Reni's POV
I knew Noah would be worried after the call this evening. His voice usually made everything feel right again, like the way my dad’s voice sounded the day they found me after three years of searching. But tonight, his words felt heavier than ever. Each syllable was a reminder of how far apart we were, not just physically but in everything. I tried to mask it—tried to sound like I had it all together—but I know Noah. He knew something was wrong.
I wanted to tell him I missed him, that I was falling apart. I wanted to laugh with him, sitting in some random ice cream parlor, where he'd lecture me about sugar while I teased him for being such a joy destroyer. I wanted to say I hadn’t slept well for a while, but it’s worsened since he left. That the voices in my head were louder and stronger and that I was losing control again. But I didn’t. How could I? He was already under so much pressure. It’s hard to admit, but he was a beautiful distraction when he was here. So, why drag him into the water even I am unsure I can swim in??
After I hung up, a suffocating restlessness overtook me. Sitting alone in my bright-colored living room, the walls felt like they were closing in. Without thinking, I grabbed my beige jacket, the one Angie had bought for me from her last trip, and headed out. It was chilly for a late summer evening, but I barely felt it. I walked aimlessly at first, through the dimly lit streets, past quiet cafes and the closed shops, until my feet took me to the beachfront, the place you and I met.
The waves were unusually calm tonight, softly lapping against the shore, but inside me, a storm was raging. I told myself I’d sit by the edge, watch the water like always, and let the quiet soothe me. But I couldn’t stop moving. The pull to the water was stronger than it had ever been. I stepped closer to the waves, my feet sinking into the cool sand. Closer still until I felt the icy water lap at my ankles. But it wasn’t enough. I kept walking, letting the cold seep into my bones as the water climbed higher. I told myself I just needed to feel something different, something stronger than the numbness that had settled deep inside me. But before I knew it, the shore was just a distant memory, and I was waist-deep in the water.
Panic hit me like a wave, hard and unforgiving. What had I done? I couldn’t swim. The cold gripped me, the water pulling at my clothes, tugging me further from the shore. For a moment, a part of me didn’t care. Let the water take me, I thought. Let it end here, in this quiet, cold place. But then Noah’s face flashed in my mind, and I knew that if I let go now, he’d never forgive himself. He’d never understand why. He had been the last person I spoke to.
“Reni! Is that you?” Will’s voice broke through the fog, faint at first but growing closer.
I barely recognized his voice, but it cut through the haze. “Uncle Will, help!” I screamed, my voice trembling with fear. “Please, I… I can’t…”
“Reni! Just plant your feet and walk back!” he shouted. But I couldn’t move. My legs felt like lead, rooted to the ocean floor by fear and exhaustion.
“I can’t… I can’t…” My voice was a whisper now, weaker than the waves that threatened to pull me under. My body refused to obey. I was slipping away.
Without hesitation, Will plunged into the water, his boots sloshing against the current as he reached me. His hands gripped my arms, firm but gentle, and slowly, he dragged me back towards the shore. Each step felt like an eternity. When we finally reached the sand, I collapsed, trembling more from fear than the cold seeping through my soaked clothes.
“Don’t tell Angie,” I whispered, barely audible above the wind. “It wasn’t… it wasn’t intentional.”
“Reni…” Will’s voice was gentle but firm, like a parent about to lecture their child.
“Promise me,” I begged, my eyes pleading with him. “Please.”
He let out a deep sigh, his face a mixture of worry and frustration. “Fine. But go home, Reni. Now.”
I didn’t argue. I was too shaken, too exhausted to stay there any longer. I hurried away, the chill of my wet clothes clinging to my skin as I stumbled back through the dark streets, trying to outrun the thoughts swirling in my head.
Halfway home, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out to see a text from my best friend: “Can’t travel this summer anymore, baby girl. The baby’s coming earlier, and Daniel’s girlfriend is taking him to her hometown. Maybe for Christmas?”
It was like the final blow. Any last bit of strength I had left drained away. By the time I got home, I was too numb to even undress. I curled up on the cold tile floor of my bathroom, still soaked from head to toe, and closed my eyes, letting the darkness take me.
---
The next morning, it hit me just how bad things had gotten. I woke up with a knot in my stomach and a cold, but I tried to shake it off. I went to work as always, dressed in my usual business casual attire, but everything felt off, as if I were moving through a fog. It was as if the world was moving in slow motion, and I was stuck in some endless loop, unable to keep up. Every step I took felt heavy, and every noise around me seemed muffled and distant. It must be the cold.
Worse, there was this eerie feeling that someone was following me. I couldn’t shake the creeping sensation, like there were eyes on me, watching my every move, waiting for me to slip. The crushing sense of doom was overwhelming, making my heart race and my hands tremble as I tried to focus on the simplest tasks.
By the time Brandon, my boss, walked into my office, I was barely holding it together. He stood in the doorway for a moment, looking at me with concern that I couldn’t ignore. I had never seen him look at me like that before. His usual brisk, businesslike demeanor was gone, replaced by something softer, more personal.
“Reni, are you okay?” he asked, his brow furrowed. “Your team says they haven’t been able to reach you. No emails, no calls.”
I blinked, confused. “What? I’ve been here,” I stammered, though even as I said it, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d responded to an email or picked up a call in the last few days. The panic started rising in my chest, sharp and insistent.
“Breathe, Reni,” Brandon said gently, walking closer. His voice was calm, but there was an edge of worry. “You’ve been doing an amazing job since you started here, but maybe it’s time you take a break. You’ve been under a lot of stress lately. We can manage without you for a little while—just take some time to rest.”
It was the first time he had ever spoken to me about anything other than work. His concern was genuine, and that terrified me more than anything. My chest tightened, and I could feel the walls closing in on me. The fluorescent lights above seemed too bright, the air too thick.
“I think I need to go to the hospital,” I muttered, barely recognizing my own voice. The words slipped out before I even knew what I was saying. “…for the cold.”
Brandon’s expression softened even more, his hand reaching out to pat mine. My hands were clenched so tightly that my knuckles were pale. “Take the time you need,” he said quietly. “We’ve got things covered here. Just focus on yourself.”
As soon as he left, I felt like I was suffocating. I couldn’t stay there. The weight of everything I’d been holding inside crashed down on me all at once. I grabbed my bag, sent a quick out-of-office email without much thought, and rushed out. The moment I stepped into the hallway, I knew I couldn’t stay at home for the time off. Not this time.
Without any real plan, I drove back to my apartment, packed a few clothes into the old duffle bag I’d picked up in Australia years ago, booked the next available flight, and headed straight for Noah’s vacation home in California. It was an impulse, a desperate need to escape, but in that moment, it felt like the only option. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going, not even Noah. I just grabbed the keys he left for me and my friends, threw the duffle into the backseat, and made my way to the airport.
It wasn’t until I was halfway on the flight to California that I realized I’d left my phone behind. For a split second, I panicked, but then I told myself maybe it was for the best. No one could reach me. No one could bother me. Maybe this was the break I needed.
The air felt different when I finally stepped into California—cooler but sturdier like it had a weight of its own. I hadn’t been back here since I moved to Miami, but it was familiar. Too familiar. My family was still here, scattered across the state, and in a way, I felt like half my life was still stuck in California, waiting for me. When I left, I had promised myself I’d come back whole and free, but standing here now, I knew I wasn’t any of those things. I stood at the airport gates for almost an hour like someone waiting to be picked up, even though I knew that wasn’t happening. No one knew I left Miami for California on a Thursday afternoon. I just couldn’t decide whether to rent a car or stop a cab. What if the cab man takes me away again? It’s not like I knew the way to the vacation home to know when he gets off the route. I finally decided to rent a car, which only increased the number of mistakes I made on this day.
Navigating the roads felt like retracing old scars. I had written Noah’s vacation home address in my planner, which I always tucked in my work bag. Perks of being a planner, I guess. But even with the address, because I didn’t have a map, I got lost a few times. Each wrong turn increased anxiety in my chest. I was forced to ask strangers for directions, and the fear of trusting the wrong person or ending up as some tragic headline on the evening news made it worse. My hands shook on the steering wheel, my pulse racing with every honk from the impatient drivers behind me.
Tears welled in my eyes, blurring the road before me, but I couldn’t stop. I just kept driving, my grip on the wheel tightening with every mile. By the time I finally reached the house, it was almost midnight. The tears were flowing freely, but I was too exhausted to care.
When I got to the house, I realized, again, what a terrible idea this had all been. The house wasn’t just big—it was massive. Too massive. Calling it a house felt wrong; it was more like a mansion. The ceilings were impossibly high, and the rooms were cavernous, filled with too much space, too much quiet. Every sound I made seemed to echo, swallowed by the emptiness. At night, it was even worse. The darkness settled over everything, thick and oppressive. I turned on every light in the house, but it didn’t matter. The emptiness still pressed in on me, making me feel small and insignificant.
I wandered through the house, my footsteps soft on the marble floors, feeling like a stranger in someone else’s life. I sat on the edge of the massive king-sized bed, staring at the ceiling, my mind racing but my body too tired to move. I thought escaping here would make me feel better, but now I was more alone than ever. The house was beautiful, yes, but it was cold and soulless, and at that moment, I realized I wasn’t running towards something—I was running away. And the emptiness I was trying to escape? It had followed me here.
I broke down into tears, unable to find the words to pray. I tried to focus on the Bible scriptures I knew, to steady my mind, but all I could do was struggle—struggle to find peace, struggle to keep my heartbeat steady, struggle to catch my breath. Tears poured relentlessly, and my body trembled uncontrollably, refusing to calm down. All night, I wrestled with myself, trying to stop the overwhelming flood of emotions that I couldn’t understand or control.
The next day was no better. I spiraled deeper, feeling the voices from my past trailing me, louder, more persistent. I couldn’t escape them. No matter how far I ran, they followed, their haunting whispers drowning out everything else. I cried myself to sleep that night, curled up in a corner of the massive, empty house. I felt so small, so insignificant, wishing I could just disappear, that the world would forget me entirely. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and worst of all, I couldn’t pray. Prayer had always been my refuge, but now it felt like God was distant, like He had turned His back on me just when I needed Him the most.
I thought about calling Remi, my brother, just to hear his voice and to let him know how desperately I needed him. But I couldn’t. I knew how much he had suffered, too, and how hard it was for him to carry the weight of our shared trauma. I didn’t want to pull him back into that darkness. And then there was Noah. He was already stressed out with his schedule; the last thing I wanted was to drag him into my mess. Even if I wanted to reach out, my phone was back home, forgotten in my panic to get away. So, I kept silent, hoping I could fix myself before anyone realized how broken I truly was. I hoped that God would notice me and that He would finally see my struggle and step in. But it had been seventeen years of begging, crying, and pleading for freedom from this pain, and yet God still seemed to look the other way. Couldn’t He see how much I was hurting? Couldn’t He tell that I was losing my grip on reality? Or was He waiting for me to end up in a psychiatric ward again?
I didn’t want to go back there. I had been twice before—once when I was ten and again when I was fifteen. I promised myself I would never return. When I gave my life to Christ at seventeen, I swore to leave self-harm and thoughts of death behind. But now, stuck here, alone in this house, all those memories came flooding back—the dark places I thought I had escaped. Each time I closed my eyes, I was back in that basement again. I was seven, eight, nine, ten years old, and she was there—the madwoman who had tormented me. Her laugh echoed in my mind, her hands striking me when I didn’t respond quickly enough. I could still smell the cigarette smoke she used to blow in my face; I could still trace the parts of my body she used to put out the cigarettes. I still see her body slumped over after another overdose.
I remember scrubbing my skin raw at ten years old, trying desperately to wash away her stench. I bled from how hard I scrubbed, but no amount of water could erase what she had done. The memory of my brother’s face when he saw me bleeding is stuck in my mind—he was so scared, but I just laughed hysterically with tears streaming down my face. That was the last thing I remembered before waking up in the psychiatric ward, my first time there. I stayed for seven months.
The second time, when I was fifteen, was worse. I had gone from crying all night to seeing things—visions that weren’t there, shadows lurking where they shouldn’t be. My parents knew I needed help again, and they sent me back. Nine months this time. After I was discharged, they introduced me to a therapist. Her name was Mary. Mary loved me, but she didn’t pity me like everyone around me did, so I loved her too. She became everything I needed at that time. She was a friend, parent, therapist, pastor, whatever. She had led me to Christ. Not that my parents didn’t, but she was the first person to endlessly explain the love of God to me. I remember the joy in her eyes when I got baptized in her husband’s church.
Mary helped me, and for those years, I was better. She was an angel. She was the reason I believed that God saw me. But I stopped seeing her a few months ago—not by choice, but because she passed away from a long-term heart condition. She died just a few days before you and I met at the beachfront. She was why I was there. It was the beginning of everything again. I tried, I really tried to keep it together for her sake. She would hate to see me like this. She would have scolded me for refusing to get another therapist. She would have said, “Healing is not a straight path, Reni. Healing is still happening, even on the hard days. You’ve faced your pain before, and I know you can face it again.” I wished she stayed a little longer with me. Now, a part of me regretted that I never accepted a new therapist. Maybe if I had, I wouldn’t feel so lost now, but who knows me like Mary? I have so many questions. Why does a good God allow so much evil? How can a good God watch good people die?
My heart shattered for that little girl—the girl who was me. The more I remembered, the more I realized I had never truly escaped her. She was still there, inside me, and no amount of running could change that.