You can’t run forever.

She hadn’t wanted to run forever, but the one chance she had at stopping kept eluding her.

The words chased her as she made her way to the bus station. Chased her, haunted her, mocked her.

Even with those words echoing in her head, even with the memory of Quinn’s face with those somber, quiet eyes, she managed to get to the bus station without breaking down.

She got through the ticket line without breaking.

She even managed to hold it together for the first few minutes as she paced in endless circles, watching the clock tick away the minutes. But then, as the hour hand began to creep closer to the 3, it got harder and harder to hold the tears back.

They burned her eyes, lodged in her throat, threatened to choke her, and finally, she couldn’t fight it anymore. Dashing into the bathroom, she locked herself in a stall and broke down. Harsh, ugly sobs tore from her throat.

The tears blinded her. The pain deafened her. Lost in misery, minutes ticked away and by the time the storm of grief began to ease, her throat was sore, her eyes burned, and her head pounded.

She slipped out of the stall and hoped nobody had come in while she was indulging in her breakdown. Her hopes were dashed as a woman slipped out of the stall next to hers.

Studiously ignoring the other woman, Sara made her way to the sink, rolling her little carry-on behind her. The strap of her duffel was cutting into her skin, but she wasn’t about to take it off. She’d had one stolen before and if she hadn’t already learned the lesson of keeping her cash on her body, she might have been up a creek.

With a flick of her wrists, she turned on the tap and bent over the sink, splashing cold water in her face. A quick glance in the mirror told her that the water hadn’t done much to help, but at least there weren’t dried tear tracks on her face now.

She braced her hands on the sink and stared at her reflection. Red-rimmed, unhappy eyes stared back at her. Her mouth was unsmiling, her face was paler than normal. Her hair, that nondescript, drab brown, fell into her face and she shoved it back, fighting a wave of helpless anger.

She looked pretty much like shit.

Fitting, since that was precisely how she felt.

You can’t run forever.

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Sorry…no snippets over the weekend!