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Nee: It might get worse before it gets better.
Me: Nee????
Nee: I have to go board my flight. Archer Walters, you are my best friend, the love of my life and my forever. Try to remember that.
I immediately tried to call her but her phone was switched off, so I left her a message.
“Nee, what the fuck? You’re terrifying me. Please, beautiful. Call me back before you take off. Otherwise, I’m going to stress until you land. Is something wrong? I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me. I’ve felt like that since you saw the doctor without me. Please. Whatever it is, let me help. Don’t shut me out.”
I did get a text from Ionee; ten hours later. Once I’d paced the floor, cried on my best friends, left numerous messages begging her to let me know she was okay, and drank way too much whiskey.
Charlie woke me up in the early hours of the morning. “Arch, she’s sent you a message.”
Opening my phone, I read it before tossing it to the bed, sprinting to the bathroom to be sick. The words forevermore burned into my brain.
Nee: I’m sorry, Arch. I can’t do this. Please let me go.
Chapter 23
Archer - 3 months later
I’dspentmonthslookingfor Nee. She boarded the commercial flight to California, got off the other side, and vanished. The driver I'd sent told me she never came through the arrivals gate and she never unlocked the door of the house on the beach I’d rented.
Ionee Millar told me that I was the love of her life and she wanted a forever with me, but then she walked away without giving me a second thought.
Lea fell apart, Fox and Charlie told me she just needed space, Dawson promised she’d come back, Mav offered me the help of his SAS friend who could find anyone, but I knew… I knew from the minute she lied to me in the hospital telling me she was okay, that she was anything but.
I knew every tell my girl had—every crease in her face when she was happy, every furrowed brow when she worried, every smile, and now I understood that I knew when she lied to me too. I hated that I’d not pushed harder when something felt off. And I hated that I had to accept the truth. She’d wanted to disappear.
I was broken. I missed her so much it physically hurt, and so I did what I’d done most nights for the last three months. I’d gotten drunk, but now there were people here trying to wake me up and I was not happy at all.
“Archer, not again. Fuck. Archer, open your eyes. Jesus, you stink. Wake up. Now!” a voice yelled way too close… too loud.
“Fuck off,” I mumbled, unable to lift my head or open my eyes. The booze I’d drunk swilling around inside me.
“You’re going to kill yourself, Arch.”
“Don’t care.”
I heard a gasp, soft and feminine, and for a second my cruel brain let me believe it was her, but of course it wasn’t.
“Archer, please don’t do this.”
“It’s fucking selfish. We’ve already lost Mum. We can’t lose you too.”
“Nee?” I moaned, her name burning my throat.
“Is still AWOL. Are you going to drink yourself to death until someone finds her?”
“Love her,” I spat out.
“We know. We loved her too, but she’s not here. If she was, she’d be fucking mortified at the state of you.”
I knew these voices were the people who cared about me, but I couldn’t work out who was saying what and I didn’t really care. Rolling over, I moved to bury my face in my pillow and pull the sheets over my head, but I realized I wasn’t in bed. I was on the floor.
“Arch, man, you’re showering and drinking a bucket full of coffee, then we will think of some more places to look for her, but you can’t carry on like this. If she left you… all of us without a word, then she’s a bitch who doesn’t deserve your pain, but if something happened to her, then we need to make sure we’re doing everything we can to find her. You’re no good to her like this.”
A strangled sob rang out.
