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I keep thinking I’ll walk through the lounge or the bedroom and find her miraculously back, reading one of her books. Sleeping has become impossible. I’m lucky if I catch a few hours a night, if I can rest at all.
Somehow, it’s easy to grow used to sharing a bed, so when you’re faced with empty, cold sheets, the absence is palpable.
It’s taken everything in me not to stalk up to her in school and kiss her. Today she kept peering over when she thought I wasn’t looking. The agitation stiffening her shoulders called to me, begging me to go take her worries away.
I’m so sick of this. Sick of holding back, of living the way I am, closed off from everyone. It doesn’t quell the disappointment or soften the blow.
For too long, I’ve used this excuse, pretending it made me better than my demons. But it does jack shit to protect me. In the end, I’m still alone and forgotten.
My lips pull to the side in a grimace as I put out the cigarette.
I fucked up by thinking I could just have Blair so easily without addressing how we started in the first place.
The boxes hiding everything I’ve locked up are breaking down, the visceral pain seeping out.
My fingers itch to comb through silky, soft, vanilla-scented hair. Her scent faded from my sheets and I’ve taken to walking around with a small bottle of her shampoo in my pocket. I take it out when things become too much, inhaling it while I picture her deep brown eyes, her lips, the way she fit so fucking perfectly in my arms.
“Goddamn it,” I mutter.
This raw, aching feeling plaguing me like a disease sucks and I’m done.
Fuck this distrust my parents bred into me. I’m finished with it. I won’t let it rule me anymore. Not when it could make me lose the one good thing in my life.
I know who will make it stop and it’s about damn time I go get her. Wallowing won’t bring her back. I need to go see her.
Rising to my feet, I send a wild yell to the sky. My throat is dry, scratchy with disuse. I pant, rubbing at the tender bags of exhaustion beneath my puffy eyes.
My breath is short as I climb through the window. Every nerve in my body spurs me on.
The abstract things I wish for when I look at the stars? I find it when I’m with her.
For the first time in years, I’ve realized I need to chase someone rather than accept being forgotten. I want to fight for my love with Blair because her heart is where I want to make my home. Even if she won’t accept my love, I just need to tell her how I feel. If I don’t, the decay eating at my heart is going to kill me.
* * *
Blair’s trailer was empty when I got there. Worry niggled at m
e when I saw her car parked out front. I drove around town all night, searching. She wasn’t at the hospital, the library, or any of the places I sped past.
Bishop checked in to let me know he hadn’t found her after I recruited him to help.
I thought I saw her as I cruised down the main street in town, but it was crowded with holiday shoppers and the girl disappeared.
When my phone rang with a number I didn’t recognize, I was skeptical, but thank god I picked up and heard her voice on the line.
I break about four different traffic laws to get to the station. It’s part of the collection of older buildings in town, the architecture from the Gold Rush era that swept the region.
As I wait for Blair to be brought out, I head for the police chief’s office.
“He’s out for the night.” A night duty officer with mustard smeared on his collar tips his head at the dim office with glass walls at the back of the room.
“Fine, I’ll call him, then.” I nearly smirk at the bug-eyed expression the officer gives me. I press the phone to my ear. “He’s a close friend of my uncle’s.”
Uncle Ed brought Lucas and I to the station plenty of times when we were kids. The police chief was a lieutenant then.
Chief Landry picks up on the second ring as I make my way back to the front of the station to wait for Blair. “Yeah? You’re interrupting my dinner, so make it quick.”
“It’s Devlin Murphy. Edward Saint’s nephew.”
