Finding My Way Without You

I have zero sense of direction. I could visit a place ten times and still get lost. So Paxton Levis spent an entire week hand-drawing every street around our school onto a set of maps. There was no north, south, east, or west on them. Only labels like "the convenience store with the yellow dog out front" and "the old man who sells terrible hot dogs." He'd ruffle my hair and say, "What would you do without me?" That was how it went, until my best friend Patricia Sandler came back from studying abroad. On our graduation trip together, Paxton told me to get out of the car and check whether something was wrong with it. I'd barely gotten both feet on the ground before the car pulled away without me. A message came through from him. Paxton: [There's a rest stop three kilometers up the road. Patricia and I will wait for you there. Patricia is right. If nobody ever pushes you, you're never going to learn your way around.] I walked for an hour through a downpour, working myself into a panic, before Paxton sent me a hand-drawn map. It had arrows on it, and a cute little smiley face doodled in the corner. [Just follow this. Twenty minutes, tops.] But my legs ached with every step, and the route kept drifting further off course, until I ended up in a dead end. I called Paxton. Patricia's bright laugh came through instead. "Congratulations, sweetie, you took a wrong turn! "Paxton and I made a bet on whether you'd figure out he flipped the arrows on purpose. I said you wouldn't. Guess I know you better than he does. "So for the rest of the trip, it's just going to be Paxton and me. Dragging you along is honestly way too much trouble." Paxton's voice came through next to hers, doting and amused. "A bet's a bet. I'll listen to whatever you want." Depending on someone else comes at too high a price. High enough that when he finally walked away, I didn't even know which direction was which anymore. I wiped my eyes. This time, I want to find my own way. Chapter 1 By the time I stumbled home following my phone's map, it was already the middle of the night. The wrong road Paxton Levis had directed me down ran past an abandoned factory. When I fell, a piece of exposed rebar tore into my ankle, close enough to punching straight through my foot. Blood dripped into the mud and onto the floor. I didn't even have the strength to change my shoes, just braced myself against the shoe cabinet and tried to catch my breath. My mother saw me and gasped. She rushed over to hold me up. "Cleo, what happened to you? Didn't Paxton say he was taking you on a road trip?" I looked down at the torn, curled-back skin on my ankle and told her everything, start to finish. The light in her eyes dimmed, little by little, replaced by disbelief. "How could this happen?" she murmured. "Before your high school finals, he used to take the long way on his bike every single day just so you wouldn't be late. "And when you got lost in college, he was so panicked he almost called the police. "He even said that when he bought a house someday, it would be somewhere you could find your way home to with your eyes closed." Her hands shook as she wiped the mud off my face. "I watched him grow up. How did he turn into this?" I cut her off. "Mom, don't. I want to study abroad." She cleaned and dressed my wound with careful hands. "All right. I'll get your paperwork sorted. We'll go somewhere far away from all of this." Later that night, the wound got infected, and my fever climbed to 39 degrees Celsius. Half-conscious, I heard my mother on the phone in the living room. "Paxton, you told me you'd take care of Cleo, and that's the only reason I let her go anywhere with you. Her foot was almost ruined for good. Is this what you call taking care of her?" The voice on the other end was too muffled to make out, but my mother slammed the phone down, furious. The phone by my pillow buzzed. "Your mom just called and chewed me out. Cleo, I really didn't expect you to be so delicate that you'd end up running a fever over this. "Fine. I won't leave you behind by yourself again next time, all right? Just get better soon." Chapter 2 A notification popped up at the top of my screen. Patricia Sandler had a modest following as a travel blogger and liked to post about her trips. She'd put up a carousel of photos, all of them shots of the two of them together at the beach. Paxton's shoulder tilted slightly in every frame, blocking the sea breeze from hitting Patricia. Patricia held up a cold drink with a lemon slice in it, grinning brightly. The comments were already flooded with fans. [Is Patricia finally making it official? That guy's profile is gorgeous!] [That height difference is unreal. I'd let him step on me.] Patricia replied with a shy, face-covering emoji. Right after that, Paxton's account showed up in the comments too. [Don't wander off. You don't know this place, and I'd hate for you to get lost.] Patricia shot back instantly. [Even if I got lost, you'd come find me. I'm not scared.] I stared at the screen, my fingers twitching on their own. I opened Patricia's profile and kept scrolling down. The timeline rolled back to New Year's Eve last year. Paxton had told me he had to work through the night doing year-end accounts at the office. I'd spent that night alone in my rented apartment, eating a frozen pot pie and watching the countdown on TV. Patricia's post that same night showed fireworks blooming over a river, and the two of them holding hands tight. The caption read: [New year, and he's still the one person I can always count on.] This Valentine's Day, Paxton gave me a star projector. He said he'd had someone make it just for me, even though I'd never shown any interest in stars. Six months earlier, Patricia had posted a photo of the exact same projector. Her caption: [He always knows exactly what I want.] I closed my eyes. A metallic taste rose in the back of my throat. I lifted my wrist and felt the silver bracelet there, the one with the GPS tracker built in. When Paxton had put it on me himself, he'd said it meant he'd always know where I was, that he could find me anytime, anywhere. I yanked the clasp until it snapped and threw the bracelet in the trash. Three days later, the bandage on my ankle got changed for a fresh one, but it still ached faintly whenever I walked. My mother had gone to a consulting agency to look into expediting the paperwork for me to study abroad. Paxton had a spare key to my place. He let himself in, carrying a beautifully boxed Black Forest cake. "Is your fever gone?" "It's gone." He set the cake down on the coffee table and reached out of habit to touch my hair. "Your mom just got worked up because she was worried. I already apologized to her." I turned my head away. He sighed, exasperated. "Still sulking?" "No." I didn't even like sweets. Patricia was the one who loved cake. "Go change. I'm taking you out." "Where?" "There's a new immersive escape room that opened on the south side of town. Patricia wants to go, and so do you." I refused. "I'm not going." His voice went cold, and he half-dragged me out the door. "Patricia went out of her way to get you a ticket. She's trying to smooth things over between you two. If you don't go, who's going to want to take you anywhere after this?" By the time we got to the escape room's lobby, Patricia was already waiting. The second she saw me, she rushed over and tried to loop her arm through mine. "Cleo, sweetie, I missed you so much! Paxton and I were off traveling for days, and I had no one to keep me company. Paxton's a jerk, so he doesn't count." Paxton stepped in front of me. "She's got an injury on her foot. Don't go grabbing at her." Patricia stuck out her tongue. "Fine, fine, Paxton's always playing favorites with Cleo." "Obviously. Who else would I play favorites with, if not my own girlfriend?" A staff member handed out blindfolds, and we all put them on, ready to head into the room. I hung back at the rear, my hand resting on Paxton's shoulder. Through the fabric of his shirt, I could feel him holding Patricia's hand, guiding her forward. "Watch out, there's a step." His voice was barely a whisper, meant for the person ahead of him. I stumbled and nearly fell. He didn't even turn around. Chapter 3 The blindfolds came off. Inside the escape room, only two weak flashlights lit the dark. Patricia let out a shriek and pressed herself straight into Paxton's arms. "Paxton, I'm scared; you have to protect me." Paxton pulled her against his shoulder, laughing low. "Such a baby, and yet you're the one who insisted on the horror theme." "I don't care! If you don't protect me, I'm never speaking to you again." "Fine, just stay close." They carried on like a couple head over heels, flirting shamelessly in the dark. The staff had only handed out two small flashlights. Paxton held one, Patricia held the other. I could only follow along by the scraps of light spilling from their hands, feeling my way one careful step at a time. The sharp ache in my ankle slowed me down. "Can you two walk slower? My foot hurts." "There's a time limit on this room. You'll just have to push through it." At a fork in the path, they stopped. They glanced at each other, then switched off both flashlights at the same time. The world dropped into suffocating, total darkness. "Paxton? Patricia?" I reached out blindly, grabbing nothing but cold air. They'd run off and left me alone in this maze, in a dead end where I couldn't see my own hand in front of my face. I felt my way along the wall. Just then, a staff member in a blood-soaked costume jumped out of a corner and screamed inches from my face. I shrieked and dropped straight to the floor, tears spilling out of me before I could stop them. Seeing how hard I was crying, the actor stopped and pulled off his mask. "Hey, are you all right?" He radioed for a staff member to come help. Ten minutes later, someone with a flashlight walked me out through the emergency exit. The second the door to the escape room opened, the sudden daylight made me squint. Paxton and Patricia were already standing in the rest area by the exit. Patricia had a can of iced cola in one hand, leaning against Paxton's shoulder as she scrolled through something on his phone. She caught sight of me, still looking shell-shocked, and burst out laughing. "Cleo, are you really that much of a coward? They had to walk you out like a lost kid." Paxton's brow furrowed instantly. "They walked you out? You couldn't even manage that little bit of a room on your own?" I still had tears drying on my face. "Why did you two turn off the lights?" Paxton said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I was helping you get over it. You can't even tell north from south. If I don't push you, when are you ever going to learn to find your way around?" Patricia sidled up next to me, smiling. "Don't be mad, Cleo. We didn't actually ditch you, you know. We were waiting for you at the exit the whole time." I didn't want anything to do with either of them. I turned to walk out, and Patricia stuck out her foot and tripped me. I hit the ground. The wound on my ankle split back open, and blood trickled down my shin. Patricia lifted her camera and pointed the lens straight at my face. "Everyone, look at this, my bestie's legs turned to jelly after coming out of the escape room, she can't even walk on flat ground, this is comedy gold!" She laughed so hard she was practically shaking, the camera flash strobing until my head spun. Paxton stood off to the side, his gaze dropping to my bleeding ankle, something caught in his throat. He still didn't come help me up. He just said, offhand, to Patricia, "Don't film too long. She's sensitive about how she looks." It felt like someone had shoved a fistful of broken glass into my chest, scraping raw with every breath. I lurched to my feet and lunged for Patricia's camera. "Stop filming!" In the struggle, the camera hit the floor. Patricia got knocked backward by the force of it. Paxton's face changed instantly. He shoved me off and pulled Patricia into his arms. "Cleo Horstmann! Have you lost your mind? Patricia was just joking around with you. Is that really worth smashing her equipment over? Do you have any idea how important that camera is to a blogger like her?" I leaned against the wall, breathing hard. "Her equipment matters. I don't." He froze for a second. I dragged my bleeding leg and limped my way out of the lobby. Chapter 4 When a friend dropped me off at home after the hospital, the apartment was empty. "Mom?" I called out. No answer. I sank onto the couch and pulled out my phone to give her a call. The second the screen lit up, a local trending-topics notification popped up. [Well-known blogger Patricia Sandler exposes: my best friend's mother was a mistress, "like mother, like daughter"] Patricia's profile picture sat right at the top of the post. She'd written a long post, every line dripping with accusation. [Some people are just born with a habit of stealing what belongs to other people.] [I always thought of her as my best friend, and I never imagined her mother was a repeat offender when it came to wrecking other people's families.] [No wonder she's also... I don't even want to use that word to describe someone I used to call my best friend.] Attached underneath was her so-called evidence. Fabricated chat logs, blurry transfer receipts, and a photo of my father's marriage certificate with another woman. The comments were an ugly pile-up of insults. [God, poor Patricia, latching onto a friend like that is basically getting bitten by a snake.] [Like mother, like daughter! No wonder she won't let go of someone else's boyfriend either. Last time I ran into Patricia at that escape room, I saw her sneaking around watching Patricia and her boyfriend.] [Somebody should just post that mother-daughter duo's home address.] A chill ran through my whole body. My hand shook so hard I could barely hold the phone. Years ago, my father had tricked my mother into a lavish wedding. He'd made excuse after excuse to put off registering the marriage, until his other wife showed up with the actual marriage certificate in hand. That was how my mother found out she'd been the other woman's replacement all along, without knowing it. His new wife brought people to make a scene, hanging banners around our apartment complex and splashing red paint on our door. My mother's mind broke completely. She swallowed an entire bottle of sleeping pills. I was the one who sat by her hospital bed day after day and pulled her back from the edge. I'd only ever told one person about what happened to my mother. Only Paxton knew. My hands shaking, I dialed his number. "Cleo, have you calmed down?" "What is this trending post about?" There was a pause on the other end of the line. "You smashed Patricia's camera, and she wouldn't stop crying. I didn't know what else to do. I told her about your mom to cheer her up. I never thought she'd actually post it online." I said, nearly grinding my teeth to dust, "Make her take it down." Paxton sighed. "I'll agree to anything else you want, but not that. Patricia is a blogger. If she deletes it now, that's basically admitting she made the whole thing up. Do you really want to ruin her over this? "It'll drop off the trending list in a day or two; people forget fast. And as for your mom, that's all in the past anyway; she's older, she's not even online, it won't actually affect her..." I didn't wait to hear the rest. I hung up. I called my mother's number over and over like a woman possessed. Every time, it went straight to voicemail. The image of her face, that hollow, desperate look right before she'd swallowed those pills years ago, flashed through my mind, and I half ran, half crawled to the rooftop. "Mom!" I dropped to my knees and reached out to her. "Mom, please, come down. I'm begging you, come down!" My mother shook her head, the corner of her mouth twisting into something bitter. "Cleo, once I'm gone, you'll still have Paxton. Paxton might not always do the right thing, but I know he really does care about you. He'll take good care of you." I screamed, almost shrill with panic, "No! That's not true! All of this, everything with the trending post, it was all Paxton." My mother froze. In the half a second she hesitated, I lunged forward and pulled her back over the railing to safety. My mother clung to me and sobbed, loud and broken. "Oh, Cleo. I'm so sorry. I didn't see him for the monster that he is." I buried my face in the curve of her neck. "Mom. Let's go." Back home, I threw our IDs and whatever essentials we needed into a suitcase as fast as I could. We took a taxi straight to the airport. Wherever the road ahead took me, Paxton would never be part of it again.