She thought about her estranged family. It had been two decades since she had last seen them. She heard that her mother had been in and out of rehab and eventually died of liver failure. As far as she knew, her father had moved to Alabama to retire. When she was a kid, he would often say how he couldn’t wait until he could “just hunt ’n’ fish all day.” She hardly ever saw him. He had been a long-haul trucker. He would be gone for weeks at a time. Tori sometimes wondered if he had a secret family stashed somewhere. And her brother? Nothing since the incident. She thought he might have gone into foster care.

Tears streamed down her face. Her guilt was multilayered. Her life at Casa Aluminum had faded into the dust. The night of the incident, she had fled the scene and sneaked a note into the mailbox. The last thing she wanted was a search party looking for her. The letter was short. She wasn’t sure either of her parents would bother to read it, but she wrote it just in case anyone asked where she was.

Dear Mom and Dad,

I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused and I won’t be coming back. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Really. And please, please do not try to look for me. That would only make it worse. I love you.

She had only been eighteen at the time, but the memories lurked in the shadows of her mind. She was horrified at what she had done, even if it was an accident. Looking back, she knew she had made a mistake. One of the first of many. With each bad decision, she fell deeper and deeper into the dark hole that had become her life. She wondered when the cycle would end.

And now? Now she had a new challenge. She knew she needed a miracle. But she seriously doubted that she deserved one.

It was that fateful event that crippled her thinking. Paralyzed her judgment. She didn’t have the courage to face the consequences, so they fled. And he certainly didn’t want to have to answer questions either. He convinced her it was better this way. A clean break. They would be on their own. Together. It was a wild, romantic fantasy. They would find a place of their own. Get jobs. Together, they would dream about what they would do with their lives. Yeah, dream, not do.

Tori shook her head. Had she given more thought about what she wanted when she was a teenager, she wouldn’t be in the situation she was in now. Yes, thinking things through should always be the first step. Sadly, she was finding that out the hard way.