Chase by Taylor K Scott

Author:Taylor K Scott [Scott, Taylor K]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Izzy

As soon as I’m outside, I run. I run like I’m trying to escape monsters. I’ve been running ever since Theo left me behind, but now that he’s here, I’m still running. The monsters have changed, mutated into things that live inside my head so I can never escape them. I can only subdue them, and even then, the only way I can achieve that is to stop myself from feeling anything.

The thing that stops me in my tracks is the sheer lack of breath that has me bending over double from the lactic acid now attacking my muscles. I’ve not been this far from the house, where the forest lines the perimeter of the extensive grounds, and the fir trees grow tall and bushy. Beauty in the face of all my ugly emotions. However, seeing as someone was kind enough to leave a bench on which I can privately break down, I decide to collapse in a heap and allow myself to cry. Except the tears don’t come; perhaps they have finally run dry.

“Izzy?” a small, female voice says from behind my huddled body, making me jump out of my skin. “Oh, Jesus, sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to catch you alone.”

Frankie looks worried, so takes a seat next to me where she clasps her hands over mine. The moment her fingers touch my skin, however, I flinch. She sees it, as well as the goosebumps that are taking over my flesh on a perfectly warm day.

“That bad, huh?” she whispers.

My eyes finally fill with the tears that I had expected moments ago; she can see right through me, to the real me. I look away, suddenly unable to handle her eyes on mine. But she’s not going to let me get away with it that easily, because she takes me inside of her arms and holds me tight. My eyes close of their own volition, if only to release the tears that are now filling them. It all feels too much – Theo, seeing Ethan again, Frankie’s arms and soothing voice – so I dig my nails into my palms to the point of breaking the skin.

“You can stop doing that, Izzy,” she says, lifting my hand to reveal the crimson blood now seeping out of my self-inflicted wound.

“Please don’t be nice to me, Frankie,” I whisper my plea. “I’ve worked hard to resist my emotions, to push them away, but when you and your son are nice to me, it makes it a hell of a lot harder to do.”

“My son loves you, even if this whole engagement is a farce concocted by a desperate old woman,” she says, rummaging around her bag, all the while I look back at her in shock.

“How do you know?”

“Because I helped your grandmother come up with it,” she replies, smiling as she does so, complete with a tissue ready in her hand to pass to me. “As for Theo, well, he needs you just as much you need him.

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