AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We’re looking for him for questioning, but haven’t located him yet. We’ll keep trying, of course,” Paul says over the speakerphone.
“Can they arrest him based on the fingerprints?” Logan jumps in to ask.
Dunbar’s not been out of jail a full month, but he’s already shaken my life upside down, hurt people I cared about, and committed at least one crime.
“It’s possible, but his attorney will argue Dunbar’s fingerprints were at your place from his visitation with Rainey, not from breaking in.”
“Did you take fingerprints from upstairs?” Logan asks, exasperated.
“We did.” Paul, following Logan’s line of thought, asks me, “Did your brother go upstairs during his visit with Rainey?”
“No.” The sadness sewn onto Logan’s face threatens to pull me under with him. He’s barely said two words to me since Paul left. “He was downstairs the whole time. Rainey asked if she could show him her room at one point, but I told her we were staying downstairs.”
“What about the other person whose fingerprints were a match? Have you found them?”
“We’re still working to track him down, too. I’ll call you with any updates. In the meantime, I’m sending a locksmith over in the morning to change the locks, just to be safe. I’ve reserved a place for you to stay until then. You can’t stay in that mess. Just let the person working the front desk know how many rooms you want.”
Logan’s aunt and uncle offer to keep the girls overnight and give us space to absorb what happened. My mental capacity to take care of just myself is gone, so I’m grateful to know Rainey has someone I trust looking after her.
I’m dying to ask Logan if he’s okay. But I’m not okay, and it feels safe to assume he’s not either. I want to cry. I want to scream until I lose my voice. I want to destroy something the way my life feels destroyed. But, there’s no use. The drama of the last two days is overwhelming enough without me creating more.
Our drive to the chain hotel is so silent I hear the warm air coming from the vents of Logan’s SUV. He doesn’t move to hold my hand, just stares steadily ahead at the road. Our only conversation comes when he asks if I’m hungry as we near a few restaurants. I couldn’t eat right now if someone paid me to.
The feelings I’m carrying are more tortuous than the threats, harassment, and emotional scars Dunbar’s given me over the years combined. I’ve done everything to support him. Surrendered vacation days to sit with him in the hospital after he overdosed. Lost countless nights of sleep—probably totaling years—as I lay in bed terrified he’d be found dead somewhere. Unnameable stress and sorrow are monsters so familiar to me now I consider them friends.
I let my guard down, and optimism took me prisoner. It felt good. For a moment, I believed the monster under my bed would be gone forever. But stress and sorrow never left, just creeped around every corner, waiting for the next shoe to fall.
Logan pulls into the hotel parking lot, and I know I can’t go inside with him. This distance between us is too wide and trying to cross it tonight would be foolish. If I follow him in and he asks for a separate room, my already broken heart will disintegrate.
“I’m going to call Iz to pick me up,” I say. “It might be better if I stay with her tonight and give you some space.”
It’s immature and not fair, but I want him to beg me to stay. I dream of him pulling me in and holding me the way he has before. I need his words to comfort me and tell me everything will be okay, that we’ll figure it out.
“Ok.” He emotionlessly agrees. “I’ll wait with you until she gets here.”
As he turns toward me, the look on his face becomes clear. Pity—Logan pities me. My heart is crushed further, and I’m not sure how much longer I can hold everything inside. “It’s okay. Go ahead,” I tell him.
He walks away, disappearing into the hotel lobby, and I’ve never felt more alone in my life. Not when I laid in the bed of a new foster home. Not when I went away to college and didn’t have a single friend. Not even when I got a call in the middle of the night to pick up my niece from the police station. All of those times were devastating, but none of them compare to the ghostly feeling of staring down the wreckage of my life while standing alone in a hotel parking lot at dusk, unable to go home.
“Iz?” I cry through the phone. “I need you. Come get me.”
Everyone deserves an Izabeth. Her only questions are if I’m safe and where to pick me up. When she pulls into the parking lot to rescue me, I’m on the verge of a panic attack. She helps me inside the car, even buckling me in. I can’t get a full breath, each inhale becoming more shallow than the last.
Iz speeds home, and I train my eyes to the sky, watching the stars fly above. The white specs swim in the sky as the edges of my vision soften.
“Iz? I-I-I might need you to pull overrrr . . .” I work the words from between my lips between bouts of hyperventilating.
“I’m looking for a spot, stay with me,” she says, grabbing my hand firmly. The car jerks and throws us both backward when she stomps the brakes. “Here we go, Noah. Here’s a good spot.” She continues talking as she flips on her hazard lights and runs to my side of the car, releasing the seat belt and giving me space to crumble into her arms.
Izabeth lifts my head up and places her hands on either side of my face, staring into my eyes while I wheeze and suck in quick gasps of air. My chest is tight enough to burst open at any moment. Iz keeps talking, and her words give my brain something to focus on, the fuzziness around the edge of my consciousness requiring me to put all of my energy into listening.
“Look at me, Noah.”
I can’t speak, but I’m trying with everything I have to let her know I’m doing my best.
“You’ve got to take some deeper breaths before you pass out. Here.” Izabeth pats my face with her left hand to grab my attention. “Take a big breath in and hold it.” She mimics what she wants me to do, and I try following along. “Now blow it out—nice and slow.”
My wheezing improves slightly as my breaths slow and deepen.
