The morning sun spilled through the farmhouse window like a quiet reminder — time was still moving, even if they were standing still.


Clyde was healing, slowly. The fever broke after the third night. The pain dulled. The color began to return to his face. But something inside Layla hadn’t healed at all. Not yet.


She sat alone at the kitchen table, reading a crumpled envelope addressed to a name she hadn’t used in years: Alayna Monroe.


Inside was a letter from her mother.


Dear Alayna,

I heard about what happened in Baton Rouge. The news didn’t say your name, but I knew it was you. I felt it in my bones. If you’re out there, just know that I still pray for you. You don’t have to come home. Just… don’t die out there, baby girl. Don’t let this world eat you whole.


Love,

Momma


Layla folded the letter carefully, eyes burning.


She hadn’t seen her mother in almost a decade. The last memory she had was of her mom crying on the kitchen floor, begging her drunk father not to hit her again. Layla left that night and never looked back.


Later that afternoon, Clyde found her sitting out by the barn, the letter beside her.


“You okay?” he asked.


Layla nodded, though her voice cracked. “I never thought I’d hear from her again.”


Clyde sat down beside her, his shoulder stiff but steady. “You want to go back someday?”


She was quiet for a long time. Then: “No. I don’t think I was ever meant to stay in that house. But maybe I needed to know… someone still gives a damn.”


Clyde reached into his back pocket and pulled out a worn photo.


It showed a teenage boy — Clyde at fifteen — standing beside a man with sad eyes and calloused hands.


“My pops,” he said. “He was a mechanic. Honest man. Worked himself into the grave. Cops beat him to death during a traffic stop. Said he reached for something in the glove box.”


Layla’s breath caught.


“That’s when I stopped believing in the law,” he said. “And when I learned how to break locks.”


Layla touched the edge of the photo gently. “You never told me that.”


He shrugged. “Didn’t want you to love me less.”


She looked him dead in the eyes. “Clyde Kingston, there is no version of this life where I don’t love you.”


That night, they buried their ghosts.


They lit a fire in the field and tossed in the letter, the photo, and every lie they ever told themselves about what life was supposed to be.


No more looking back.


From now on, it was only forward.


The next morning, they mapped their route to Mexico.


Two towns. Three stolen cars. One fake passport. Cash hidden in coffee cans, sewed into jacket linings, wrapped inside baggies at the bottom of Layla’s duffel.


Clyde kissed her hand and whispered, “This is it.”


Layla smiled, but her eyes didn’t match. “Then let’s make it count.”