It was too late to turn back now. Standing on the threshold of Oak Hill, Sandy Bradshaw gazed back down the hill at the town she had grown up in, had her first kiss and love in, where she spent days down the creek with her friends and nights camping in the woods, roasting marshmallows and telling ghost stories. Life had been so serene back then, so easy to live day-by-day.

Sandy touched the scar on her face, running straight across the left cheek. She felt a single tear wet her fingers.

No, she thought, I can’t wallow in the past. What is done, is done.

She started at the fainted sound of an owl hooting. She had never been this way: afraid of the slightest movements and furthest of sounds. But he had made her this way. He had done this to her. And now here she was with his car, his money, his phone. And there he was, sound sleep in the distance sleeping off the pills.

She threw the phone to ground so hard it cracked and pieces flew about. She stomped on it until it was as broken of a mess as her life had become since the day she met him. That would slow him down.

Sandy got back in her car and steadily drove away, not watching her old life distance itself. When Sandy Bradshaw left Oak Hills, she vowed never to return.