Chapter 3

I did not sleep. I lay awake until the sky turned pale.

At four in the morning, the account from ten years ahead was still online, the avatar gone gray but the status light steady. In the end, I could not hold back the question I feared most: "How did I die?"

She was silent for a long time, long enough that I thought she would not answer. Just as I was about to give up, the messages came through one after another, like a final verdict handed down from the future, every word aimed at the heart.

She wrote that at the engagement party, she admitted in front of everyone that the person she loved was Logan. She controlled the financial guarantee for my grandmother's surgery and used it to force me to end the engagement myself. With nowhere else to turn, I removed the ring and begged her not to withdraw the money keeping my grandmother alive.

Afterward, Logan went alone to Margaret's assisted-living community with an engagement invitation. During their conversation, he brought up my split from Claire, every word meant to wound. Margaret's heart was already weak. She went into cardiac arrest and could not be revived.

I was certain Logan had provoked her deliberately and I went after him to have it out. While we were arguing in the parking lot, Claire, thinking only of protecting Logan, shoved me hard. A delivery truck was backing in at that moment. I could not get out of the way and it knocked me to the ground.

After the accident, I became violent, raw, and uncontrollable. I screamed, broke things, and sat all day clutching Margaret's old photographs and staring into space, no longer the person I had been.

Logan took advantage of it. Under the pretense of protecting me and everyone around me, he persuaded Claire to file a danger-to-self petition with the hospital, the sworn statement that opens the door to involuntary commitment.

A month later, Claire got the call: I had fallen in a stairwell at the behavioral health facility and died at the scene.

The last message was all she had left to give.

"If you're still alive right now, take Margaret and go. Don't wait for me. Don't let it happen again."

Dawn flooded the room, but it did nothing to warm me. I did not hesitate. That morning, I went straight to the assisted-living community.

Margaret was on the balcony, carefully watering a pot of mint. When she saw my bloodshot eyes and exhausted face, she set down the watering can at once. "You didn't sleep at all? Look at your eyes."

I stood in front of her with everything I had rehearsed all night stuck in my throat. After a long silence I steadied my voice. "Grandma, I got a full ride to Leiden University. I want to go study in the Netherlands."

She did not interrupt. She waited for the rest.

"I want to take you with me. Not for a trip. I mean moving there for good. I've looked into apartments, health insurance, and elder care. Everything checks out. Don't worry about money. The scholarship covers our expenses, and I'll work part-time around classes."

She never once asked about Claire, or the Harts, or why I was suddenly leaving the only place I had lived for more than a decade. She only looked at me gently and brushed my cheek with her hand, her eyes full of patience and ache.

"Wherever you are is home for me."

Everything I had held down all night collapsed at once, and my eyes burned. I dropped my gaze, forced back a sob, and swallowed a night's worth of hurt and lingering fear before telling her the rest of my decision.

"Grandma, I'm not going to marry Claire."

Margaret answered without a second of hesitation, "Then don't. You don't owe your life to an arrangement other people made."

On my way out of the assisted-living community, I ran into Logan and Claire in the parking lot.

Logan was leaning against the car, loose and unbothered, and raised a hand to greet me as if nothing were wrong, his smile open and easy. Claire stood next to him with obvious impatience and anger on her face.

"Ethan," she said with a frown, accusation sharpening her voice, "how long are you going to keep acting distant and sulky?"

Logan took a step forward, still playing the peacemaker. "Man, if there's been a misunderstanding, take it up with me. Don't punish Claire for it."

My eyes went to Logan's right index finger, where a fresh bandage was stuck. A second later, Claire instinctively stepped closer and took his hand, anxiously asking whether he had hurt himself again.

Her attention belonged entirely to Logan. Her concern for him, her obvious preference, was painful to watch.

Only when she noticed the thick bandage on my palm, soaked through with blood, did she seem to remember me. Her gaze went rigid with surprise.

"Your hand. Why hasn't it healed?"

"It will," I said, flat, neither sad nor glad.

She opened her mouth as if to explain something, to patch something over, but I had stopped wanting to hear thin excuses.

"From now on, if you need something, please go through James and Victoria."

The color drained out of Claire's face, disbelief all through her eyes. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means we don't need to go out of our way to stay close anymore."

The smile finally faded off Logan's face. Claire stared at me as if she were realizing for the first time that I really did intend to leave, and that I would not be coming back.

I said nothing more, turned, and walked away without looking back.

That afternoon Margaret signed the lease transfer papers with a steady hand, and the move was settled.

My escape was no longer a passing thought. It was a fact.