Amelia sat in her car and stared at the steering wheel. Her hands were shaking, and she pressed them flat against her thighs, trying to make them stop, but they would not listen.
The parking lot was quiet with just a few other cars scattered around. Streetlights cast orange pools of light across the pavement, and everything looked normal and ordinary, like the world had not just imploded.
Eight months. The number kept circling in her head like a vulture. Eight months of lies, eight months of her wondering what she was doing wrong, eight months of Marcus pulling away while she tried harder and harder to fix something that was never broken on her end.
Because he was with Derek. Her best friend.
Amelia pressed her palms harder against her legs until her fingers went numb. She needed to think, needed to figure out what to do next, but her brain felt like static, like white noise where nothing coherent would form.
She did not have her phone. It was still upstairs in her work bag, in the bedroom, with them. The thought of going back up there made her stomach turn. She could not do it, could not walk back into that apartment and face them again, not tonight and maybe not ever.
Amelia dug through her purse with trembling hands and found her wallet, keys, a crumpled grocery receipt, chapstick, and twenty-three dollars in cash. Her credit cards were in her wallet, and that was something at least. She could get a hotel, somewhere to sleep tonight, somewhere that was not here. Tomorrow she could figure out the rest.
Amelia started the car and pulled out of the parking lot without looking back. She drove aimlessly for a while with her mind blank and her hands moving on autopilot as the streets of Seattle blurred past, familiar but suddenly foreign.
Three years with Marcus. Two years living in his apartment like she belonged there. But she never really belonged anywhere, did she? Not at work, where she stayed late every night trying to prove her worth to people who barely noticed. Not with her adopted family, who only called when they needed money. Not with Marcus, who had been lying to her face for eight months. Not even with Derek, who had been sleeping with her boyfriend while pretending to be her friend.
She had no one. The thought should have scared her, but instead it made something hard and cold settle in her chest.
Amelia pulled into a gas station and parked under the fluorescent lights. Inside, the clerk barely looked up as she browsed the aisles. She found what she needed near the front, a burner phone that was prepaid for thirty-five dollars. She paid in cash and sat in her car with hands still shaking as she peeled open the plastic packaging.
It took her three tries to get the phone activated. When the screen finally lit up, Amelia stared at the empty contact list. She only knew one phone number by heart.
Lucia. Her cousin, the only person in her family who had ever treated her like she actually mattered. Lucia lived in Florence now and had been there for five years, working in fashion and living a life that seemed impossibly glamorous from the outside. They texted sometimes and called on birthdays, but it had been months since they really talked.
Amelia hesitated with her thumb hovering over the number pad. It was late, almost nine thirty here, which meant it was six thirty in the morning in Italy. But she had no one else to call.
She dialed. The phone rang once, then twice.
Then Lucia's voice came through, thick with sleep but instantly alert. "Pronto?
Who is this?"
"It's me," Amelia said, and her voice cracked. "It's Amelia."
Silence. Then, sharper now, "Amelia? Why are you calling from a strange number? Are you okay?"
Amelia opened her mouth to say yes, to say she was fine, to brush it off like she always did. But the word would not come. Instead, something broke.
"No," she whispered. "I'm not okay."
"What happened? Are you hurt?"
"I caught Marcus cheating."
Lucia sucked in a breath. "Che bastardo. I never liked him. Where are you?"
"In my car."
"In your car? Amelia, it's freezing. Where's Marcus?"
"At the apartment. With Derek."
A pause. "Derek? Your Derek?"
"Yes."
"Porca miseria. Che schifo." Lucia's voice was low and furious. "How long?"
"Eight months."
"Madonna." There was a string of Italian that Amelia did not understand but felt in her bones. "Amelia, I'm so sorry. What do you need? Do you want me to fly out there? I can get a flight tonight."
"No," Amelia said quickly. "No, you don't have to do that."
"Then what? Talk to me, cousin. What do you need?"
Amelia closed her eyes. What did she need? To leave, to get as far away from Seattle and Marcus and Derek and her entire life as possible. To disappear and start over somewhere no one knew her, somewhere she did not have to be the girl who was never quite good enough.
"Can I come stay with you?" The words tumbled out before she could stop them. "In Florence. Just for a little while. Until I figure things out."
"Are you serious?"
"Yes."
"Then yes. Absolutely yes. When?"
Amelia looked out at the gas station parking lot, at the city that had never really felt like home. "Soon," she said. "Maybe tomorrow. Or the day after. I don't know yet."
"Whenever you want. My door is open. You know that."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me. We're family. Real family." Lucia's voice softened. "Are you going to be okay tonight? Do you have somewhere safe to sleep?"
"I'll get a hotel."
"Okay, text me when you're settled. From whatever number you're using."
"I will."
"And Amelia?"
"Yeah?"
"Screw Marcus. And screw Derek. You deserve so much better than both of them."
Amelia felt her throat tighten. "I know."
"Do you? Because I don't think you do. But you will. I promise you will."
They hung up. Amelia sat in the silence of her car with the burner phone clutched in her hand.
She pulled out of the gas station and drove until she found a cheap hotel near the highway, the kind of place that did not ask questions and took cash. The room was small and smelled faintly of cigarettes and cleaning product, with an ugly floral bedspread, carpet that had seen better days, and a TV bolted to the wall.
Amelia locked the door behind her and stood in the middle of the room. She still had on her work clothes, black slacks and a blouse that was wrinkled from ten hours at the office, and her feet hurt from her heels. She kicked them off and sat on the edge of the bed.
The silence pressed in around her. No Marcus, no Derek, no apartment full of memories that were all lies now. Just her, alone in a hotel room that cost forty-nine dollars a night.
Amelia pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She did not cry because crying felt like it would break something inside her that she could not afford to break right now. Instead, she sat very still and let the truth settle over her like snow.
Everything she thought she had was gone. Her relationship, her best friend, her home. But sitting there in that ugly hotel room, Amelia realized something else. She did not have to go back. She could leave, walk away from all of it, start over somewhere new.
Florence, the word felt like a lifeline. Lucia was there, Lucia who had always treated her like she mattered, who did not see her as the adopted kid or the girl who was never quite good enough. Just Amelia.
She could go to Florence, stay with Lucia, and figure out what came next. The decision settled into her bones with quiet certainty. She was leaving Seattle.
Tomorrow she would go back to the apartment when Marcus was at work and get her things, her phone, her laptop, whatever she could fit in two suitcases. And then she was gone.
Amelia lay back on the bed, still fully dressed, and stared at the water-stained ceiling. For the first time in eight months, Marcus was not pulling away from her because there was nothing left to pull away from. It was over, and somehow, lying there in a cheap hotel room with nothing but a burner phone and a decision that felt both terrifying and right, Amelia felt something unexpected.
Relief.
