I packed in under ten minutes. I have gotten good at leaving quickly over the years, an unfortunate skill that comes from a lifetime of situations where staying too long usually meant staying for something worse than whatever waited outside.
I told myself it was practical. I needed space to think without his eyes on me, without that strange warm pull humming under my skin every time he stood close enough to touch, close enough that I could feel it even across a room now, a thread pulled taut between us that made distance feel like an act of will rather than simple physics. I told myself a lot of things climbing onto a bike Otis had grudgingly let me borrow after I refused to explain why I needed it, none of which addressed the actual truth, which was that I was running because everything
