They abandoned me 480 kilometers away as a joke.

phone long enough to email my mother’s sister, Aunt May. I hadn’t spoken to her in three years because Kyle had convinced me she was controlling.

Can I stay with you? I have nowhere else to go.

His response came almost immediately.

The key is under the doormat. You can always go back home.

I bought a one-way bus ticket with Marcy’s money, destroyed the phone’s SIM card, and threw it in the trash.

Fourteen hours later, I arrived at Aunt May’s small coastal town at dawn. She was waiting