Chapter Thirty-Three
James
Colton and I shoot out of bed. We’re dressed and have slept with the door unlocked. It hadn’t felt right for anything else. I wanted to be accessible if either of the kids needed me.
“What do you mean, he’s gone?” Colton asks, but I’m already heading out of the bedroom and toward theirs. I don’t know why, why I have to see for myself, but I do.
The door is open, light on, Nash’s bed empty, blankets pulled up so it’s neatly made. Nash made his bed. Despite how many times I’ve asked him to, Nash has never made his bed. A sharp pang lands in my chest, tears stinging my eyes as I lean against the wall, looking at it.
Nash is gone.
Nash made his bed and left.
His phone is on the nightstand, so I rush over to it, but of course it’s locked. “Do you know his code?” I ask Sadie.
“No.”
“I found this.” Colton holds up a piece of paper. “It was on the kitchen counter.”
He hands it to me, my eyes blurry as I scan it.
James,
Please take care of Sadie. She deserves that, and I’m sure it’ll be a lot easier without me here. I can’t go with him. I won’t. Make sure Sadie knows I love her. I wouldn’t leave her with anyone but you.
Thanks, for everything.
Nash
I pull the note close to my chest, trying to control my breathing. The spiraling starts, making my insides feel like they’re in a blender, but I fight through it, do my best to shove all that down.
Later. I can lose it later.
Right now, all that matters is Nash.
And Sadie.
I go to her, kneel in front of her. Hold her little scared face in my hands. “We’ll find him. We’ll find him and bring him home. No one will take him away from us, okay?”
“Okay.” She nods, then wraps her arms around me. I stand and lift her, holding Sadie to me while she cries.
Colton looks at us, his heart in his eyes, close enough to support us but giving us space.
Sadie stays close to me, like she’s afraid to leave my side, while I call the police and our caseworker.
Colton calls his mom, who promises to get ahold of Dakota and Hannah, and before I know it, my living room is filled with people, police officers and our family—because that’s what they are to me now.
My family. They’re all here to support us, to do whatever we need to bring Nash home.
“You were here with him, sir?” one of the officers asks Colton.
“Yes.”
“And you are…”
Colton’s gaze flicks to me, and I answer, “My partner. He’s my partner.”
The officer takes Colton’s name and information, all part of the missing person’s report for Nash.
They leave with a promise to look for him and ask us to call them if he reaches out.
Our caseworker came, as well. I’d had to call her too.
Having to go through letting them know worries me, makes me worry they’re going to think I’m not good enough to take care of him.
My heart hasn’t slowed its beating all morning. It’s tight, hard to breathe, but again, I shove that aside.
“I know you don’t feel like it, but you should probably eat something, sweetheart.” Christine rubs my back, just wanting to support me, in a way Sandra had never done.
“Thank you. I don’t think I can, but Sadie…I need to make sure she eats. Good idea. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it. I’ll go make her something.”
“I’ll do it. That’s what we’re here for.” She hugs me. “This is what family does.”
I nod, words trapped in my throat. She gives me a kind smile, then heads over to Sadie, who is sitting between Colton and Tasha on the couch.
She has her head on Colton’s shoulder, his arm around her as she cries.
Hannah, Dakota, and Elena are tossing ideas back and forth about what we can do.
Christine moves into the kitchen to make Sadie breakfast, and it’s all so fucking overwhelming and beautiful and all I can think is I wish Nash were here to see it, to see how much we’re loved, to see how much he’s loved.
To see what we’ve built together and that none of it will work without him.
His absence leaves an empty space in the room.
We love every part of him—bad mouth, sarcastic comments, and the biggest fucking heart that’s ever beaten in a fifteen-year-old’s chest.
“Thank you…all…for being here. I don’t know what we would do without you.”
“There’s nowhere else we’d be,” Hannah replies.
“We’ll find him,” Dakota says, and now, seeing all the love in this room, I think we will.
“We should make a list of places he might go and start looking,” Hannah says.
“The police are contacting his friends, but I’d like to do it too,” I add.
Seconds later, we’re all in the kitchen, Christine cooking while we come up with a game plan for places to go and swapping numbers so we’re in contact with each other.
We’re going to bring Nash home to his family. Where he belongs.
*
We’ve been searching all day.
Tasha stayed at the house with Sadie while the rest of us have broken up into pairs to look for him.
Colton and I went to his friends’ houses first. Unfortunately, neither of them had heard from him, but their worry about him was obvious, their parents’ too.
I didn’t know what to say when they offered to look for him as well, other than thanking them and telling them how much it means to me.
When we called his coach, he was worried and willing to do whatever he could to help as well, praising Nash for how good he is for the team.
No one has seen him though.
“I feel like we’ve searched everywhere,” I tell Colton. Every park, basketball court, anything sports related we can think of, malls, fucking anything. “It’ll be dark soon.”
“We’ll find him. I refuse to entertain anything else,” he says, and I nod, staring out the window of the passenger seat of my SUV while he drives.
“He didn’t trust me to protect him. He didn’t think I could keep him safe.”
“He trusts you. He left Sadie with you, and that tells you all you need to know,” he counters.
“Then he didn’t think I loved him as much to take care of him as I would her. I don’t know which is worse. I just know I failed him. I don’t want to fail him again.” It’ll kill me to fail him again.
“You’re not perfect. I know that’s hard for you sometimes, but you can’t be perfect.
You’ll make mistakes, shit will happen, but you love these kids.
You would do anything for them, and they both know it.
Nash is just young and scared, but you’re giving them a life they never would have had without you. That’s not a small thing.”
I lean my temple against the cold window. “Thank you, Sir.” I need that right now, want to feel the way only Colton can make me feel. “I want to believe you, but it’s hard.”
“I know, baby.” He reaches over and places a hand on my thigh. “You’re doing so fucking good, and I love you.”
“I love you too,” I say, then, “What if he’s cold? I’m not sure how warm that jacket is I got him, and…” I sit up straighter when I see the high school in the distance.
He found friends there.
He got basketball there.
He belongs there. How could I not have thought of that before?
“Go to the school,” I tell him, picturing the pure fucking joy on Nash’s face when he played in his first game there, and every game that followed.
“Shit. Good idea.” The SUV accelerates, then screeches to a stop in front of the building. The parking lot is nearly empty. It’s the first day of winter break, so I don’t know what I expected—tons of cars and open doors?
We jump out of the car and run toward the front doors. They’re locked, of course.
“Let’s go around to the gym,” he says, and we jog that way, breath looking like smoke in the cold evening. I can’t handle the thought of him being outside at night in this.
Those doors are locked too. I pull on them, bang and kick them, like I can break them down, like I somehow know he’s there when he’s probably not because I failed him and he’s gone because he didn’t know how much I love him.
“Fuck!” I scream, beating my hands on the door, Colton’s arms coming around me, holding mine down, his lips against my nape.
“Shh. It’s okay. You’ll hurt yourself. You can’t bust down the doors like this. Maybe we can call the cops and they can get someone here to let us in.”
I press my head against the glass, and that’s when I see…a janitor. “Someone’s in there.” I pull out of Colton’s hold, banging on the door again, trying to get his attention. Colton does the same, but I can see the guy is wearing headphones.
It takes a minute of us waving our arms, but eventually, his gaze catches on ours and he frowns, like he’s not sure what he should do. We’re not making a good case for ourselves with the way we’re acting out here, but he unlocks the door and pushes it open just a little. “Can I help you folks?”
“Hello. I’m Professor James Valentine from Peyton University.
I have custody of my younger brother, and he goes here.
He’s missing right now. He ran away, and I just…
He’s on the basketball team. He loves it, and I don’t know, it probably sounds crazy, but I really think he might be in here. He’s probably not, but I have to look.”
“I’m real sorry about your brother, but I’m not supposed to let anyone in.”
“I know. I get that. I understand that. I don’t know what else to do.
” My voice breaks, but I force the words out.
“I have to find him. We won’t do anything we’re not supposed to, I swear.
It can just be me if that makes you feel better.
I just…he’s my brother and I love him. We need him home, with us. ”
The man’s eyes soften, and he gives a heavy sigh. “Okay. Just you.”
“Thank you. And if you get in any trouble, I’ll take the blame, I promise.” I press a quick kiss to Colton’s lips.
“Good luck,” he says before I slip inside, the older man locking the door behind him.
“What’s your brother’s name?”
“Nash. He’s on the basketball team. He’s…”
“Got a mouth on him,” the guy says, and I laugh.
“Yes. He does. We’re working on that.”