Run Away with Me by Mila Gray
I can’t speak. All I can do is nod. I read the note again and in my head I start imagining Jake at fourteen, writing it. I start imagining myself reading it, in tears, on my bed, feeling so broken but knowing I wasn’t so alone.
“Why didn’t you give it to me?” I ask Reid. My eyes are welling up, and I try to blink away the tears before deciding I don’t care if he sees. I want to ask him if he has any idea what that letter would have meant to me. How much I needed it.
“I didn’t want to,” Reid answers.
“Why?”
“Because I liked you and I was jealous of Jake. Of what you guys had. I always . . . envied it. . . . It’s no excuse. It’s just an explanation. And if I could go back in time right now, I would. I’d fix things. I’m sorry.” He looks at me half-wary, half-expectant.
What is there to say? I can tell he really is sorry, and although in one respect it’s too late, it’s also never too late to apologize, so I just nod at him.
“I’m not the only one you should apologize to, though.”
Reid nods thoughtfully. “I know. I apologized to Jake already.”
That takes me aback. “You did? When?”
“Today.”
“Today?”
“Yeah, I just saw him. He came around to my place.”
My lips part, and I blink at Reid a few times, trying to process this. Jake went around to see Reid before coming to see me?
“He wanted to talk things through.” He backs away from the door, checking his watch. “You’re going to be late.”
I frown at him.
“He’s waiting for you.” Reid nods at the note in my hand.
I read it again. He’s at the tree house? I look up and see Reid’s turned and walked away.
“Reid?” I shout after him.
He turns. A flare of hope crosses his face that he doesn’t try to hide.
I smile at him.
After a few seconds, he smiles back, and we stay like that, smiling at each other until he turns around again and walks off down the street.
* * *
Five minutes later, I run through the woods, still clutching the note in my hand.
Weak winter sunlight shimmers through the trees, giving the clearing an otherworldly feel.
“Jake?” I call.
I know he’s here. I can feel it like I can always feel it when he’s near me. A hot sun bursting in my chest.
He steps out of the tree house onto the ledge, and I skid to a halt at the sight of him.
“Hi,” he says. Even from a distance, I see the dangerous glimmer in his eye.
Grinning in anticipation, I start climbing the ladder up to him.
He reaches a hand down and pulls me up the last few steps and I fall into his arms, wondering how on earth I forgot how good it feels.
Jake takes my face in his hands and kisses me hard on the lips. “God, I missed you,” he murmurs.
Our breath fogs up because it’s so cold, but I barely notice because his hands are so warm, even when they sneak beneath my jacket and sweater to stroke up my back.
“What’s all this?” I ask, my gaze finally falling on the backpack lying piled at his feet.
Jake grins and gives me a shrug. “That night. When I wrote you the note. I was out here for hours waiting for you.” Color rises in his cheeks. “I brought a tent and a sleeping bag. I managed to forget the camp stove. But I did remember to bring these.” He reaches down and picks up a bag of marshmallows.
“You really planned for us to run away?” I can’t believe he was serious.
He nods. “Yeah.”
Wow. I try to imagine what would have happened if I’d have gotten the note. Would I have run away with him? Yes. I would have. Without a doubt.
“Where would we have gone?” I ask.
“Wherever you wanted to go.”
“Wherever I wanted to go?”
He nods again, and my pulse quickens at the half smile tugging on his lips. For a brief moment, I picture the two of us living wild on Blake Island, fishing for our supper, sharing a sleeping bag, and toasting marshmallows over a campfire.
Jake brushes a strand of hair behind my ear.
“Emerson Lowe . . . will you . . . run away with me now?”
I take his hands and look up into his eyes. The smile is in his eyes, warming them, and a flurry of butterflies takes flight in my chest. “Yes.”
He grins and dips his head to kiss me.
“Where to?” I ask.
“Actually, I booked us the fire teepee for three nights. I figured that we’re older now and we can afford to run away in more style.”
I sink to my knees, pulling him with me, and in the next second I’m straddling him. His arms come around my waist and he pulls me tighter against him. My hands slide beneath his jacket and his sweater, and I feel the goose bumps glide across his skin.
“Hey,” he says now, pulling away from me, “I need to show you something.”
He pulls an envelope from his pocket and hands it to me.
“Another letter?”
“Open it,” Jake tells me.
I take it, smiling curiously.
“Don’t be mad,” he says.
My smile fades. What’s he done? I glance down at the letter. It has a Seattle postmark, and it’s addressed to me but care of Jake. I don’t get it.
“Shay gave me the idea,” he says nervously as I pull out the single sheet of paper inside and read what it says. Then I read it again. And a third time. Finally, I look up. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s a scholarship,” Jake says. “You won a scholarship. To Washington State.”
“But . . . how?” I ask.
“Your essay. The one about what happened to you—your story. I took a copy of it and I sent it to the journalism school there. I told them about your situation. And they’d already accepted you, so . . .” He shrugs.
I blink at the page, but the words are all blurry. Jake grabs the letter from my hand.
“Look,” he says, reading aloud. “They say it’s ‘one of the most powerful and honest accounts they have ever read’ and that you ‘have clear talent and demonstrate obvious potential.’ Did you read it? They say they’ll be honored to have your in their program.” He hands the letter back to me triumphantly.
I take it, but it drops limply to my side. Jake notices. His smile falters.
“What?” he asks. “You can take this. You can make this work. I’ve already talked to your mom and dad. You can start next semester.”
I look up sharply. “What about the store?”
“Aaron is going to take over for you at the store.”
“What?”
“He hates his job. He loves being on the water. He and Toby are going to manage the place while you study. And you can go part-time. And now you don’t need to worry about the cost or anything because they think you’re brilliant, and so do I, and this is it, Em—it’s what you wanted, and you can’t not do it. . . .”
He breaks off to take a breath and I can see he’s still waiting on my reaction, worried about what it might be.
“What are you scared of?” he asks me, and there’s that look on his face, that teasing edge to his tone, as if he’s daring me.
I glance again at the letter, still a little dumbfounded, before tossing it to one side.
Jake’s face falls. I glower at him. His shoulders slump.
I put my hands on his shoulders and push him hard. He hits the deck, his eyes going wide, but then I’m lying on top of him, eliminating all the space between us. My hands slide beneath his jacket and his sweater. He breathes in sharply, and I lean down and kiss him, feeling the humming buzz of electricity shoot through me just like it did when he kissed me for the very first time.
“I’m not scared of anything,” I whisper.
Author’s Note
According to statistics*, one in five women and girls are sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Forty-four percent of them are under eigh
I have heard so many heartbreaking stories from women who were assaulted as teenagers and young girls—and it was these stories, as well as my own, that inspired me to write Emerson’s story.
Each time I asked my friends if they regretted speaking up about what happened to them—given what it did to their families, their own reputations, their lives—and they all said no. By speaking up, they were adamant that they had reclaimed their selfhood, that they were no longer victims, forced to hold on to a secret they had never wanted to own. Speaking up became a theme I heard over and over, one that these women now emphatically preach to their own children: Never be scared to tell the truth. Do not let someone make you a victim.
I have my own story too—not as harrowing as most, but still ugly and upsetting, which left an indelible mark on me. I did not speak up when it happened. I was a vocal, strong, empowered young woman, and yet I could not find my voice, not during the assault and not after it happened. It took me years to realize what happened to me was sexual assault because I believed that I had allowed it to happen. I think this is typical. It took me fifteen years to realize that I was innocent, that no person has any right to touch me in a way I do not ask for or actively consent to. I wish I had spoken up then. Writing this book is my way of doing that now.
If you’ve been the victim of sexual assault, know that you are not alone. What I discovered is that once you start talking about your experience, you discover just how many other people have been through the same thing and that talking about it, sharing it, kick-starts the healing process.
*RAINN—the US’s largest anti–sexual assault organization.
Acknowledgments
Enormous thanks and gratitude go to:
My wonderful girlfriends Lauren, Asa, Nic, Becky, Rachel, and Vic, who keep me sane, keep me laughing, and inspire me daily.
The wonderful men in my life: my husband, John, my brother, and my dad.
My amazing agent, Amanda Preston.
Nicole Ellul at Simon & Schuster, whose brilliant editing skills and suggestions really helped shape the novel.
All the brilliant people at Simon & Schuster who have worked so hard to make this book look so good and to get it out there, into your hands. I’m so grateful to you all.
At eleven, Jessa first met Kit Ryan.
At fourteen, her crush began.
And now . . .
she’s fallen in love.
Read on for a sneak peek of Mila Gray’s Come Back to Me.
A whorl in the glass distorts the picture, like a thumbprint smear over a lens. I’m halfway down the stairs, gathering my hair into a ponytail, thoughts a million miles away, when a blur outside the window pulls me up short.
I take another step, the view clears, and when I realize what I’m seeing, who I’m seeing, my stomach plummets and the air leaves my lungs like a final exhalation. My arms fall slowly to my sides. My body’s instinct is to turn and run back upstairs, to tear into the bathroom and lock the door, but I’m frozen. This is the moment you have nightmares about, play over in your mind, the darkest of daydreams, furnished by movies and by real-life stories you’ve overheard your whole life.
You imagine over and over how you’ll cope, what you’ll say, how you’ll act when you open the door and find them standing there. You pray to every god you can dream up that this moment won’t ever happen. You make bargains, promises, desperate barters. And you live each day with the murmur of those prayers playing on a loop in the background of your mind, an endless chant. And then the moment happens and you realize it was all for nothing. The prayers went unheard. There was no bargain to make. Was it your fault? Did you fail to keep your promise?
Time seems to have slowed. Kit’s father hasn’t moved. He’s standing at the end of the driveway staring up at the house, squinting against the early morning glare. He’s wearing his Dress Blues. It’s that fact which registered before all else, which told me all I needed to know. That and the fact that he’s here at all. Kit’s father has never once been to the house. There is only one reason why he would ever come.
He hasn’t taken a step, and I will him not to. I will him to turn around and get back into the dark sedan sitting at the curb. A shadowy figure in uniform sits at the wheel. Please. Get back in and drive away. I start making futile bargains with some nameless god. If he gets back in the car and drives away, I’ll do anything. But he doesn’t. He takes a step down the driveway toward the house, and that’s when I know for certain that either Riley or Kit is dead.
A scream, or maybe a sob, tries to struggle up my throat, but it’s blocked by a solid wave of nausea. I grab for the banister to stay upright. Who? Which one? My brother or my boyfriend? Oh God. Oh God. My legs are shaking. I watch Kit’s father walk slowly up the drive, head bowed.
Memories, images, words, flicker through my mind like scratched fragments of film: Kit’s arms around my waist drawing me closer, our first kiss under the cover of darkness just by the back door, the smile on his face the first time we slept together, the blue of his eyes lit up by the sparks from a Chinese lantern, the fierceness in his voice when he told me he was going to love me forever.
Come back to me. That was the very last thing I said to him. Come back to me.
Always. The very last thing he said to me.
Then I see Riley as a kid throwing a toy train down the stairs, dive-bombing into the pool, holding my hand at our grandfather’s funeral, grinning and high-fiving Kit after they’d enlisted. The snapshot of him in his uniform on graduation day. The circles under his eyes the last time I saw him.
The door buzzes. I jump. But I stay where I am, frozen halfway up the stairs. If I don’t answer the door, maybe he’ll go away. Maybe this won’t be happening. But the doorbell sounds again. And then I hear footsteps on the landing above me. My mother’s voice, sleepy and confused. “Jessa? Who is it? Why are you just standing there?”
Then she sees. She peers through the window, and I hear the intake of air, the ragged “no” she utters in response. She too knows that a military car parked outside the house at seven a.m. can signify only one thing.
I turn to her. Her hand is pressed to her mouth. Standing in her nightdress, her hair unbrushed, the blood rushing from her face, she looks like she’s seen a ghost. No. That’s wrong. She looks like she is a ghost.
The bell buzzes for a third time.
“Get the door, Jessa,” my mother says in a strange voice I don’t recognize. It startles me enough that I start to walk down the stairs. I feel calmer all of a sudden, like I’m floating outside my body. This can’t be happening. It’s not real. It’s just a dream.
I find myself standing somehow in front of the door. I unlock it. I open it. Kit. Riley. Kit. Riley. Their names circle my mind like birds of prey in a cloudless blue sky. Kit. Riley. Which is it? Is Kit’s father here in his Dress Blues with his chaplain insignia to tell us that my brother has been killed in action or that his son—my boyfriend—has been killed in action? He would come either way. He would want to be the one to tell me. He would want to be the one to tell my mom.
Kit’s father blinks at me. He’s been crying. His eyes are red, his cheeks wet. He’s still crying, in fact. I watch the tears slide down his face and realize that I’ve never seen him cry before. It automatically makes me want to comfort him, but even if I could find the words, my throat is so dry I couldn’t speak them.
“Jessa,” Kit’s father says in a husky voice.
I hold on to the doorframe, keeping my back straight. I’m aware that my mother has followed me down the stairs and is standing right behind me. Kit’s father glances at her over my shoulder. He takes a deep breath, lifts his chin, and removes his hat before his eyes flicker back to me.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“Who?” I hear myself ask. “Who is it?”
Three months earlier . . .
Oh dear God, who in the name of heaven is he?”
Didi’s grip on my arm is enough
“Kit,” I say, half in answer to Didi, half just for the chance to say his name out loud after so long. My eyes are locked with Kit’s, and when he hears me speak his name, he smiles even wider and walks across the living room toward me.
“Hey, Jessa,” he says. His eyes travel over me, taking me in, before settling on my face. He rubs a hand over his shorn head, a self-conscious gesture that makes the somersaults double in speed. He’s still grinning at me but more sheepishly now.
“Hi,” I say, swallowing. I’m nervous all of a sudden. I haven’t seen him in nine months. I wasn’t sure he was going to be here today, and though I’ve run through this moment dozens—hell, thousands—of times in my head, I find I’m completely unprepared for it now it’s actually happening. In all those imaginings I never once factored in the way he’d make me feel—as though I’ve just taken a running leap off a cliff edge. I’m breathless, almost shaking, finding it hard to hold his steady blue gaze.
He looks older than his twenty-one years. His shoulders are broader, and he’s even more tanned than usual, both facts well emphasized by the white T-shirt he’s wearing. I can feel Didi squeezing my arm with so much force it’s as though she’s trying to stem an arterial bleed, and I know if I turn around I’ll see her drooling unashamedly. She might go to a convent school, but Didi’s prayers center around asking God to deliver her not from trespassers but from her virginity.
“Happy birthday,” Kit says now. He hasn’t taken his eyes off me the whole time, and my skin is warming under his relentless gaze. I can feel my face getting hotter.
“Thanks,” I manage to say, wishing I could come up with a better response, something flirtatious and witty. I know I had something planned for this moment, but my brain has chosen to shut down.
“Hi!”
It’s Didi. She has let go of my arm and now thrusts her hand out toward Kit. “I’m Didi, Jessa’s best friend. You must be Kit. I’ve heard a lot about you.”