Elara’s POV
I don't remember the taxi ride.
I don't remember paying the driver or stumbling into the bus station or buying a ticket to anywhere that wasn't here.
My body moved on autopilot while my mind looped the same horrifying reel. Waking up beside a stranger, his arm draped over my waist like he belonged there, sheets tangled around us both like evidence of a crime I couldn't remember committing.
I fled before he opened his eyes. Grabbed my things with shaking hands, dressed in clothes that weren't mine, and ran.
I haven't stopped running since.
The bus dropped me three blocks from my mother's house, and my feet carried me up the familiar cracked sidewalk before my brain caught up. I stood on the porch with my key in hand, staring at the faded welcome mat, and realized this was a mistake.
This was the first place Michael would look. He knew this address.
Knew my mother's work schedule at the hospital—double shifts, always double shifts. Knew which window belonged to my childhood bedroom, the one with the chipped paint and the tree branch that scraped against the glass during storms.
If I stayed here, he'd find me within days. Maybe hours.
And I could not face him. I could not explain what happened when I didn't understand it myself.
My hands trembled as I unlocked the door. The house sat empty and silent, smelling like lavender and the lemon cleaner Mom used on Sundays.
I moved quickly through rooms I'd known my whole life, grabbing a duffel bag from my closet and stuffing it with essentials. Clothes. Toiletries. The emergency cash I kept hidden in a sock drawer—three hundred dollars meant for something that mattered.
Running away from my life probably counted.
I scribbled a note and left it on the kitchen table: ‘Mom, something came up. I need to get away for a while. Please don't worry. I'll call when I can. I love you.’
The words felt hollow, insufficient. But I didn't have time for more.
An hour later, I stood in a motel room on the outskirts of Columbus.
The wallpaper peeled at the corners, revealing water stains beneath. The carpet was the color of mud, the mattress sagged in the middle, and the bathroom smelled like mildew and industrial bleach.
It was terrible. It was perfect.
No one would find me here.
I locked the door, drew the curtains against the gray Ohio sky, and curled into myself on the narrow bed. The anonymity felt like armor—thin and fragile, but better than nothing. Here, I could fall apart without witnesses.
So that's exactly what I did.
The messages started that first afternoon and didn't stop.
Michael's name flashed across my screen over and over, each notification like a knife twisting between my ribs. The texts evolved through stages of grief I couldn't bear to watch.
Worried at first: ‘Where are you? Did something happen?’
Then confused: ‘El, you're scaring me. Please just let me know you're okay. Then desperate: I'll find you wherever you are. We need to talk. I'm worried, baby.’
Each one made it harder to breathe.
How could I face him? How could I explain that I gave myself to a stranger, that I let another man touch me, consume me, while Michael was somewhere in that same hotel?
I didn't even understand how it happened.
The memories blurred together—Michael's tenderness, then something rougher, hungrier. Hands that felt different yet somehow safe. A voice that sounded wrong but ached with longing.
I was so certain it was him. I was so goddamn stupid.
Sienna texted too, gentle and concerned.
Sia: Hey, are you okay? Michael's losing his mind. Just let us know you're safe.
I stared at her words until they swam. What would I even say?
I cheated on my boyfriend without meaning to. I'm not sure who actually took my virginity because everything blurred together in the dark.
No one would believe me. I barely believed myself.
So I didn't respond. I let the messages pile up—voicemails I couldn't bring myself to play, texts I read through blurry eyes and never answered. I turned off read receipts so they wouldn't know I was watching.
Watching and hiding and hating myself more with every passing hour.
Days bled together in that motel room.
I ordered cheap delivery from the Chinese place down the street—the same lo mein eaten cold from the container while I stared at the water-stained ceiling.
The delivery guy stopped asking if I wanted utensils by day three. He just left the bag outside my door and walked away. Even strangers could tell I wasn't fit for human interaction.
I showered only when I couldn't stand myself anymore. Standing under water that never got hot enough, scrubbing at my body like I could wash away what happened. The only sound was the neon sign buzzing outside and my own ragged breathing.
The shame settled into my bones like a permanent resident, unpacking its bags and making itself at home. I replayed that night obsessively, searching for the moment I should have realized.
His hands had been different. Rougher. More demanding. And I'd liked it—god help me, I'd liked it. That was the part I couldn't forgive. Not just the mistake, but the way my body had responded. The way I'd begged for more.
I unknowingly ruined everything. The relationship where we were happy, where I felt safe and chosen for the first time in my life—gone. It would never come back because no one would ever believe what happened.
I could already hear how it would sound.
I thought he was you. I was drunk as hell, and I couldn't tell the difference between my boyfriend and a stranger.
Even in my own head, it sounded like the worst lie ever told.
And I understood that by disappearing, I was hurting Michael. Every unanswered text was a wound I was inflicting. Every ignored voicemail was a knife I was twisting.
But if he found out the truth—that on our anniversary, the night I gave him my virginity, I also gave it to someone else—that realization would destroy him in ways my absence never could.
Better for him to think I was cruel. Better for him to hate me for leaving than to know what I'd done. At least hatred was clean. At least hatred didn't come with images he'd never be able to unsee.
So I chose to be the villain of my own story. The girl who vanished without explanation. The coward who couldn't face what she'd done.
The motel room became my cocoon of misery. Four walls that didn't judge me. A bed that held my tears. A window I never opened because fresh air felt like something I didn't deserve.
On the fifth day, I finally listened to one voicemail. Michael's voice cracked through the speaker, raw and breaking:
"El, please. Whatever I did, whatever happened, we can fix it. Just come home. Just talk to me. I love you so much, and I don't understand—" His voice dissolved into something wet and desperate. "Please. Please just come back."
I threw my phone across the room.
It hit the wall and clattered to the floor, screen cracking in a spiderweb pattern that matched the fractures inside my chest.
Good. Now I couldn't see his name light up anymore. Now I couldn't torture myself with words I didn't deserve.
I curled into the sagging mattress, pulled the scratchy sheets over my head, and let myself disappear.
The girl who believed in love stories and happy endings? She died in that hotel room.
Whoever was left didn't know how to be anything but gone.