Chapter 14 - The Ticket West
In March, Nora bought another bus ticket west.
This time, nobody knew until she told them.
Not because it was secret.
Because it was hers.
Leah complained that Nora was leaving during the diner’s busiest weekend.
Tasha demanded a postcard.
Priya said, “Have fun,” which felt suspicious coming from an attorney.
Nora was going to Madison to visit her older cousin Beth, the person Cameron had called “poisonous” until Nora stopped returning Beth’s calls.
The trip would last four days.
She paid with her own debit card.
The transaction notification appeared on her phone.
No one texted asking where she was going.
At Union Station, the vending-machine glass reflected her as she crossed the concourse.
Nora slowed.
For one second, she saw Cameron’s face in memory exactly where it had appeared that night.
Smiling.
Patient.
Certain she would go home with him.
The memory still changed her breathing.
It just did not change her direction.
She stopped at the row of lockers.
The old brass key was in her pocket.
She had carried it for five months even though the locker contract had ended and the station had changed part of the system.
She turned it between her fingers.
A small object.
No magic.
No symbolism until people decided to give it some.
She walked to the service counter.
“I think this belongs to one of your old lockers,” she told the attendant.
He examined it.
“Yeah. We replaced these.”
“Do you need it back?”
He shrugged.
“Sure.”
Nora placed it in his palm.
That was all.
No music.
No revelation.
The man dropped it into a plastic bin with six other keys and asked for the next customer.
Nora stood there a moment longer than necessary.
Then she laughed at herself and walked away.
Her bus left from Gate 12.
She bought coffee and sat near the window.
Her phone buzzed.
A notification from one of the credit bureaus.
She did not open it.
Not yet.
The last disputed account could wait until Madison.
Or Monday.
Or the bus stop in Rockford if boredom won.
For two years, every financial notification had felt like a door Cameron might open.
Now it was paperwork.
Important paperwork.
Still paperwork.
A man sat across from her and spread out a newspaper.
A child nearby complained about headphones.
An elderly couple argued about whether they had packed sandwiches.
Ordinary life made noise around her.
Nora drank her coffee.
Twenty minutes before boarding, her phone rang.
Unknown number.
Her stomach tightened.
She let it ring.
Then checked the voicemail transcript.
A bank fraud investigator.
Nothing urgent.
She saved it for later.
Another message arrived from Leah.
DO NOT COME BACK ENGAGED TO ANYONE TERRIFYING.
Nora typed:
No promises. Wisconsin is dangerous.
Leah replied with six laughing emojis.
Nora smiled.
At the gate, the attendant scanned her ticket.
“Nora Bennett?”
For a fraction of a second, hearing her name attached to a transaction still made something in her chest brace.
Then she looked at the printed ticket.
Her name.
Her card.
Her destination.
“Yes,” she said.
The attendant handed it back.
Before boarding, Nora stopped at a kiosk and bought a bottle of water, a bag of pretzels, and a paperback she had wanted for months. She almost calculated the total against the cash in her wallet.
Then she remembered she had already paid rent, packed lunch money, and transferred savings the night before.
She bought the book.
The purchase was small enough to be silly and large enough to make her smile. Cameron used to call unplanned spending irresponsible unless it was his.
Nora slipped the receipt into the paperback as a bookmark.
Nora boarded.
Before she sat, she checked the seat number on her ticket out of habit and laughed when she realized the bus had open seating.
A year earlier, Cameron would have chosen the seat anyway. He preferred the back because he could watch the aisle. He disliked seats near bathrooms. He always took the window and then acted generous when he offered Nora the aisle.
Nora chose a window seat halfway down the bus because the morning light fell across it.
A woman with a purple suitcase asked whether the seat beside her was free.
“Yes,” Nora said.
The woman sat, introduced herself as Carla, and spent five minutes complaining about airline prices before putting in earbuds.
Nora loved her instantly for having no interest in Nora’s history.
When the driver announced a brief delay, Carla groaned and texted someone. Nora did not check whether the delay would make Cameron suspicious, because Cameron was not expecting her anywhere. She did not calculate how late she could return before he became angry. She simply opened the paperback and read six pages.
The bus still had not moved.
Nothing bad happened.
Nora took the window seat halfway down the aisle as if she had always known how.
No one had selected it for her.
No one had checked the exits for her.
No one had promised she would be safe.
She knew better than to demand promises from the world that the world could not keep.
What she had instead was a charged phone, an attorney’s number saved under Priya, Leah’s apartment key returned to Leah, her own lease in her bag, and enough money for the trip without asking permission.
It was less dramatic than protection.
It was more useful.
As the bus pulled away, Chicago moved past the glass in wet gray blocks.
Nora looked once toward the station doors.
Then she faced forward.
Somewhere behind her, investigators were still sorting accounts, attorneys were still trading letters, and Cameron was still responsible for choices Nora could not control. None of those things had reached a neat ending.
She no longer needed them to.
May you like
The bus merged onto the expressway. Nora opened the paperback to the page marked by her receipt and began reading before Chicago disappeared from view.
At the first stop, she realized she had gone nearly an hour without checking her phone. She checked it then, not from fear but because Beth had sent the address for dinner. Nora saved it, put the phone away, and returned to the same paragraph.
