Jeffery's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

The trail spit Melody out at the forest's edge by morning. The two glowing girls faded with the dawn. His white cat trotted ahead, tail up, sure of the way. Melody followed it to a parked camper. Cameras ringed the small vehicle, mounted at every corner, their lenses turned outward like watching eyes. She stopped in the dirt. She knew this setup. Jeffery had built one just like it. The camper door hung open. Inside, a phone buzzed on a narrow shelf. One message waited. She picked it up. The screen showed his name. Her chest went tight. "I'm sorry," the message read. "I lied about the woods. I was scared of losing you. Come back. I'll make it right. I love you. There's no one out there for you but me." She read it twice. Every line was a hook she had swallowed before. The apology was a door he wanted her to walk through. She set the phone down on the shelf. She thought of her cousin, who had stopped calling months ago. She thought of the Thursday coffee friend who had vanished without a word. She thought of her journal, buried in a drawer, and the dancing she no longer did. Jeffery had cleared the room around her until only he was left. He had always said she had no one. Standing here, alone, she almost believed it was true. Her hand went to the wooden ring on her finger. He had carved it himself and called it proof. Proof he loved her. She had kept it through three days of circles and lies. She twisted it now. The warm grain caught the morning light. The cat pressed against her bare ankle. It did not go back toward the woods. It stayed with her, facing forward, the way it had refused to go to him. "He wants me to think I have no one," Melody said. The cat blinked up at her. "So I only have him." She pulled the ring off. It fit her hand so well that her finger looked wrong without it. She held it over the shelf, next to the glowing phone, and let it drop. It rolled once and stopped against the screen. She did not send a reply. She did not go back. She stepped down from the camper into the dirt. The cameras tracked her as she walked, their lenses turning. Somewhere, she knew, Jeffery was watching the feed, waiting to see which way she went. Melody turned away from the woods. She chose the open road instead, the cat trotting at her heel. Behind her, the phone kept glowing, his words unread, the ring beside them untouched. She had no one left. She had believed that for months. Now she understood he had made it so. And she kept walking anyway.