Abandoned

Tess woke up alone in a wood of young trees, with the ozone smell of the sea sharp in the air, and the sound of the waves barely discernable over the thudding of her heart.
A thin drizzle began to fall. She had no idea where she was.
Mike, she thought.
She’d thought at the time that he’d taken it well.
He stood on the doorstep as they exchanged the CDs and books each had borrowed, giving back the little pieces of themselves that they’d shared for a time. She’d asked him in, just to be polite.
No.
If she was honest, and she may as well be now, she asked him in because she was too pathetic to tell him to leave. That was the story of her life.
On that first day, Tess stood and looked around at the hard, unknown landscape, crying like a lost child, fear sizzling in her veins. She pushed freezing fingers into the pocket of her jeans and found a scrap of paper there. As she read it, dread closed a fist round her heart, and she fell to her knees. The words on the paper smeared in the rain and ran together like hieroglyphics. It didn’t matter, because she wasn’t going to forget those words for a long time.
You said you could look after yourself, they said. Go ahead and try.