Can I stay with you? I have nowhere else to go.
Her response came almost immediately.
The key is under the mat. You can always come home.
I bought a one-way bus ticket with Marcy’s money, destroyed the phone’s SIM card, and threw it away.
Fourteen hours later, I arrived in Aunt May’s small coastal town at sunrise. She waited beside an old blue pickup, her silver hair pulled into a braid.
When she saw me step from the bus with no luggage, she did not ask questions. She simply wrapped her arms around me.
“Let’s take you home.”
I slept for nearly two days.
When I finally woke, scrambled eggs and toast were waiting on the kitchen table beside an envelope containing three hundred dollars and an address.
“My friend Martha owns the diner on Main Street,” Aunt May explained. “She needs help and won’t ask questions. Until you decide what comes next, use your mother’s maiden name.”
