Clare bit her bottom lip and nodded. “Just give me a second. I’ll be right there.” Clare sat and waited while Eileen got up from her bed and headed back out the door without closing it behind her. She waited a few more seconds, just to make sure she wasn’t going to pop back in, then lifted the blanket and scooped all her pills back into their bottle before refastening the cap. She placed it on her bedside table next to the half-empty glass of water.

Clare stared at the bottle, then closed her eyes. “I have to leave,” she whispered.

The realization felt so true, the answer to a problem she had not fully understood until this moment. She had been living under a tremendous weight ever since she had woken up in her hospital bed in Cheyenne. The weight of her old life, her old dreams, her old self. Being here, staying here, all she really wanted was that life back, the future she’d lost. That future, that life with Adam, waiting for Adam to come home, marry her, start a life with her. She wasn’t ever getting that back. She would never stop loving him, but she wasn’t ever getting him back.

“I’m leaving,” she said again. She would run from this claustrophobic town and her whole goddamn life. Somewhere it would be impossible for her to ever get tapped on the shoulder and emotionally assaulted by someone who believed they knew the first thing about her, her life…her loss.

Run away from anyone that imagined they could possibly ever know what happened to her the night her life turned completely upside down in the blink of an eye on an old dirt road in the middle of nowhere.

“Clare?” Eileen called from the living room.

“I’m coming,” she answered, swinging her legs over the side of her bed.

Chapter 17

Eileen

Since Eileen arrived unscheduled and unannounced to visit with her mother, she needed to wait for half an hour while Ella finished her session with her personal medical assistant and trainer. She was already in the saltwater pool.

“I’m sorry, but changes to her schedule and routines greatly upset her. It’s important, for her mental health and well-being, to adhere as much as we can to her schedule.”