5. Bodhi
5
BODHI
T he house is quiet as I move from the kitchen into the living room, the sound of the dogs’ snoring a gentle hum as I drop into the recliner and stare at the book in my hand. The romance novel isn’t my first choice—honestly, it wasn’t my choice at all.
No, this particular read was courtesy of Sorren Mackay when he tossed it to me and said congratulations, you’re in book club now.
Book club.
On the plus side, book club consists of a group chat—usually Sorren and his friend Hayden arguing over spoilers, tropes, and more recently the cliff-hanger in the book they read before this one.
I’d been silent so far, just taking it all in, much like I am as I flip the book over in my hands. I don’t hate it, but being a part of something, even something as innocuous as book club, feels like I’m getting tied down here with no hope of escape.
Do I want to escape?
“Nothing in this world is easy; that’s why we don’t walk the road alone.”
It’d been the last thing Sorren said to me six months ago before he’d driven me home, my phone ringing the next day to make sure I’d be at dinner—a silent promise that he wouldn’t let me walk the road alone.
And he hadn’t.
But the uncertainty of it all still had me crawling out of my skin. Setting the book down, I grab my phone and type out a message.
BODHI: Anything yet?
OAKDEN: I told you—when I have something I’ll let you know
Frustration claws at me, and the fact that so much of this is a waiting game has me nearly crawling out of my skin. But I’d known it would be this way.
You have help this time.
It’s the one thing that keeps me from getting in my car and taking off for New Hampshire. True to his word, Tom Oakden has been keeping me updated with any and all progress made on Audrey’s case.
Just thinking her name has a wave of grief washing over me, my hand clenching the book still in my lap as I try to breathe through the loss.
The anger.
The hope that we’ll be able to put her case to rest for the last time the only thing tethering me to the present.
Setting my phone down, I debate my decision for only a second before padding my way through the house to my bedroom. The room is neat and clean, like the rest of the house, devoid of almost all personal touches because I still can’t wrap my head around the idea that this could be permanent.
Even though we’ve been here for a couple of years now.
Taking a deep breath, I pull open the door and reach for the small wooden box on the top shelf of the mostly empty closet.
I can’t remember the last time I did this.
Not even when I heard that Jeffers had been granted a new trial.
But today, for some a reason I can’t quite name, I need it.
Perched on the end of the bed, I let my fingers trace over the crude engraving that reads Easy and Free across the lid. Mason made it for me in his high school shop class years ago. One box encompassing the two most important people in my life.
My breath hitches as the lid creaks open, and Audrey’s smiling face stares back at me.
Take the picture, Bodhi! Don’t I look pretty with the flower in my hair?
She did and I’d told her that with an eyeroll like a typical ten-year-old. It felt nice to be normal in that moment. I remember chasing her through the field, the wildflowers blowing in the breeze like they were chasing us too.
She’d snapped so many pictures that day, used the whole roll if I remember right, the disposable camera something she’d come home with after school one day with the biggest grin I’d ever seen.
I found it after she went missing, stashed in our spot under the floorboard in her room, but I hadn’t told anyone—not even Mason—just went to the general store and plopped it on the counter, asking him what I could do to get it developed.
It’d taken a week of sweeping the parking lot and separating the cans and bottles in the back, but he’d smiled when he handed me the envelope.
“ There’s some good ones in there, kid.” The lines on his face deepened. “Real sorry to hear Miss Audrey is missing.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He’d been so kind to us, never minding when we’d come into the store just to look around, dreaming about the candy and treats we couldn’t afford. Sometimes he’d surprise us with those treats, like when Audrey went in to tell him about the solo she’d gotten in the choir at school or when I told him I’d climbed to the top of the rope in gym class on the first try.
My eyelids flutter closed. He’d been the only one keeping us going…the only safe space we had after school. My heart squeezes in my chest as I remember back to another time, this one before we’d lost her.
“Her birthday is coming up,” I told him, pushing the small bracelet across the counter. “Do you think I can get it?”
“Come by and rake the leaves after school. I’ll wrap it up nice for her.”
He’d given me a conspiratorial wink and I’d nodded profusely, taking Mason’s hand and leading him back outside. He was our lifeline until the day he died—kind when he could have simply turned us away.
It was the first funeral I attended, a Wednesday in the fall of my sophomore year of high school. I wasn’t brave enough to go back to class, my eyes too red and puffy from mourning the loss of my friend.
So much loss.
Blowing out a breath, I force myself to push on because for some reason, I need this, and I need to see it.
The bracelet peeks out from under the picture as I gaze back down, the thin metal tarnished from years of being in this box.
She’d loved it and had wrapped me in a hug and pressed a kiss to my cheek that I’d promptly brushed off even though I’d been blushing.
She made me believe that everything would be okay.
But it wasn’t, because not long after that, she was gone.