“IT’S A SHAME about those campers up near Bryson City, isn’t it?” the motel clerk asked as she ran through my booking.

She was pleasant enough in nature, but her constant chattering was beginning to grate on my nerves. She’d been nattering about nonsense ever since I walked into the reception area twenty minutes earlier—first to the customer checking in before me and then to me. If there’d been another motel nearby, anywhere else I could have stayed, I probably would have left long before she’d even realized I’d gone, but I wasn’t willing to give up the safe harbor just because she was a Chatty Cathy.

Her direct question to me caught me by surprise because I hadn’t really been paying any attention to any of her previous words, just nodding in the appropriate places as I moved through the booking process. Only the silence that now engulfed us made me realize her last utterance demanded some sort of reply. I tried to recall what it was she’d said, or asked, but I didn’t have enough local knowledge to understand her question.

Not having any clue what she was talking about, but wanting to get away from the people around me and into the privacy of a room, I nodded before saying what seemed like an appropriate reply based on her expression. “It’s terrible.”

She nodded back at me, her expression solemn for a fraction of a second longer before she smiled again and began to chatter mindlessly about some new topic as she processed my payment. Her conversation ranged wildly between bear attacks and local attractions. Trying to keep my features set in a polite expression, I wondered just how evil it would make me if I gave her a little burn—just enough to quiet her incessant blathering.

Knowing that I could never willingly hurt anyone, especially when it wouldn’t be worth the hassle it would cause for me, I forced my lips into a smile, all while silently pleading with her to just shut the hell up and finish my booking already.

Once she had finally completed checking me in, I grabbed the key from her and rushed to find my room. The instant I unlocked the door, I walked straight to the bed and upended the contents of my backpack across the mattress to see what I’d managed to salvage and try to assess what I’d lost in the rush to leave the ransacked room.

So many of the new clothes I’d procured on the way to see Dad had been strewn across the last motel room and were now gone. I couldn’t assess the extent of my missing inventory though because in the middle of the resulting mess sat the one item that both terrified and thrilled me the most—the letter I’d found at Dad’s grave.

Leaning forward to examine it closer, but not daring to touch it with my heated hands, I wondered whether I was far enough away from Charlotte—from Clay—that I could spend a moment to unravel the mystery behind the letter he’d left for me. It was a massive risk. If it contained what I worried it would, it might shatter my sanity completely. I might be unable to move on from the motel for days. I’d be a sitting duck if I risked anything more than an overnight stay, but would I even want to keep moving if it was as bad as I feared?

The thought of the heartbreak I would suffer from the most hate-filled words he might offer paled into insignificance beside the idea of not reading his words. It would be agony to leave the note unopened for even an hour longer. Questions circled my mind in a dizzying rush.

Why now?

Why those flowers?

Last time he’d left me magnolias, I’d assumed they were a warning. Instead, they’d been an offering of peace. Could it possibly be the same this time? He had to know that at least part of me would assume so, but maybe that was part of a trap. The last time had led me to the best time of my life—quickly followed by the worst. A niggling headache built at my temples as my head and heart locked in a tight battle for supremacy.

Even if the flowers did mean peace, then what was the meaning of the hateful words painted across the motel walls.

Unless that wasn’t him?

“But who else could it have been? Who else knows me enough to know the cuts those particular words would leave?”

The sunbird didn’t respond. She knew as well as I did that there wasn’t anyone.

Even as I continued to wonder about the flowers, more questions raced through me.

Why would he have left the letter and flowers there? With my father—the one place Clay had to know I’d go eventually.

Taking a deep, calming breath, I resolved to do what I could to find out.

Immediately.

I took three more calming breaths, trying to get the heat coursing through me under control. Once I was confident I could handle the plastic sleeve without immediately melting it against the note, I plucked the letter from the middle of the pile on the bed. Willing myself to find the strength to open it, I uselessly tried to convince myself that nothing written inside was able to hurt me.

Not as much as the person who wrote it. The sunbird reasoned.

My fingers shook as I gently traced the letters of my name with my fingertip, allowing my fingertips to caress the indented lines that Clay’s hands had carefully etched.

The not knowing was worse by far.

Moving to sit cross-legged on the bed, I closed my eyes, willing time to reverse, to take things back to the way they were when Clay and I had first met. With memories of happier—simpler—times playing in my mind, hoping to quell the fire in my fingertips, I held the letter in my hands tenderly.

My hands shook as doubt crept back in. I went to drop the letter back on the bed. “I’m still too close to Charlotte.”

The sunbird refused to allow me to let it go. It doesn’t matter. You have to know.

Tears pricked at my eyes as I asked the one question I desperately needed an answer to. “But what if he still hates me?”

Then nothing has really changed has it? At least you’ll know.

I blew out a breath and nodded. “At least I’ll know,” I repeated.

As if the statement had given my curiosity the permission it needed to leap to the forefront of my mind, it burned through me. Whether the note contained hope or heartache didn’t matter anymore—I just needed to know. Without allowing myself to overthink it any longer, I gripped the plastic tightly in my hands and ran my fingers across the smooth surface to ensure my heat was under control.

Refusing to give myself a chance to stop again, I tore off the tape that had sealed Clay’s words within.

The moment the seal was broken, I became obsessed. I yanked the crisp white envelope out of the sleeve.

My breaths came in short bursts, and my ribcage ached from the pounding it received from my heart as I slid my finger underneath the unsealed flap of the envelope. I lifted a folded sheet of paper from inside.

My heart sank to my feet as I read it.

It was far worse than anything I’d feared.

The sheet was almost blank.

All that Clay had written was an address and a date a little over a year in the future.

Disappointment seeped into every pore of my body. Although I’d debated with myself about all the horrid things that I might find in the letter, I hadn’t expected it to be something so short and impersonal. A tirade of abuse would have almost been preferable—at least it would have made sense.

Fat tears trailed down my cheeks, and I sniffed as my sorrow overtook me. I’d been so confident he had something desperately urgent to tell me, for good or bad, but there was nothing. It was impersonal, almost clinical. I hadn’t truly appreciated how desperate I’d been for some contact from him, how much I’d craved it until the letter had forced my hopes to rise to a pinnacle before crashing them heavily down around my heart.

Turning the paper over, I hoped to find something else—anything else—written on it, but it was bare. I flipped the page around again, studying the address, hoping that it would spark something in my memory, but there wasn’t anything familiar about it at all. My mind considered every possible reason for why he might leave me that address, and why that date. Something about the date echoed in my mind, but I couldn’t recall what it was.

The date. The flowers. The address. “Does he want me to meet him there on that date?”

He can’t really think you’d risk that, can he?

“Even if he did, why does he want to wait so long?” A little over a year . . . it just didn’t make sense. Especially when he had no way of knowing when I’d go to see Dad.

So that he can set the trap?

I scoffed. “With his resources, he wouldn’t need more than a week. Look at what he arranged with Dad’s funeral on his own in Charlotte. Besides, if it’s a date for some reunion, he couldn’t know whether I’d see the letter before then.”

My mind brimmed over with memories of our times together, and how he’d always been able to convince me to do anything he’d wanted me to. There were so many times that his persistence had led me to do things I had initially resisted. Something about him just made it almost impossible for me to say no. And this wasn’t any different. If he wanted me at that address on that date, I wasn’t sure I could resist. Even as I sat there contemplating the letter, part of me leaped at the mere chance to be by his side again, whatever the cost.

Maybe he can just expect me to turn up wherever, and whenever, he asks.

Turning the letter over in my hand, again and again, I tried unsuccessfully to decipher some fresh clue from it. I studied his handwriting again and the reality of what it represented sunk in.

I held a letter with an address linked in some way to Clay.

That he had left for me to find.

Only me.

Tremors took hold of my body—although I couldn’t say whether they were from excitement or fear.

It was impossible to know whether the address was where he was, where he would be, or even whether it was a trap to lure me to my death, but the simple fact was that he’d taken the time to write down that address. Then he’d gone to the effort of placing it in the one place in the one town where he could reasonably expect me to return eventually—the one place where there was something to cause me to return. That alone told me there was something significant about it.

If only I knew what.

For a moment, I allowed myself to imagine that it wasn’t a trap and wondered what our third reunion might be like. Would he be able to forgive the mistakes I’d made over the years? Would we ever be able to go back to what we’d had? The idea wasn’t entirely impossible. After all, he’d been able to see beyond the prejudices instilled in him before.

Knowing him as I did, there wouldn’t have been a doubt in my mind we might have another chance at love, if only I hadn’t done some unforgivable things in order to survive.

One truly unforgivable.

Louise’s face and tortured screams filled my mind. The disturbing images swirled around, and the scent of the smoke echoed through the motel room. I twisted off the bed and rushed to the bathroom moments before my stomach curled inward on itself, and I purged what little food I had consumed.

How can he ever forgive you for that?

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and met my eye in the mirror.

“I can’t even forgive myself, why should he?” I turned away from the mirror, unable to look at physical indicators of what I was. If I’d been normal—if I’d been human—Clay and I could already have our happy ever after.

Monsters like me didn’t get those though—we didn’t deserve them.

Lost in the past, I padded back to the bed and looked at the note from Clay. Ever so carefully, holding just the very edges in case my tortured mind ignited the page, I folded it up and pushed it back into the envelope. It was dangerous to dwell too much on any potential hidden meaning. The more I thought about Clay, and about us, the stronger the memories that haunted me became the more power they gained, and the easier they could hurt me. The easier he could.

With my head and heart both filled with memories of how perfect we’d been when we were together, my desire grew to simply wait in one place long enough for him to catch up with me and just suffer whatever consequences that choice brought.

My heart whispered deadly thoughts to my mind. If my offering myself up for death gave me a chance to be connected with Clay again, even for just an hour, maybe it would be worth the cost. Death at the hand of a one-time lover sounded far more pleasurable than a continued life in the shadow of his hatred.

Or worse, his potential apathy.

Maybe you can throw away your life so easily, the sunbird responded from deep within me. The threat in her voice was clear and reached its intended mark. But what about his?

It was a reminder of the dream I’d had so often—the one where he was trying to destroy me only to end up in danger himself. It was the only thought that could instantly send me running away from him again. It was a very real possibility that it wouldn’t be my life in danger. No matter how readily I might have been able to accept my own fate if it meant more time with Clay, I couldn’t bear the responsibility of his death. If I had to try, I was certain the guilt that plagued me over his sister’s death would become an almost carefree mindset compared to the madness that would haunt my remaining years.

Determined to ignore the temptation the letter brought, I shoved it into the bottom of my backpack. Even as I did, every minute of my time on the run weighed down on me at once, crushing me under the weight of loss and sorrow. The reality was there was no way for me to escape from my past and run back to happier times. There was no end to this life for me, not until my death.

A death the sunbird wouldn’t readily allow.

She was within me, ready to protect me against all threats to my life—including any that I invited.

The exhaustion I’d been beating back for so long sprung at me in my weakness and I couldn’t fight it even a second longer. I ignored every rule I had followed so carefully for so many years. I didn’t pack. I didn’t prepare to leave as quickly as I could.

Instead, I just pulled back the blanket on the thin motel mattress and climbed underneath, cocooning myself away from the world. I decided that tomorrow, I would start anew. Tonight, just for one night, I would let the darkness in and allow my memories to claim me completely.