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The scene at the breakfast table is so reminiscent and yet so far removed from that morning three months ago that I want to weep.
But then these days I weep a lot.
I’m heartsick. Pining for Monroe with a ferocity that stuns me to my soul.
Mom sends me a furtive glance before she pushes the plate toward me. “More pancakes, sweetheart? They’re your favorite,” she says, as if the liberally sprinkled chocolate chips aren’t evident.
My automatic response is to shake my head, but I hesitate at the last moment.
I don’t want Mom and Dad freaking out even more than they’ve been quietly worrying over me these last few months.
I wish I could ease their concerns, but I can’t slap a band-aid over the weeping wounds of my heartache.
I feel like I’m holding my breath, waiting for my life to truly start and they’re holding theirs right along with me.
It’s not fair on them. I wish I could spare them the pain.
But without Monroe I can’t eat, sleep or think. I exist in suspended animation of heartache and tears.
Part of me wishes I’d stayed in California for another week when the semester ended, but I was crawling out of my skin with missing Monroe.
At least being in the same state where I last saw him helps a fraction, even though some government authority had put a blanket radio silence over the prison until the riot is investigated and not even my father could override it.
On top of that, I’d come home only to discover that Monroe had been transferred out of Wrexton Prison in the middle of the night, whereabouts unknown.
I had a moment of wrenching pain when I thought Dad had authorized it. But he reassured me he had nothing to do with it and I believed him. And after witnessing my wild freak out, he’d sat me in his home office and I’d listened in as he’d contacted everyone he knew for information.
So far efforts to find Monroe have come up with zilch.
My reaction when I found out he’d disappeared had nearly killed my parents.
On the smallest of plus sides, I managed to scrape myself together to do justice to the paper I’d gone to the prison to interview Monroe for in the first place.
I’m pretty sure the extenuating circumstances of what happened to me at the prison that day went a long way into my professor giving me an A+ on my assignment.
And while the events of that day were traumatizing enough to give me a few bad dreams in the weeks that followed, it’s missing Monroe and not knowing his whereabouts that finds me sobbing uncontrollably at the drop of a hat.
On top of everything else, it’s just easier to let everyone believe the hellish hours I’d endured during the prison riot is what’s making walk around like a zombie.
What they don’t know is I believed him that day when he swore he’d keep me safe.
And he’d kept his word.
Sure, the way I clung to him in those last moments raised a few eyebrows when that tidbit was leaked on mainstream news and social media, but who’s going to question the poor victim who came within inches of being savaged by brutal inmates?
I summon a smile and a nod and Dad rushes forward to place another fluffy pancake on my plate, nudging the maple and chocolate syrup bottles closer.
I force myself to eat it because just like that morning three months ago, I need something from him. And he knows what’s coming when I set down my fork and fold my hands in my lap.
We do this a few times every week.
“Have…have you heard anything?”
Worry flits through his eyes as he shakes his head. “No. Nothing new, sweetheart. I’m sorry.”
Tears spring into my eyes and I dash them away, fear, frustration and worry drilling deeper into my heart. “But…he can’t just have disappeared. Someone has to know something!” My wail makes Mom’s eyes mist, her hand reaching for mine across the kitchen island but Dad frowns a little.
I know he heard the rumors but neither he nor Mom have come out and asked me what really happened or why I was seen clinging to Gage Monroe and screaming his name after I was rescued.
