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Amy is driving, and I am her passenger. It is really dark, as Garrett said. I didn't check the time, but he had said it was seven in the evening earlier, so it must be past eight or something now. We left the frat house some minutes ago, and Amy dropped Alex at his apartment. The road headlights were so brutal that I had my face down, my palms pressing on my eyes the whole time.

"You sure you don't want to go to the hospital?" she asks, and I nod, not wanting to talk much. "Okay."

The drive continues silently for another minute until I feel us stopping.
"Are we home?" I ask.

"No, stay here. I will grab you aspirin or something," she says, and I hum.

That's actually thoughtful of her.

Returning, she enters with a sigh. After shutting the door, she gently pats my back, a touch almost like a caress. I smile at it. "Okay, sit up and take this."

I straighten back, squinting against the harsh road light as she hands me the pills. Holding a bottle of water, she opens it, keeping the lid with her, and offers me the bottle. I swallow the pill, almost finishing the water, before handing the bottle back to her with my head against the headrest.

"Good," she smiles as I glance at her from the corner of my eye. My smile is feeble, but I genuinely appreciate her.

"Thank you," I groan, extending my hand to her cheek. She almost pulls back, but something stops her, allowing me to tenderly skim her satiny cheek with my knuckle.

"It's not like I bite, and such gestures aren't considered cheating. You can chill, Princess." I tell her, and as she remains quiet, not anything anything more, I put the hood of my hoodie on and lower back my head to its former position, finding ease in the darkness of my pressed-closed eyes.

The journey continues, the quiet and awkwardness even more thick in the air.

I sense the car coming to a halt, but since she didn't mention that we were home, I refrain from asking or lifting my head. The back door opens, and it is then she informs me that I should wait for her for a minute. So, that's exactly what I do.

Sleep nearly engulfs me during the wait until the sound of the driver's door opening again. She places something in the back and steps on the acceleration.

"You okay?" I ask her, and she replies with a hum. I guess she wants me to have some rest until the drug kicks in.

I had dozed to sleep once again, waking up from a consoling touch on my back. I rub my eyes, yawning, feeling fatigued and exhausted. I sit upright and find us parked on some strange street. I wish we'd gotten home, so I could get a shower and have some bitter coffee.

"Where are we?" I ask her, rubbing my temples.

"Wait for me here. I will go check that house. I had stopped at the company to bring dinner for Jake, and the desk woman said he hadn't been working there for over two months," she utters.

"Okay." I yawn again and incline my head back against the headrest.

She steps out, shutting the door.

"I will go check that house. I had stopped at the company to bring dinner for Jake, and the desk woman said he hadn't been working there for over two months."

Those lines register in my head, and my eyes open, darting directly to the map on the big screen in front of me. It says, Jake's location.

My heart stops beating.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

I look up through the windshield; Amy is stepping onto the lawn of the house in front of my parked car, with the same house number as the one my car monitor says.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

Not like this. Now now.
Oh, Amy. She will be torn.

I push open the passenger door, and with every living strength in me, I run after her to stop her. To protect her from pain-the soul-racking pain that nothing can compare to. Knowing then I will be useless. I won't be able to heal her. She will be helpless, and I will have to watch her world falling to pieces before her eyes. She'd lose her smile, her joy, the view of how she saw the world, and most importantly, her trust in people,, her childishness, her hopes and plans.

Each time my foot lands on the pavement towards the small bungalow, all I see is my mom returning home, the thud of the front door sending chills to my little boy's bones. She looks disconcerted and shaky, she used to be miserable but that day, she looked worse than I've ever seen her be. She started coming in and going out into our rooms to collect our things.

"Mommy, are you okay?" My small twelve-year-old asks her.

"We are leaving for a little vacation, baby," she says, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand and hastily shoving our clothes into one box. She was terrified, broken, crying, and helpless. She had no one to stand for her but me, and I was just as helpless as her. I was tiny, I was young.

On top of all the beatings and the starvation dad had inflicted on her, that day she had caught him cheating with her best friend. She has had enough and wanted to run.

"What about Daddy? Is he coming too?" Clueless then, just like me, ten-year-old Harper next to me, asks Mom.