WANTED (The Runaways Series Book #2)

Chapter 3

Hailey

I lied. I had to. Dr. Greer said I did.

She said he needed this—that we needed this. But no part of letting Caleb hang in limbo, felt necessary. It only hurt.

I bit into my tongue to keep the truth trapped behind my teeth while the dead quiet bruised the boy I’d already broken. He stumbled backwards, like he’d been sucker punched to the gut, but straightened himself out when I stepped forward to stop him.

My body still responded to his like we’d been rubber banded together. Following his lead was so easy, too easy, and for a sliver of a second I nearly lost myself to an old habit.

I reached out for him, like I’d never told a terrible lie, like he hadn’t heard it as truth, and he almost caught me, but only almost. He stopped me, his hands stiff and still on my shoulders and stared at me with so much honest confusion it made me sick.

His eyes.

I couldn’t look at his eyes, those brilliant blues fading to dull gray under the station streetlights.

He’d never looked at me like that, lost and sickly desperate for answers I couldn’t give. 

            “What I am supposed to do with that, Hailey? Tell me what I’m supposed to do"

Wait for me.

             “I need time, Caleb. I just—“

            “I hope he loves you half as much as I do. I’m just sorry I wasn’t enough, but hey, I’m used to that, right?”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t open my mouth ‘cause if I had I would’ve spattered out the truth. He was better than being good enough—he was better than me.

He deserved to know every single one of the stupid reasons why I had to do this, to know that he was everything and that this decision came down to him.

Sawyer was the little white pill, a solution to a sickness Dr. Greer diagnosed in me. She said I’d needed normal, steady, stable, numb, and that’s what I was around Sawyer—numb.

She said letting go would hurt, and that I had to hurt to heal. But losing him didn’t feel like healing, and lying to him felt more like a symptom of a disease than a miracle cure.

“This isn’t because of you, Caleb. Please don’t think that way, because I promise you, it isn’t.”

“You’re not much of a liar, Anderson. You never have been.”

He turned to walk away from me, and all the light between us died. Lickity-split. Like he hadn’t heard the one true thing that I hoped he’d hear and that I’d hoped he'd hold on to. I needed him to know the difference. The truth was in the difference.

I sprinted after him, pumps pounding against the pavement, and raced towards his silhouette as he stepped in front of a pair of headlights speeding into the station.

I shut my eyes and screamed, screamed at him to stop, to listen, to turn back to me, but the world stayed silent aside from the truck’s tires screeching to a stop. Caleb’s hands hit the hood so hard the crack of metal against skin shot out across the parking lot. 

He didn’t even flinch, just leaned into the truck with his shoulders tensed and his head hung low. Even in the headlights he stood out like a shadow against the glow, the way Liam used to. But Liam was gone.

I had to believe that.

I had to believe that the ghosts of Caleb’s family were only ghosts, and that I didn’t see them coming to life in him as he stood there silent. He was different, not dark.