“We need to get her out of that house before she has the chance to hurt anyone else,” Michael said.

“Agreed,” Rob said. “Do you want to press charges?”

Adam looked at the two of them, not knowing what to do about her.

“No, I don’t think that would do any good,” Michael said. “Sarah is mentally insane. She needs help. She needs to be locked up in a mental institution, not a prison.”

“I’ll call some of the guys at the precinct and ask how we should go about removing her from the house and getting her into a place where she can’t hurt anyone else, and where she can get the care and medicines that she obviously needs.”

“We need to stop,” I said.

“Stop what?” Michael asked.

“All of this. The Sanctuary, trying to manifest my mother’s wishes. It all needs to stop.”

All three guys looked at me with concern and confusion on their faces.

“But this was what you said you wanted,” Michael reminded me.

“Yeah, I know. But this,” I said as I motioned toward all the tubes poking out of Adam’s arm and stomach, which had helped flush his body of the poison that could have killed him. “This craziness and damage are not what I wanted. I was a fool to think that this was going to work out. We’re in over our heads and we need to end it.”

“And by end, you mean what?” Michael asked.

“I mean give it all up, hand it all over to someone else to deal with and be done trying to fulfill my mother’s wishes.”

“You sure you want to do that?” Adam asked. “You’ve been trying to avenge and honor your mother ever since the day she was killed.”

“I’m sure,” I said.

After Adam was discharged from the hospital and we were all back at the house, the first thing that the guys wanted to do was to get Sarah out of there. I did too, but I also wanted to know why she had done something as horrible as trying to kill someone. The guys protested, but I wanted a couple of minutes to talk to her alone. Of course, Michael still stood right outside of the closed door to Sarah’s bedroom, just in case I needed him so that he could be within earshot. But when I asked Sarah why she did it, she simply stared at me and had no answer to give at all.

When I left her room, I knew that my decision to walk away from all of this was the right one. I realized that I couldn’t try to be like my mother any longer, and that I couldn’t run this place the way that my mother would have wanted. I had spent so long trying to fulfill the empty hole in my heart that my mother left behind when she died. I had tried to fill it by chasing after anything that reminded me of her, including trying to be her. I tried to do the things that I thought would make her proud of me and that would honor the memory of the kind of woman that she was. And I now realized that I had finally found closure in letting go. I let go of my mother’s wishes and came to terms with the fact that my mother would just want me to be happy and to live my own life. Maybe I had to go through all of those other things first, so that I could finally know that it was okay to let go and to move on.

It wasn’t nearly as difficult handing The Sanctuary over to someone else, as it was getting it all set up. In fact, the process was so fast and simple that it was symbolically like closing a door. Rob had managed to get a friend from the precinct to arrange for Sarah’s transport to a nearby institution. They made an agreement that as long as Sarah was being confined to the institution and being treated for her mental illness, that no charges would be brought against her. Ownership of The Sanctuary was transferred, and the four of us got packed and ready to head back up to Asheville. This time, it was unlikely that all of us would remain there for too long. We talked about it and decided that all of the guys would stay together at the cabin for a little while longer to decompress from everything that had happened here and rebuild our relationships to bring everyone back to a good place. Then, Adam and Rob would find their own places to live somewhere nearby so that we could still all hang out as friends. Michael and I would stay together in the cabin.

It didn’t take long to get things packed up and ready to go. We didn’t have that much in the way of material things that we cared about anymore. Really, all that any of us cared about and wanted was just to leave together and get back to the place that we loved. This time, before we got in the car, we stopped to take our last breath of Charlotte.

“We’re not coming back here again this time, right?” Rob asked.

“Right,” I said. “Never, ever again.”

It felt good to get in the car this time. We weren’t running from anything. We weren’t leaving each other. We were simply closing the door on all of this and heading toward a new future. This time it was a choice, not a reaction. And this time we were all equally on board. There was no one calling the shots; we were all equally vested in the futures that we would create.

“I can’t wait to get back to the cabin and crack open that first bottle of whiskey,” Michael said.

“Hopefully sans the poison this time,” Adam chuckled sarcastically.

“Yes, definitely without the poison.”

I looked out the window as we pulled away and my stomach churned a little bit. I felt good about everything that we were doing, so it wasn’t nerves. In fact, this was the most at ease that I had felt in months. Hopefully it wasn’t a bout of carsickness, but thankfully Asheville wasn’t that long of a drive.

“You okay?” Michael asked as he sat beside me.

Rob was driving this time, with Adam in the passenger seat, and Michael and I in the back. Michael reached his hand over to hold mine against my lap.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired, I think,” I said as I looked out the window and watched the tree line blur by as we drove.

I rested my head against his shoulder and dozed off for a little bit. When I opened my eyes again, I felt too nauseous to ignore. I sat up straight and tried to calm my stomach by looking straight ahead in the car instead of at the moving horizon outside of the window.

“Lisette,” Michael said with concern. “You look really pale. Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

I looked up and saw Rob staring back at me through the rearview mirror. Adam turned around in his seat to look back at me too. All three of them wore the same look of concern on their faces.

“Yeah, actually I don’t feel so well,” I said.

“Rob, pull over,” Michael said. “I’ll get some cold water from the cooler in the trunk.”

When the car pulled the side of the road, Michael got out to grab me some water, but it wasn’t in time to calm my stomach. I got straight out of the car and stumbled over to the side of the road and threw up. Michael immediately came over to me and held my hair until I had finished, and then handed me a cold bottle of water. I stood up and felt dizzy and weak. The cold water felt good as it ran down the inside of my rough throat. Michael rubbed my back as I stood outside for a minute and leaned up against the car. Adam and Rob got out to stretch their legs and check on me.

“I’m not sure what came over me,” I said. “I feel better now; it just kind of hit me like a wave.”

After that, I was fine for the rest of the ride to Asheville.

19

The sickness kept coming in waves, even days after we arrived in Asheville. Some days I would feel fine, and others I would wretch my guts out. The guys decided to stick around and not go looking for their own places until I felt better, so that they could be around to comfort me while I was feeling ill. It was crappy timing to have fallen sick. This was supposed to be our time to enjoy together before the guys headed out on their own paths. Rob was still working on his cycle, which he was having shipped up to the mountains in a couple of weeks, and he was even thinking about maybe opening up a shop to restore and customize old motorcycles since he had enjoyed working on it so much and seemed to have a knack for it. Adam had decided that he was going to start freelancing. He always had an artistic talent and now, nestled here in the mountains, it would be the perfect time for him to explore that passion and maybe craft a living out of it. There was more excitement and contentment for a new start, than there was any animosity left between the guys. I was just bummed that on most of the nights, I didn’t feel well enough to join them for a glass (or several) of whiskey by the bonfire. It was nice though, to see them all acting like friends again and watching them laugh and talk into the late hours by the crackling fire.

It wasn’t until about a week into being back in Asheville, that I realized it.

With everything that we had gone through back in Charlotte, it was just so good to feel relaxed and free, that even being sick hadn’t caused me any reason to worry. Until, that is, I realized how late I was. My period had always arrived like clockwork. I’d never, ever been late before. I hadn’t been paying any attention to my cycle at all. But then, when I reached for the pack of birth control that I was usually pretty good about remembering to take; I saw that I had already swallowed all of the green placebo pills and was starting back up on the white ones again. The only problem was—my period had never come.

Suddenly I started to panic, as I put together the sickness with the late (or missing) period. As scared as I was about the possibility of being pregnant, I was still too scared to tell the guys. I would just wait it out and see what happened. Eventually, the sickness would either stop, or not.

Eventually, I would either get my period, or not.

But the more that I tried to ignore the possibility of it, the more worried I became. Until finally, I couldn’t stand not knowing anymore.

“Hey, can we take a trip into town to go to the drugstore?” I asked as we all sat around the table eating the amazing venison stew that Adam had made. Who knew he was such a great cook?

“Of course,” Michael answered. “You want me to just run and pick up whatever it is that you need so that you can stay here and relax?”

“No thanks,” I said as I tried to sound casual about it. “I just feel like browsing around a store a little bit.”

“The drugstore probably isn’t the most exciting store to browse,” Rob chuckled.