The doctor had come a couple hours later - a couple hours of squirming in wait, knowing I could do nothing else. The nurse, in the meantime, had got my clothes, ragged and bloody as they were, and I'd gone home.

If you could call the traveling caravan home, I suppose.

A change of clothes, though, as well as a shower, did nothing to alter my mood, and after pulling myself together, I pulled something out of the hotel room dresser.

A simple journal, leather bound. It was nearing the end of its pages, but perhaps had room for a single entry more.

So I write.

I don't know what went wrong. I don't know why I couldn't do things the way I'd intended, without becoming tangled in a web of deceptions. We all told lies then, and we know it.

But I'm sorry.

I want you to have this, the journal that caused my heart to blaze for the vengeance I've finally followed through on. I just wish you hadn't been involved.

I can't stay here, and while I'll miss you, maybe it's for the best. Don't try to find me, it's not worth it.

I sigh softly, feeling more tears splash down my face, onto the paper, blurring ink.

I'm sorry I never told you I loved you back.

Fingers carefully closed the book, gingerly placing it into my purse.

The drive to the hospital is excruciatingly long, the walk down the hospital corridor even longer. Finally, though, I stop at the door, pausing only to keep my composure as I gaze in on him.

Sleeping. Tied to a million different hospital gadgets, yet looking so unconcerned. Almost arrogant in his obliviousness.

Arrogant. Like I'd seen him before.

After a few moments, though, I step into the room, silent as not to wake him. The book is placed on his nightstand, and I lean over, fighting back tears, to press one gentle kiss to his forehead.

A wordless goodbye before I turn and walk out the door.

The drive away hurts the most, but tomorrow, I start over. Tomorrow, I change my looks, if only with a cheap box of hair dye and colored contacts. Tomorrow, I change my name.

Hailey Beckford will no longer exist; the pretty blonde with captivating eyes died the moment she left that hospital room.

Hannah's a pretty name though, a new start. Hannah Elizabeth, I think. Hannah Elizabeth Orton.

While I will never be there to see him again, I won't forget.
I never do.