Escape by Francine Pascal

“Don’t make me feel like any more of a loser than I already do.”
    â€œNo, I’m the loser,” Gaia insisted.
    â€œMr. and Mrs. Loser.” He sighed.
    â€œOh, you’re proposing now?”
    â€œWould you say yes?”
    Gaia’s entire face froze. Now Ed knew for sure that they were drifting apart. She couldn’t even tell when he was kidding anymore. Which, of course, he was. Mostly. No, of course he was kidding. Mostly. . .
    â€œ Kidding, Gaia,” he groaned. “Just kidding.”
    â€œI know, ” she scoffed. Ed could see her start to breathe again. “I know that.”
    He gripped her hand tightly and leaned closer. “Gaia. . . if something has happened to your dad, tell me what it is.”
    She looked deeper into his eyes, barely blinking for the next few seconds as she seemed to consider his demand.
    â€œI don’t know what it is,” she stated.
    â€œWhat? What does that mean?”
    Gaia suddenly pulled her hand away, leaning back awkwardly against her seat. “Look, he’s. . . he’s been transferred out of the hospital, and we’re. . . they’re not sure where he is.”
    Ed’s eyes widened with disbelief. “The hospital lost him?” He didn’t doubt Gaia; it was just the most ludicrous thing he’d ever heard.
    â€œThey just. . .” Gaia looked more and more anxious to make a run for it. Ed could see her eyes darting yearningly toward the staircase that led to the exit. He couldn’t believe, after everything they’d been through, that getting the truth from her about her struggles was still like pulling teeth . “I just need to find him,” she concluded. “That’s all.”
    Ed’s stomach twisted itself into a knot. He couldn’t fathom how she could have gone all this time without telling him something this massive. “Well, I’ll help you find him,” he insisted. “Jesus, we’ve been sitting herehaving dinner and you don’t know where your father is? Why didn’t you just tell me? We could have been looking for him this entire time. We could have been suing the crap out of that hospital. God, I hate hospitals. We should be making calls, we should be calling every goddamn hospital in—”
    â€œEd, no !” Gaia snapped, slapping her hand down on the table.
    Ed went silent. He had no idea what to make of her sudden outburst. Every time she opened her mouth, she seemed to make less and less sense. “Gaia. . . what the hell is the matter with y—?”
    â€œEd, I love you, but you are out of all of this, do you understand?” She lowered her voice to an intensely urgent Whisper. “I won’t drag you back into it, do you hear? Not any of it.” Ed could only sit and watch as tears began to well up in her eyes. She gripped the table tightly as her words became more and more frenzied. “I don’t want you to be my trusty sidekick, or my knight in shining armor, or the dead body lying on top of my dead body in some tragically romantic Romeo and Juliet death scene. I just want you to be my boyfriend. My boyfriend who is alive and. . . and safe and. . . here . Do you understand? I need to do it alone so that when it’s done, when it’s finally finished . . . I can come home to you.”
    Ed could see a thousand different thoughts tugging away at her mouth for airtime. This had to be morehonesty than she had ever spewed out in one sitting, and Ed could tell from the look on her face that it hurt. It was physically painful for Gaia to talk like this.
    â€œGaia, it’s all right,” Ed promised her. “I understand, okay? I do. You don’t have to be so—”
    â€œI have to go now,” she interrupted, swiping the tears too forcefully from her eyes as she stood up out of her chair.
    â€œGaia, wait,” he said gently, standing