Shit, I was going to cry. What was it about this tiny woman that brought me to my knees so quickly? She went straight for the jugular and I couldn’t refuse her.

“Thank you, Ruby. I just…I don’t know what to say.” My voice broke and I tried not to sob like a pansy. But I hadn’t been expecting anything like this. It was all so…overwhelming.

“Anything for you, Clay. Anything. But there’s something else I need to tell you,” she said and I could detect a wobble in her voice. She was looking nervous again.

“I’m selling the house and the shop. I’ve already had a real estate agent come by and start the paperwork. It’s too hard staying here. I don’t need a house to keep my memories and I just think it would be easier to get on with my life if I wasn’t drowning in the grief I feel here,” Ruby said, tears dripping down her face.

I felt like I had been smacked in the face with a two by four. Ruby was selling the house? She was getting rid of the shop? I felt like I was plummeting to the ground without a parachute. My world had just gone out from underneath me and I was in a free fall.

“What? Where will you go?” I demanded.

Ruby dropped my hand and sat back in her chair, picking up her mug and holding it between her palms. “I was thinking of going back to Florida. Lisa and I had talked about retiring to Key West and I think that’s where I want to go. I just have to leave Davidson. I feel like I’m suffocating. I used to be so happy here. But now, I just see ghosts,” Ruby sobbed and I knew I should probably comfort her. But I was too busy freaking out.

Ruby was selling the house. She was leaving me. The one person in my family who had never abandoned me was leaving me behind. That tiny kid inside of me curled into a ball and started to scream. How could she do this to me?

“What about me?” I rasped out, my voice gone. Ruby’s face crumpled and she started crying in earnest.

“My darling, Clay. I won’t leave until you decide what you’re going to do. I wouldn’t do that to you. But please, just understand that I need to do this. I just can’t…move on! If I’m going to live this life without Lisa, it just can’t be here!” My dependable aunt was f**king flaking out on me.

I stood up so abruptly that I knocked my chair onto the floor. “Well, it seems that what I have to say about it doesn’t really matter then does it?” I said coldly. Perhaps I was being unfair but I couldn’t think much past the turmoil in my head.

Ruby was leaving me. Maggie was leaving me. Everyone leaves me. Because who can love someone who is so completely screwed up?

How could I have ever thought I would be able to live a normal life? I was only destined for loneliness and pain. That’s all I deserved.

Ruby hurried to my side, her body shaking with the force of her sobs. “Clay, you can come with me to Florida if you want. I don’t ever want you to feel like I’m leaving you! I would never do that!” she implored, but I was passed hearing.

I pushed by her and grabbed my car keys. Without another word, I took off, not sure where the hell I was going. Part of me wanted to leave before anyone could leave me. I hated Ruby for doing this to me when I was already feeling vulnerable. She was supposed to be my rock. Well my rock had just crumbled.

I kept driving, not knowing where I was headed. So I was surprised when I stopped my car in a familiar field. I grabbed my cellphone and walked down the well-worn trail through the woods. Breaking through the trees, I took in the sight of the swimming hole. It was late afternoon and hot, but there was no one else there.

I sat down on one of the rocks and stared out into the water. I flipped my phone over and over again in my hands, wondering if I should call Shaemus. Or Dr. Todd. I knew I was at my breaking point. But I didn’t’ make the call. I only sat there, feeling emotional numbness filter into my body.

Abandoned, alone, unloved. The words bounced around in my head until it was all I heard. Just cut it all away. One slice and you’ll feel better. The voice in my head had grown louder and harder to ignore.

No one cares about you. You’d be better off dead.

Ugly, dishonest words that veiled themselves as truths.

My phone started to ring in my hands and I looked down to see Maggie’s name flash across the screen. I hit ignore and then turned my phone off. Coming back to Davidson had been such a colossal mistake. I had been an idiot to think it could be anything else.

If anything, it taught me that my life didn’t belong here anymore. With these people who didn’t want me. It ran like a loop through my brain. I didn’t belong. Nobody wanted me. I was cracking up.

“I thought I’d find you here,” I looked up sharply at that sound of a voice breaking through my internal tirade. Maggie stomped through the under bush and made her way toward me.

“Guess I should find a better place to be alone if I’m so easy to find,” I said sarcastically. She doesn’t want me. She would leave me. Everyone leaves me.

“I’d always be able to find you,” she promised, jumping up on the rock to sit beside me. I couldn’t look at her, not when I was feeling the way I was. I recognized the beginnings of my very real meltdown. And Maggie, being a huge trigger for me, could make it all so much worse.

She didn’t touch me, as though she could sense that would be the wrong thing to do. “Ruby called,” she said in explanation.

“Oh yeah? So that’s why you’re galloping in to the rescue?” I asked nastily. I don’t know why I was lashing out at her except that I was hurting and she was here and she had always taken my bullshit without complaint. It wasn’t fair to her, but it was a pattern we obviously hadn’t broken yet.