Chapter Thirty
Thirty
Two days.
It’s been two days since Jasper walked out the front door. Since the detectives swore up and down they’d stop at nothing to find him.
His photo has been all over the news. His name and description on the radio. The search parties have died down, but that first night, it was as if half the town was on our block. So many flashlights they overpowered the waning moonlight.
Paige makes the drive to pick my dad up from the airport.
A storm front delayed his layover, and he spent a day in the terminal before finally getting on a flight here.
Mom is at the police station again when he arrives, Margot with her for moral support, so I’m the welcome committee when they show up at the house.
“Jo,” my dad says, pulling me into a hug on the front porch. I go rigid in his arms, reluctantly hugging him back. I’d known he was coming, prepared for it, but now that he’s in front of me, it’s as if his absence all these years is a neon light shining in my eyes. He doesn’t fit here.
I peel out of his arms, clearing my throat.
I don’t realize how much resentment has been stirring in me until he’s right in front of me. And I can’t help but wonder how things might be different if he’d stayed.
We probably never would have moved back here. We’d still be in our apartment in Denver, the tiny one I spent my whole life in. Full of books and instruments.
“It’s good to see you,” he says. “Wish it was under better circumstances, but…” He runs a hand through his hair.
Turns back to Paige, like she’ll save him from this increasingly awkward encounter, but she merely slips past him and into the house.
“I’ve got to meet your mom at the station. But we’ll catch up later, okay?”
“Sure, we will,” I tell him, though I know we won’t.
—
Detective Gonzales has stopped in twice to give us updates, and the updates are that they have no updates. Browning came once.
Despite my deep reservations, my parents and aunt are thrilled to have the detectives on board. My mom is sure they’ll find Jasper. I don’t know how to tell them they won’t.
The last thing I want is to make more problems for a woman already drowning in them: my mother, whose husband decided he’d made all the wrong choices and left her with three kids to raise.
Who dropped everything when her daughter fell apart, who moved back to the hometown she left behind to keep me afloat.
But I know something. Not enough to help, but enough to build hope in my chest like a beehive, buzzing so loud I can’t keep the words in my mouth. Not anymore. Not with that pained, haunted expression on my mom’s face.
I only make it thirty seconds into my wild explanation about the connections between every kid who didn’t make it home in this town before she cuts me off. Springing it on her right when she got home from the station may not have been the best move, but I’m in too deep now.
“Enough.” Mom’s eyes narrow, and her lips purse. I know instantly I’ve made a mistake.
“I know how it sounds, but—”
“I said enough,” she snaps. “It’s not some big conspiracy. Your brother is gone. And this”—she gestures to me, all of me, like my being itself is the issue—“is not helping.”
“Mom—”
“I said leave it, Joanna,” she says.
And I do.
Holden, who was halfway between the front door and the kitchen with a stack of pizzas, gives me a supportive smile. “She’s stressed out of her mind. Don’t take it too personally,” he says.
“I’m guessing you think I’ve lost it, too?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I didn’t say that. But I know what it’s like to look for answers where there aren’t any. Grasping at straws and all.”
It’s a kinder dismissal than my mom’s, but it still stings.
“Shouldn’t you be getting home? It’s almost ten,” I say.
His brows pull together. He nods. “Just dropping off some food.”
I don’t meet his eyes, folding my arms over my chest, staring at a blank spot on the wall as he deposits the pizza boxes in the kitchen and heads out the front door.
Once again, I’m in retreat. I didn’t realize I’d slipped out of it these last few months.
That day Finn popped into my room, when I met Aisha and Sloane, the tiny world I’d curled up inside expanded. Despite my best efforts, the three of them slid under my skin like splinters.
When Finn materializes in my room, I’m struck with how different things have become. That first night, he was a haunting. I’m not sure what he is tonight.
I sit up in bed, lifting my chin. A sick curiosity bubbles up inside me.
He exhales, relieved, and nods, crossing the room. At my stiffening, he stops halfway. He rakes a hand through his hair.
“I’m not in the mood, Finn—”
“I know. I know. But I need to say something. And then I’ll leave you alone.”
I open my mouth to protest, but before I can, he says softly, “Please,” and I wilt.
“That first night in your room,” he says, “was the first time in a long time that someone actually saw me. And I don’t mean, like, literally, physically saw me— Well, I guess I do… ”
Finn clears his throat. He comes to stand in front of me, close enough to touch, if we could.
“My whole life, I felt like everybody else’s problem.
I wanted to be invisible way before it actually happened.
And then you looked at me and you saw me, and all I wanted was for you to keep seeing me.
Even if I had to keep secrets to do it.” His cheeks flush.
“And trust me, I know how shitty that is. But I didn’t know how to let that go. I still don’t.”
My anger is a safety blanket I don’t want pulled away. Without it, all that’s left is grief. I look away.
“I don’t have any answers. Don’t have any solutions. So I didn’t say anything. I might be selfish, but I’m not that selfish. I only want to keep you safe.”
“What about what I want?” I snap, unsure where the words come from. But once they’re out, they hang between us like a heavy fog.
His lips part, but before he can speak, more words tumble out of me.
“I was fine before. I was surviving,” I say. “But then you showed up and you made me care about you, and about Aisha and Sloane. I mean, what did you think was going to happen, Finn? Do you think I’m going to let you die if I know there’s a chance you could live?”
He says nothing.
I turn back toward the window, ready to lay into him further, but the space he occupied is empty.
Anxiety skitters across my skin like a cold wind. “Finn?” I call.
Silence. He doesn’t blink back into the room like he should. Like he has every time I’ve called for him.
“Finn?” I say again, louder this time. Whatever anger I felt collapses under a new feeling: Dread. A horrible, dragging, heavy feeling that settles on top of my lungs.
Nothing.
The longest anyone’s lasted is about three years, Finn said. And I’m a week away.
That was more than a week ago.
If I was paying attention, I might have noticed it. Might have realized Finn’s staying away may have been less about giving me space because he wanted to, and more about having to. It’s like when I first moved in. I spent so much time staring at my feet I didn’t see what was all around me.
He’s fading. He’s dying, and soon he’ll truly be dead. Even if I could find him, there may be nothing left to save.
Gone. The reality of it is sharp and cutting, like someone is scratching at my insides. Shredding my intestines.
I don’t realize I’ve fallen to my knees until they slam into the cold, hard wood.
“Finn, please,” I say. “This isn’t a joke.” I’m talking to no one, to the air.
I thought this was another attempt at an apology—it’s not the first time he’s tried—but it wasn’t. This was no apology. This was a goodbye.