Maggie was still picking Ty up every afternoon but now she was taking him home to her place and keeping him there until Billy picked him up after work. They were both still picking up her slack. She felt more than useless. Was Billy right? Did she need to drop all of this? Leave the past in the past?

She drove down the road and pulled over a short distance from the corner store and headed towards it. She was going to get a newspaper and some candy when she looked up and saw a familiar figure.

Ryan. He saw her too. He reached up a hand and waved, but she turned and walked away.

‘Vanessa!’ she heard him call after her. She started running.

‘Vanessa, wait!’ She could hear him getting closer; he was running too. She made it inside her car, slamming down the locks and starting the engine. Next, he was banging on the window. ‘Please, Ness, please let me in, let me explain.’

‘Fuck off, Ryan!’ she yelled, then gunned the engine and took off, not caring if she ran over his foot. There was a bit of a crowd, people who had seen him running after her. She didn’t care. She had to get away or she would have slapped him stupid.

Her phone beeped as she drove, and she glanced at it. Ryan again. She ignored it without reading the message, she’d do that when she stopped driving. She was sure he’d be pleading for her to listen to him, to give him another chance. She wasn’t going to do that; she was never going to do that. Not after what he said.

Her phone beeped again and she was about to throw it across the car when she saw that it wasn’t Ryan. It was from Wren’s school. They had an app that sent messages directly to parents’ phones about upcoming tests and assignments and class trips. This one was reminding the parents that the English oral presentation was due today. She tried hard not to cry. No one had told the school to take her off the mailing list. It was a horrible, gut-wrenching stab to the heart.

She ended up driving back home; there was no one there anyway. Ryan kept texting her, variations of the same message and so many that she wanted to throw her phone in the wardrobe. She had lost just about every friend she had – which was a small circle to begin with – and she didn’t see her regulars from work because she hadn’t gone back yet. She missed her independence, not to mention making money. She just couldn’t go back; Billy thought it would be good for her, that it was time, but who was he to tell her what to do? Suddenly she was irrationally angry at Billy again. But what else was new?