“It is. It has to be.” Lynell was begging him now. Begging him to forgive her for doing something she hadn’t yet done.

“But you’re good. I’m good. This is a home of love, Lyn. Not hate.”

“That won’t be enough. I’m . . .” She searched desperately for the right word before whispering, “broken.”

“Fine then!” he yelled. “Be broken. But don’t break me just because you’re scared.” His voice lowered and filled with venom that struck Lynell in the middle of the chest. She sucked in a breath, sobs building in her throat.

A long moment of silence passed before Lynell nodded. “I’m sorry, really. But I have to. I’ll be back.”

“Don’t bother.”

“Daniel . . .”

“If you leave, leave. Stay gone. Don’t come back.”

Lynell reached for his arm and he yanked it away. Her vision started to blur. “Danny, please.”

“If you’re going to go, then go.” His voice cracked.

Lynell closed her eyes and took a deep breath before nodding again. She looked at Daniel, but he was staring at the floor, facing away from her. Lynell bit her lip until she tasted blood then leaned down, picked up her suitcase, and walked to the door.

“I love you, Daniel Carter. And I will come back.”

She left.

They drive through a neighborhood of two-story houses with immaculate lawns and nice cars sitting in the driveways. Even a boat is parked in the circular driveway of one house. Lynell remembers the school bus stopping at the corner of the street to pick up the few children in the neighborhood whose parents didn’t drive them to school. She would stare out the window and imagine a life here. A life just three blocks away from her house but so out of reach it seemed like a different galaxy.

Daniel stops before turning to the next road.

“We’re almost there,” he says, unnecessarily. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”

It had been a good day. Alan was gone and Lynell was playing Scrabble with her mom for hours. They always did when they had the house to themselves. “The only chance we get to create the words and the words don’t create us,” Elizabeth would say. Then Alan came home, earlier than expected, pissed for a reason Lynell would never know, and stormed into the living room, approaching them, rage in his eyes. Before her mom had a chance to calm him down or put the game away, Alan grabbed it and threw it at the wall before disappearing into his room.

Lynell drags herself out of the memory and shakes her head. She’s not scared anymore. She won’t be scared anymore.

“It’ll be fine,” she says.

“It will.”

The car turns, slows, and comes to a stop. Daniel takes a deep breath and Lynell sits up enough to see through the window.

A small, deep red house with a connecting garage and a neglected garden. A door that Lynell knows is decked in a dozen different locks. There’s no car in the driveway, which she doesn’t find surprising. Alan’s shit car must either be hiding in the garage, or he finally totaled it.