All Chapters of MEND ME IF YOU CAN.: Chapter 41 - Chapter 46

I left the city the next morning.No dramatic goodbye. No tearful farewells at the station. No one running after me in the rain. Just me, a battered backpack slung over one shoulder, a crumpled bus ticket in my hand, and that hollow ache in my chest that whispered—go.Not for revenge. Not even for healing.Just to breathe.I needed air that didn’t taste like him. Walls that didn’t remember my cries. Streets that didn’t echo with the sound of my own unraveling.I needed to go where his scent didn’t cling to the curtains. Where I didn’t wake up reaching for someone who’d already let me go.So I left.I took nothing but the essentials—just enough clothes, a photo of Grandma tucked in my journal, and the remnants of a heart that still hadn’t decided whether to keep beating.I didn’t even look back.Because looking back meant I’d hesitate. It meant I’d feel everything again—the betrayal, the confusion, the stupid sliver of hope still lodged in my chest like a shard of glass. So I stared st

The sun had risen a little higher by the time I stepped outside again, the warmth already pressing against my skin like a gentle warning. A thin sheen of sweat clung to my brow, and I wiped it with the back of my hand as my eyes swept across the garden.It was overgrown.Untamed.Beautiful in that unruly way nature becomes when it’s left to its own will. The hibiscus had burst out of its neat bed, spilling toward the stone path in unruly waves of red and coral. Creeping vines clung to the fence posts and wrapped around the wooden stakes like lovers who never wanted to let go, threatening to strangle the smaller blossoms that tried to bloom beneath their shade.It looked abandoned. Forgotten.But somehow… it felt like me.And I didn’t mind.There was something sacred about the mess, about getting lost in it. I dug my hands into the earth, pulling weeds and snipping away decayed leaves. Each movement is slow and deliberate, almost meditative. As if with every tug, every breath of damp s

I don’t know how long I sat there.The bark of the sycamore bit into my back, grounding me while my thoughts threatened to unravel everything I thought I’d stitched together. The woods around me pulsed with life—birds calling in the distance, wind rustling through the leaves, the faint creak of old branches shifting—but all I could hear was my heartbeat. Loud. Unsteady.And his name.Travian.Travian.God. It all made sense now.I’d wondered how he found me. How he knew where to look when I’d worked so damn hard to disappear. I thought maybe fate was just cruel. That maybe it was playing one last trick on me before letting me live in peace.But I see it now.I knew him before. I just… didn’t know it was him.The boy from years ago—the one who lived in the yellow house next door with the wild garden and the crooked shutters. The boy I used to watch from behind Grandma’s curtain, peeking through the lace to catch glimpses of him riding his bike, climbing trees, drawing in chalk on the p