything her mother told me, and she had never noticed, because I had always told her I was doing it for her.

"Since never," I said. "Starting now."

She looked at me for a long moment.

"Say you'll come see me," she said. "Say you won't let it be a whole year."

I thought about it carefully, because I had promised her a lot of things in my first life and kept all of them.

"I'll answer if you call," I said. "I won't turn up at Briarwood to check on you."

"That's not the same thing."

"No," I said. "It isn't."

Her face went red along the cheekbones.

"You don't even want to tell me not to go?"

"No."

"Not one more time?"

"Erin, I'm not going to lie to you. I don't think it's a mistake, I think it's your life."

I left out the rest.

I had seen her cry over Rhett at twenty-eight, and I had learned that nothing I said would turn her away from him.

A truck horn went off behind us.

It was a black pickup with one headlight cracked, parked half on the sidewalk with its engine running.

Rhett Stroud leaned out of the driver's window with his arm hanging over the door.

"Hartigan! Let's go! I'm not paying for gas to watch you hug a nerd."

Erin flinched.

I noticed it, and I noticed that she covered it with a smile.

"One minute!" she called.

Rhett got out anyway.

He strolled over in boots and a sleeveless shirt, black hair falling in his eyes, and put an arm around her waist.

"Reeves," he said. "I heard you didn't rat on her. Her mom's been screaming about it all summer."

"I heard that too."

"Smart move." He grinned, and I saw the chipped tooth. "Everyone knows what happens to snitches."

"Does everyone?"

"You'll find out if you ever turn on her."

The bus pulled up behind me with a hiss of brakes.

The doors opened, and the driver looked at his watch.

Rhett took Erin's phone out of her back pocket without asking.

He thumbed it open and read from the screen in a flat voice.

"'Good luck. Proud of you.' That was last night. From you." He held it up. "Real sweet."

"It's just a text," Erin said.

"Then you won't mind."

He turned the phone toward her and waited.

She looked at me over his shoulder.

I did not say anything, because I knew how it ended if I did.

She took the phone back, tapped the screen twice, and I watched my message disappear.

"Done," she said.

"Good girl," Rhett said, and pulled her toward the truck.

She went with him.

At the passenger door she turned, and for a second I thought she was going to say something.

Instead she lifted one hand and waved, a small wave, down by her hip where he couldn't see.

Then the door shut and the truck pulled away.

I got on the bus and sat in the first seat with my hands flat on my knees.

I did not follow her.

It was the hardest thing I had done since I woke up.

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