When I woke up in the morning everything was peaceful for a few moments until everything from last night came rushing into me. It was like a riptide swiping my feet out from under me. I felt sick to my stomach and sat up. It was still mostly dark outside. Dylan was still asleep in the back. I frowned sourly, of course he was.

    I clicked open the car door as quietly as I could and stepped outside. The air wasn't as cold as the early mornings in Washington. It was a lot drier too. I breathed in it. No, I inhaled it. I wanted my lungs to burn from the effort. I wanted to feel something other than this disconnectedness between my soul and my body. I wanted to run. I yearned for the rush of the first few nights were had met. With our shoes slapping the earth in the ungodly hours of the morning. Those moments when Dylan didn't need and outside factor to make him feel stable.

    His drunken words floated back to me. I realized maybe I shouldn't be so harsh. Loosing his mom must have been hard. I couldn't relate because I was too young to remember anything about my dad. Janet was right, maybe I did still hold a lot of anger for him.

    Thinking about Janet made me uncomfortable. My body felt awkward and I shifted against the side of the car. Maybe this was the feeling Dylan wanted to escape. The clawing choking feeling of being trapped in your own body. Sometimes I swore I could feel the hands around my neck. Janet was a dark shade of yellow, she was the feeling of something nonexistent getting stuck in the back of your throat. She seemed to thrive off of other's people's suffering. She was the worse type of person, and I had the unfortunate luck of coming from the same womb.

    Dylan was blue. It didn't really make much sense when I first met him because of how happy he seemed. It was evident now that somewhere deep, deep inside him under all those layers of happy-go-lucky personality there was some rooted sadness. A sadness that pushed him over the edge sometimes. I guess I should have been more careful.

    "What are you going to do now Att?" I asked myself, watching my breath form faint clouds.

    Dylan couldn't even tell me why he had come on this adventure, if you could call it that. It was more like a massacre at this point. He made me feel stupid and inadequate. I had this hot, dripping anger building up in me. He also didn't trust me, so what was this to him? This was my life, this would change everything, did he see this as some sort of thrill? God, I almost hated him. I didn't know it was possible to hate and love someone at the same time.

    I clicked open the front door and popped open the glove compartment. Maybe I could sneak away quietly and give him a taste of his own medicine.

    Could I make it out there on my own?

    My hand hovered over the cash I was counting out. The air around me pressed in uncomfortably on my chest. I didn't know, but I don't think I had a choice. I had to make it.

    "Atticus?" His voice brought back hot flashes of orange, mere remnants of last night.

    I froze, then stood up slowly and turned towards him, letting my building rage and expression do the talking for me. Dylan was standing there awkwardly in the clothes he had worn yesterday, he squinted at me. It was a look that was either brought on from extreme confusion or mild pain. He was probably hungover. No, scratch that he definitely was. 

    "What happened last night?" He groaned, rubbing his forehead.

    I rubbed my thumb over my clenched fist and took a deep breath. "Of course, you wouldn't remember."

    I watched as he suddenly looked kind of scared, as impossible as that was. His pupils dilated and his eyes stretched open wide. There was some fog of innocence hanging around his body as well. Then he hands curled in on themselves and his skin paled considerably.

    "I did something wrong again, didn't I? Did I say something? Oh God Atticus I'm so sorry-" He started, stepping towards me.

    I held out my hand. "Save it. I can see where I'm not wanted."

    "Not wanted? Att what are you talking about?" He looked hurt and even in my rage something in my heart twanged painfully.

    "You don't trust me." I stated.

    Dylan wrung his hands gently. "Wh-what? I do."

    "No, you don't." I spat every syllable. "You snuck away again, because you obviously can't just tell me you're dealing with something and need to leave. You obviously can't reciprocate the same level of trust I've shown you ever since we've met."

    Dylan's shoulders lifted as my words made him more and more uncomfortable. "I'm sorry Att."

    "Sorry isn't cutting it anymore." I sighed, then bent down into the car and snatched the keys and a small fraction of our money.

    "What?" Dylan's voice was audibly shaking.

    "I can't do this." I replied stiffly, feeling my heart pound in my chest. "I'm going to California alone."

    Dylan's eyebrows flew up and his eyes got even wider but this was easily recognizable as real fear. "What? No, you need me Att, what are going to do, walk the whole way?"

    "I'll take a bus or train." I replied, reaching for my duffle bag.

    Dylan's hand wrapped around my wrist. "Att, come on."

    I shook his grip off and slung the bag around my shoulder. I couldn't do anymore taking. Not while he was still experiencing effects from the substances he consumed.

    "Atticus." He put a hand on my shoulder.

    I yanked myself away from his grip. "Stop it! You're the one who's making it hard for me to be around you. You know I had managed to forget until yesterday but I grew up around that kind of stuff Dylan. I've watched as it eats up someone from the inside out. It was the whole reason my stupid sister didn't want me bringing up my dad around my mom. I've tried my best to just ignore it but I can't because this affects me too!"

    There was an uneasy silence as Dylan stared at me. It was like I had just slapped him. For once I didn't regret my red-hot words. I did feel kind of bad for making his face twist up like that, but it was important to me that he knew I was serious.

    "You don't think I haven't gone through that too." He muttered quietly.

    A pang of guilt shot through me, but it was quickly replaced. "What do you want me to say? I'm sorry? That doesn't really give you the right to step over my boundaries."

    He caught my eye and his eyes looked shinier than usual. "I really don't want you to leave me."

    I bit my lip. "Then why are you here Dylan? Tell me why you came with me and I'll stay."

    His face went blank and he paled again. Dylan turned away from me and appeared deep in thought. Then he turned back and had this horrible pained look on his face. It was like he was feeling blue-orange all of a sudden.

    "I can't." He choked out.

    I stood there in shock. I thought he would be able to answer. I genuinely thought he cared enough about me to tell me. I can't believe he still isn't telling me. Any guilt I felt evaporated instantly as I frowned.

    "You...can't." I repeated slowly.

    He sighed roughly and rubbed his hands on his greasy face. "I'm sorry... it's just..."

    "It's just what, Dylan?" I demanded. "What is wrong with you?"

    He winced. "I'm... sorry."

    I grit my teeth and tightened my grip on the bag strapped to my shoulder, turning to walk away. "Fine. I see how it is."

    "Atticus!" He gasped. "Please! I know I don't deserve it, but don't go."

    I turned back towards him, hands shaking with rage. "No Dylan. You don't deserve my forgiveness, and you have to let me be angry at you for a bit, okay? You don't get to go and change colors and let me suffer through it, okay? I can't sit idly and ignore that anymore."

    I held up his keys in my fist, and tensed my arm, then chucked them into the bushed to my left. "Don't you dare follow me, otherwise I'll make sure I never see you again."

    I turned and started running. My last sight of him was his shocked faced and he stood awkwardly by the opened car door. I hoped it hurt. I hoped it was even a fraction of all the confusing emotions he put me through. I hoped he could taste the bitter and metallic taste of hating someone you loved, same taste as blood. I pushed off the ground with all my strength and pretended that with every step I took, I fell further out of love with him.

    It wasn't hard to find the bus stop. I remember staring out the window and feeling nothing as dirty streets and tumble weeds passed me by. I found myself in a vehicle of strangers, some lanky, messy looking teen who was too tired for his body. My body was empty. As the bus shook as it drove over gravelly asphalt I felt like an empty bird cage. My door was locked tight but rattled with every pothole we drove over. I was surprised, I had never felt this empty before.

    I had expected to feel something, but there was nothing. I was dark blue. A yawning and spiraling pit that never ended and just consumed everything in its path. I never thought about my childhood much but now I could remember the late nights with the tv on in the background. The windows were open because the three of us were booking in our own sweat. The smell of my mom's cigarette as she stared blankly at an empty wall. I think there might have been a picture there at one point. Now there were just flowers, red ones. Poppies. The California state flower, the same on that they made drugs from. God, I hated them.

    I bought a train ticket to Chico, California. It was the only option they had from this dingy old town. It wasn't that far but it was all I had. I waited forty-five minutes on the platform alone with nothing but a few other people and the buzzing static from my broken-tv brain. I felt like my mom on those summer nights, looking away from anything that might induce pain. As I watched the door slide shut from my seat, someone accidentally bumped into my knee.

    "Sorry, miss."

    For the first time in weeks someone called me a girl. I didn't care. I was used to it by now. Something else inside me snapped, and then I was crying.  They weren't loud tears. I wasn't sobbing. They just kept rolling down my face as I stared out the window. I was too tired to stop them, so I didn't do anything.

    It started to rain, and I liked to think the sky was crying with me.