37. Anastasia
Anastasia
W hen I wake up I know something isn’t right. Call it intuition or my sixth sense that manifested Rhett Kaiser. I lie in his bed like I know something I’m about to face outside his door will end me.
He didn’t come back yesterday. With the new dawn, my dread and worry has me almost running to the bathroom to throw up several times.
I have to find him. Find out what happened for him to have left so abruptly and become unreachable. I force myself up as Shadow whines.
“I know, boy,” I croak, fighting back tears, but I don’t know what they’re for.
Downstairs I hear quiet chatter from my father’s office, and if there’s any news from Rhett, perhaps he told him instead to keep his job post safe.
I knock and enter after he calls through.
Everyone is standing, and disturbance pinches my parents’ faces.
I can’t pay them any attention when all I can take in is the daunting sight of the two police officers.
“What happened?” I ask, feeling the ground softening under me. It’s like I know what they’re going to say. My head is shaking before they even speak.
“There was an accident yesterday afternoon,” one of the officers says.
My vision sways. “Where’s Rhett?”
“Ana, please sit—” my father tries gently.
“Where. Is. He?”
“It was a fatal vehicle collision, and we tracked the registration here,” the other officer explains.
My heart stumbles.
Fatal.
I cling to my denial, believing the story is a fable, something sick and twisted to keep us apart, until a newspaper is slid across the desk and an officer lifts it before extending it to me.
My blood runs cold.
There’s no mistaking the car we’ve used together so many times. It’s completely wrecked, flipped onto its roof. My hand covers my mouth as I blink my vision clear, imagining Rhett inside such devastation.
“We haven’t been able to identify the male inside, but from our understanding with the senator, it’s very likely to be Rhett Kaiser. His uncle has come forth to confirm this afternoon.”
My whole body flushes at that. His uncle.
“He did this!” Those words slip from me through struggling breath.
“Ana, dear,” Mom says. Her hands are on me, but I can’t feel them.
Rhett isn’t dead. He can’t be.
“His uncle did this,” I say, louder this time as rage begins to overpower the pain, because I refuse to believe there’s no Rhett in this world anymore. “You have to arrest him!”
Mom stops me from stepping up to the officers, who barely flinch at anything I say. As if they don’t hear me.
As if they already know.
His uncle is a very powerful man and he’s managed to elude Rhett for all these years. Does he have the strings to puppet the police force too? My eyes burn. Rhett was right: there’s no righteous path when corruption cracks through the glass of any moral compass.
“Ana, come sit, please,” Mom pleads.
I can’t. Shadow barks and then growls as if he can feel my tangible anger. The officers shift, wary of him.
“He’s not dead,” I grind out.
“That’s not all, Ana,” my father cuts in gently. I slice him with a look. “Rhett Kaiser is not who he claims to be.”
My body stiffens. “What are you talking about?”
“His credentials are forged. I’m looking into it further to find out what he intended. Perhaps this is a blessing in a grim disguise if he meant you harm.”
“Rhett isn’t the danger here.” I dare to target the officers. “He never has been.”
“He’s gone, honey,” my father says, sharper now, and that only grows on my anger. “I will get to the bottom of it, but I can’t say I’m not glad he can’t be around you anymore.”
I’m on the verge of snapping, and I don’t know what kind of ugly could unleash from me in the wrong company right now. So I say nothing as I spin on my heel despite my parents calling after me.
My world is crumbling.
The weight of what they implied starts sinking me slowly, and I run down the halls until I burst back into Rhett’s room ...
Then I shatter.
Grief like nothing I’ve felt before tightens in my chest as I sink to my knees. It pours from me in chokes of agony.
Shadow nudges me, but I can’t take comfort in him when he serves as another reminder of what I’ve lost. I cry until I can’t breathe. I don’t believe I’ll be able to rise from the floor. I don’t want to.
I think of his beautiful face and how I’ll never see it again. How I never got to tell him I love him.
I love him.
I love him.
I love him.
And I never will.
At some point I turn hollow and the ghost of me opens drawers until I find one of his all-black hoodies.
I break all over again when his scent embraces me, and it’s like a knife won’t stop twisting in my heart and tearing through my stomach at the same time.
I curl into his bed and give up on time, not caring what passes when Rhett isn’t in the hours I lie there. He’ll never be in another.
I try calling his number, over and over, until the beep beep beep breaks my heart into too many fragments and I drift away to the echo of my hollow chest.