Outside the Lines: A Novel

After sitting in his room a minute, David had gone to tell Eden a cup of coffee was actually a great idea, trying to be cordial after his angry outburst the night before. When he got to her bedroom door, he heard her talking on the phone. She was crying. He knew he shouldn’t, but he pressed his ear up against the door.

“I think I need to commit him” were the only words he needed to hear before he spun back around.

Over my dead body, he thought. I’m not going to get locked up like that again. Who did she think she was, tracking him down like an animal and then trying to trap him in a cage? He loved his daughter, yes, but he would not stand for this. Not again. He refused to let Eden treat him like her mother had. He’d leave before that happened. He’d leave right now.

David tiptoed back down the hall and grabbed whatever clothes he could stuff into his backpack from the dresser. He left the pills, of course. Let her see that and understand for once and all that she could not force him to swallow them. He was done being medicated. Evil rhythms chanted in his head, urging him on, telling him it was the right thing to leave. They even told him to sneak some money from her purse—just enough to buy a bottle and a room to sleep in. He grabbed his sketch pad and his pencils and out the back door he went.

It was a cold, dark December morning. Sharp little pellets of frozen rain struck him as he moved down the street. He didn’t care. He put his head down, tucked his hands into his pockets as deep as they would go. He would find a room, then a liquor store when one opened. That was all he needed to be well and he’d be damned if he’d let anyone tell him anything different.