Page 91 of Into Pitch

Her shoulders slump, and she presses her lips together like she’s holding herself upright by sheer will alone.

“They found a guy,” She blurts suddenly, my brow arching. “We went… to this thing and he was also there. They found him dead.”

She means Pitch. She’s just not aware that I know about it and… well, participated.

My eyes glide down to the tremor in her hands and the way her breathing stutters at the revelation she has spewed out at me. “I’m sorry, I guess she didn’t tell me of any event. Are you scared that this event, the dead man, and Sadie have a connection?”

She nods, glad that I have caught on.

“Sadie wouldn’t just disappear,” she whispers. “She doesn’t do that. She fights and runs, sure, but she always checks in. Always.”

I want to tell her she has contradicted herself, but keep those words to myself. She doesn’t need me pressing down onto her jumbled thoughts that way.

“She was overwhelmed, and she’s been carrying a lot for a long time.” I offer softly.

“That doesn’t mean she’d leave without a word,” Imogen snaps, then winces. “Sorry. I just— I don’t know what to do.”

I nod and reach for her shoulder, gently squeezing it in reassurance. “Fear makes everything louder, I understand.”

She exhales shakily. “I keep thinking I missed something, you know? Like if I’d pushed her harder or backed off sooner—”

Ah, guilt. That too is predictable. People always assume responsibility when they don’t have the answers. It’s tedious, and does no one any good. Especially not the aggrieved.

“You didn’t cause this,” I assure. “Whatever is happening, it isn’t because you failed her.”

I watch as she swallows hard, her eyes shining. “Thank you,” she whispers.

I try for a small, reassuring smile. “If she contacts me, you’ll be the first to know.”

It’s a lie, but a compassionate one. She only just nods to me and leaves a few minutes later, still shaking and lost.

I watch her go without any real emotional disturbance. Sympathy, yes—but it’s distant and abstract. Sadie’s absence is a wound for her, that much is clear, but for me it is just a state of equilibrium. Everything will work out the way it is meant to, I just need a little more time. Sadie won’t be gone forever, and when she returns she will have all the tools she needs to go forward and a story to explain away her absence.

I finish my mug of coffee and return to the break room to rinse out my mug. Setting it back upside down in the drying rack. Then, I go about my day.

I schedule a few sessions and cancel others. I make sure my calendar looks boring and normal. Deciding to stay a while longer for visibility. Just a few days.

Long enough to satisfy most’s curiosity and long enough to let the search burn itself out.

Everything feels and sounds different when he’s gone.

Not quieter, but emptier. Like the walls exhaled when he left and then forgot how to pull the air back in.

I stand in the middle of the living room with my arms folded tight across my chest, staring at the door he walked out of just yesterday. The same door he told me not to try and the same door that might as well be painted onto the wall for all the good it does me without a car.

I begin to pace, because the stillness makes my thoughts too loud. I don’t scream, it seems worthless. I don’t throw anything or cry. All of that feels useless when the person I want to aim it at isn’t here to see it.

So I do the thing I’ve always done when something doesn’t make sense. I get busy being nosey.

It begins as something small and absent-minded. A drawer opened here. A cabinet there. Nothing too invasive, at least not at first. I tell myself I’m just familiarizing myself with the space since I hadn’t done it when Alex was here. That the act of snooping somehow reclaims some of my control.

That lie lasts about ten minutes.

Alex doesn’t live here, not really. The cabin feels borrowed and too temporary. There are no personal touches beyond what he brought for me; paint, food I like, books he clearly chose with me in mind.

That, more than anything, is unsettling.

I find my way into the bedroom that we share and push within. I choose first the dresser he had claimed as his own. The top drawer is clothes; black and grey, folded with precision that borders on obsessive. It’s him to a T.