MILA CUPPED HER HANDS around her thermos and raised it to her lips, recoiling at the bitter, abrasive coffee. It was mostly sugar and creamer, but it still tasted like coal.

She needed to drink this hell-beverage. She needed all the energy she could get.

She hadn't slept at all last night. She'd pulled an all-nighter cramming for her bio final after she'd left Jaime high and dry. In hindsight, it'd done more harm than good. She squinted at the thick packet on her desk. The words swirled. She could barely read the first question, let alone answer it. She'd been in here for almost ten minutes. All she'd managed to do was write her name.

She squinted at the word before where she'd written Mila Santos.

It wasn't "name." It was "date."

She'd written her name in the goddamn date line.

Mila took a deep breath and sat her thermos down. Or, she thought she'd set her thermos down. But her depth perception was off. She let go of it a couple inches before it hit the desk. It bounced backward, the lid popping off. Lukewarm coffee soaked her exam and her lap.

Mila leapt from her seat. Coffee dripped down her jeans. The coffee'd ruined her exam packet, but it wasn't like she'd written anything on it.

She looked around the room. Every pair of eyes was locked on her.

Something inside her snapped.

Tears burst from her eyes. She shoved her desk to the floor, sending her things flying in all directions. She screamed until her voice was hoarse. She whipped around, glaring at her classmates as they gaped at her. When her glare landed on Jaime in the back row, he jumped to his feet and ran toward her, his eyebrows knit together.

"Don't fucking come near me," she warned. "Don't. Stay the fuck away."

Jaime froze a couple desks from her. His expression twitched from Concerned Friend to Injured Puppy.

Mila swallowed back a sob. She didn't want to hurt her friends. She didn't want to hurt Jaime, who'd never done anything to her. But she felt like a cornered animal. Her only choice was to bite the hand that fed her.

Two small, soft hands gently grabbed her shoulders. She whipped around to face her professor, Dr. Rietveld—a woman about the same height as Mila. Pencils held her fiery red hair out of her eyes.

"Ms. Santos," she said. "Why don't you join me outside?"

Mila pulled away, recoiling from her unwanted touch. "Don't touch me," she snapped, angrily wiping at her eyes.

"Ms. Santos—"

Mila pulled her bag over her shoulder, bunching her coat up in her arms. She left everything else where it had been thrown. Her chest heaving with sobs, she ran from the room. The whole time Dr. Rietveld called her name.

***

MILA SLAMMED THE DOOR and slid to the floor, her back against it. As she sighed, her breath shoved the curls that had flung loose of her ponytail out of her eyes. She shimmied out of her coat and tossed her backpack on the rug. Pulling her knees up to her chest, she buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

She didn't know why she was crying. She didn't feel sad anymore. Or stressed, or angry, or exhausted, or whatever caused her to freak out during her final. She felt empty, null, devoid. Like she didn't know how to properly feel. Like maybe she never had.

She needed to do something.

She couldn't live like this anymore.

She had to...

A hesitant knock on her door knocked her out of her daze. She jumped. "Go away."

"It's me."

Malachi.

"Go away," Mila repeated, a sob bubbling up in the back of her throat. "I said go away."

"Please," Malachi insisted. "Jaime said something happened. I just wanna make sure you're okay."

She stood up and cracked the door. "I'm fine. See? Now go away."

Malachi jammed his finger in the crack. "Let me in. I'm worried about you."

Mila curled her lip. A part of her wanted to slam the door on his finger. It was the same part that ran from Jaime after he innocently touched her shoulder, the same part that freaked out during her final, the same part that kicked and bit and scratched and was always on the defensive, never letting anyone in, never letting her guard down, never trusting never trusting.

But it was just Malachi.

She couldn't bite him.

"Fuck off," she hissed.

"Mila, please. I'll sit in the corner and leave you alone. I don't want you to be alone. I'm scared you're going to hurt yourself."

Mila peered at Malachi through the crack in the doorway. She could only see a sliver of him, but his worried expression—pinched eyebrows, quivering lips, puppy-dog eyes—snapped her heart in two. A sob burst from her throat. Had she done this to him?

She couldn't control herself. More and more sobs knocked her to her knees. She fell to her side, clutching her chest, crying into the rough carpet.

Malachi slowly pushed the door open and stepped inside. He wrung his hands together and stared at her, seemingly unsure of how to comfort her.

Mila cried until, in the words of the great prophetess Ariana Grande, she had no tears left to cry. Malachi awkwardly stepped over her and sat on the futon, leaving Mila alone as she bawled her eyes out. He was the best friend she could have asked for and she didn't know what was wrong with her. She lay on the floor, twirling her thumb around a loose thread in the carpet.

She sat up.

"Do you feel better?" Malachi asked.

"No." Mila shakily got to her feet. "I'm going to take a nap."

***

MALACHI WAS GONE when Mila woke up. Becca sat at her desk, typing away on her laptop. The blinds were shut, but Mila saw darkness outside through the cracks in them. The only lights were the glow of Becca's laptop screen, the sliver of light beneath their doorway, and the light pollution from outside. It was disconcerting, waking up in a world so close to pitch-black.

Mila rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands. "What time is it?"

"Five." Becca spun around in her chair to face Mila. "Malachi wanted you to text him when you woke up."

Mila groaned into her pillow. She'd been asleep for... seven-and-a-half hours? She barely knew who or where she was. Her mind was a thick jelly. If anything, she felt worse than she had pre-nap. How was she going to sleep tonight? She sat up, rubbed her eyes again, and climbed down to the floor. As Becca fumbled for the light switch, Mila fumbled for her phone. She found it shoved deep in the recesses of her bag.

MILA

[ i have awoken ]

She stood and stretched. Becca turned back to her screen, clacking away on the keyboard.

MALACHI

[ do u feel better queen ]

MILA

[ idk ]

MALACHI

[ becca's still there right? ]

MILA

[ yah ]

Her phone in hand, Mila searched for her shower shoes and slid them on her feet. They squelched as she walked, gathering up pajamas to change into—an old, worn-out, XL Bikini Kill t-shirt and sweatpants.

MALACHI

[ ok good. do u have a final tmw? ]

What day was it? Mila checked the calendar. Thursday. Tomorrow was Friday. Which meant...

MILA

[ nope ]

MALACHI

[ me neither ]

[ let's do smth fun to get ur mind off things ]

MILA

[ *gif of Michelle Tanner saying "You got it dude!"* ]

Mila tucked her phone in with her pajamas and headed to the bathroom they shared with their "suitemates"—the two girls next door. She turned the water on and stepped into the shower, turning the water as hot as she could physically stand. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, letting it run over her face. After a minute, she pumped some shampoo into her hands and scrubbed it into her hair, using her loofah to wash her body. Her mind wandered, jumping back to the Claire Baumgartner case they'd covered so long ago...

Did she do it? Mila asked herself as she rinsed the shampoo out of her hair. Did Claire Baumgartner fake her own death? Or was Mila's mom right—had the boyfriend done it?

Mila knew Claire Baumgartner had faked her own death.

She grabbed her bottle of conditioner. It was almost... romantic, to think about. Almost... calming. Somehow soothed her mind, her soul, her very being. Imagine faking your death. Running off to God-knows-where. Starting over. Going down in history as someone who disappeared and was never found. She pumped a dollop of conditioner into her hands and ran it through her hair. Imagine that.

She rinsed the conditioner out of her hair, turned the water off, and stepped out of the shower, drying herself off with her cobalt towel. She wiped the fog from the mirror as best she could and stared at herself.

Could I fake my own death?

It left her breathless to think about.

What if I go a step above? she wondered. Cause more controversy, more confusion, more chances for fame? What if I fake my own murder?

Excitement buzzed through her veins. She wasn't going to sleep tonight. She'd known that the second she'd woken from her nap. So she might as well plan.

She'd be able to leave this life behind her. She could... she could go west, to Arizona. Find the bastard fucker that raped her at twelve-years-old and blow his brains out. When she was done, she could... get a passport. Leave the country. For good. Go to South America—go to Peru. She could spend the rest of her life on the run, jumping from one place to the next. She could go to Brazil, Chile, Argentina. Then she could run off to Asia or Africa, sunbathe on the beaches of Bali or the Skeleton Coast.

She could finally be free.

***

author's note - where have i been?

hello! i usually don't like posting these in the middle of stories since i feel like they interrupt the flow, but i literally disappeared for 8 months between the last time i posted a chapter and now. i owe y'all an explanation.

and really, i wish i had a good one! i've had this story finished since before i published the first chapter. everything's been ready to post; i just needed to fix the formatting, which takes like, less than 5 minutes. but in these past few months i've been struggling a LOT with health issues, both mental and physical, and little tasks overwhelmed me. i felt like i was drowning. updating this book was the last thing from my mind, the lowest on my list of priorities. 

but i feel a lot better now. i'm on new medications and doing a lot better. i actually have the energy to, like, do things other than just keeping myself alive. there are days, like today, when i'm not in any pain and my body (mostly) works the way it should. there used to not be. there are even days when i actually think i might be happy, too. there used to not be. i'm doing better, for once. everything still sucks and i'm still really struggling, but i'm on the road to recovery. which is very cool and sexy of me.

anyways, this is relevant to y'all because hopefully i'll be able to start updating this again on a somewhat regular schedule! like i said, i'm still struggling a lot, and beyond that i'm busy with college and trying to Be A Human Being Again, so who knows, but hopefully. also, while i've been gone, i've still been writing a lot! i have two new books i've been working on. hopefully i'll be able to post one of them by the end of this year, and the other sometime this coming summer.

also, i love self-promos, so if you can't get enough of me, follow me on twitter @/jasperwriting! i post a lot more on there and you can learn all about the stuff i've been doing on my kind-of hiatus :)

tldr: i stopped updating bc of mental and physical health issues. i'm doing better now (but still struggling), so more updates and new books will hopefully be coming soon!

ok bye bye kiss kiss 

much love

jasper