tw: dark thoughts in the first couple paragraphs including suicidal thoughts and SA. Skip to 7th paragraph.

It's funny. You spend so much of your life wasting your younger years, wishing you'd die sooner rather than later. I wished for that a lot as a kid. Maybe more strongly as a teenager.

Now that the stag mail tells me that I got what I wished for, I'm chasing after life like I've never wanted anything else. Despite this making me one of the biggest hypocrites on the planet, it also makes me wonder if I'd done something to cause all of this.

Could it be possible that one decision, linked to other nano decisions, a butterfly effect like the movie, led to me getting that damned letter. It's the same rabbit hole I dug when Andrew did what he did. Was there something I could have done differently? Was this my fault?

  Cutting my hair in the fluorescent lighting of the hotel bathroom with scissors I got from a vending machine grooming kit was the most control I've felt in weeks. I fucked up a little on the right side, chopping too high which the hood helped with. It didn't matter though. Of course it didn't- not when I was going to be dead in a few short weeks.

Control. That's what everything eventually melts down to. Most of what we do is to feel like we're in control. Like we aren't just spiraling balls of hay in a mid-western movie.

Andrew took a lot from me. But the thing I resented him the most for was stripping me of the control I rightfully had over my body. It's difficult to come back from something like that. If there is such a thing.

The more I think about it, I think I followed Omar here because I had hope that I'd find some of that lost control here. Even if it was just two days. I still had hoped for more than this which is why I've decided to ditch Omar, the same way Ben ditched both of us. We tried but now it's time to face this shit alone.

I sit on a park bench, close to the bridge where every few minutes, people walk by. Some walk their dogs while some stroll with friends. After a while, I stop watching them and look out at the water that glimmers like a few hundred diamonds floating on it.

  A subtle weight on the bench makes me turn my head. Omar sits down, setting his backpack on the ground between both his legs.

"Why are you here?" I finally ask.

"Because I don't want to be leaving you behind like this," he replies. "And because I think I figured out why you're doing this."

"You do?"

"Is this because of Andrew?"

"No this doesn't have anything to do with him, why?" I say brashly.

"I've seen the news articles, Lib," he turns towards me.

He cuts me off before I can say anything else.

"The cops know it was you who stabbed him," Omar continues. "You're scared of being recognized. That's why you cut your hair."

"Omar you should go."

"No fuck this," he shakes his head. "You don't need to stay in fuckin' Baltimore because of this."

"The cops will know if I go back home," I clench my teeth.

"Then don't go home, crash at my place but Lib, they don't get to keep you away from your family."

"Obviously this isn't a choice for me," I say through my teeth. "I can't bring this all to my mom. She's already struggling as it is."

"She might already know," he says in a low voice.

"What?"

"How do you know the cops haven't already been to her place?"

I freeze. The image of her being heckled by law enforcement on her own property is deeply unsettling.

"That's my point. Lib. They can't do anything to you."

"You say that with so much confidence."

He shrugs, "We'll take a bus. No IDs, no nothing. I heard Greyhound barely ever checks them."

"Why do you care so much?"

"It feels fucked up leaving you behind like this."

We stare at the water for a while. A child wearing a blue helmet and knee pads scrapes his scooter past us. Behind him, his mother follows. A single dragonfly floats above the water surface, vanishing as it crosses the plants growing there.

"I'm sorry about Stewart," I tell him.

"It hasn't really sunk in, if I'm being honest."

"It will."

We make it to the greyhound station except our bus never arrives when it's scheduled to. So we end up, holed up near the canteen serving burgers and chicken tenders. My eyes feel heavy, like they'll drop and roll out of my head any time now.

Omar's eyes are closed, his head rolled back slightly. He's been like that for over ten minutes now and I can't help but wonder if he's asleep. The guard that has been on duty for the past three hours walks over to our side, straight to the canteen and buys himself dinner. I guess his shift is over because he sits down, one table away from us and eats while people off the street begin to wander inside the station.

  I don't pay them any attention, not even as one of them lies down near us. Beside him, tethered to his wrist by a leash, a Labrador Retriever settles down too. It look at me sleepily, one eyelid closing after the first and then drops its chin on its paws. I look around, searching for anyone who might potentially be thinking the same thing I am. I lock eyes with the guard who doesn't share there Labrador's in

Lucky him. At least he gets to leave.

The man on the floor kicks Omar's chair by mistake, waking him from his sleep. He looks around the room at first before it settles in.

"What time is it?" he yawns, holding his sleeve over his mouth.

"10.10."

"Shit," he sits straight.

"It's been over an hour," I add, solemnly.

Omar gets up to ask the lady behind the information desk about our bus. It's starting to get humid inside the station. I lift my elbows on to the table, feeling clammy under my arms. He returns with a frown bigger than the one he left with.

"How fucked are we?"

"Very. You want something from the vending machine?"

I look over his shoulder at the exquisite selection. "RedBull I think."

He brings over two cans and for the next hour, we watch all kinds of people come and go. There are more delays and the crowd grows until eventually, people are awkwardly hanging around the bathroom doors for space.

Omar excuses himself, says he needs to attend a phone call. He's gone for maybe six minutes tops before he's sprinting back to our table.

"I found him."

I stare at him, prompting him to go on.

"Who?"

"Charles," he exhales.

"I'm confused."

"I did a thing," he begins, putting his weight on the table. "There's a guy who knows how to find people through security footage, live streams and stuff like that. Public spaces, y'know."

"You've lost me," I tell him.

"Footage from a security camera puts Charles here in Baltimore."

"Are you serious?"

He smiles, ear to ear with a sense of relief and urgency at the same time.

"And we're sure this wasn't someone who just looks like him?"

He pulls up a picture and flips the phone for me to see.

On the left is a white collared passport picture of what I assume is the guy we're after. On the right is a blurrier picture of a man walking down a path, looking over his shoulder slightly. His hair, a similar brown, messily swept back except for the same strand curled over his eyebrow. I look at their noses, trying to pick up on any differences.

"It's him."

I want to believe him right away. But when you're short on time, you want to make sure you're not chasing a lost cause. Omar shows me another picture and then another, all of the same guy.

I gently move his phone away from me when it gets overwhelming.

"These could have been faked."

"No way," he shakes his head. "I get all the doubt from you and Ben, but this... This is as real as it gets."

"Omar," I clear my throat, trying to get his attention as he starts picking up his things from the chair.

"You're either in or you're out, Lib. The bus is here," he says.

I glance at the line of people, rushing towards the glass door, waiting to be boarded. The mood has changed all of a sudden and there's a rising panic of missing the bus because of overbooking. People meant to travel to other cities, waiting on their own delayed buses, begin to move towards the only bus docked in. Ours.

Omar waits for a response, his backpack slung over his shoulder, a swarm of people pushing past us and dog slobber pooling under my shoe.

"Fucking hell, Omar."

There's a glint in his eyes, a subtle victory.

"Come on Liberty, let's go save your life."

He says my full name again. I don't correct him this time.

"You better hope so."

"This is destiny, I can feel it, can't you?"

"Where are we going anyway?"

"Exactly where you'd never think he'd be.

He's been living next door."