Chapter 1
CHARLIE
“Hey Charlie, your regular?” Akira, Ariana’s sister, asks me from behind the counter as she spots me walking through the door to her café.
“Hey ‘Kira, yes please.” I nod, smiling her way before taking the familiar pathway through the tables toward the one in the back corner that Ariana and I always use when we come here every week to catch up.
Only today I’m not meeting Ari.
I take a deep, unsteady breath as I sit down at our table. The same spot where Ariana gave me Mia’s business card months ago.
When we parted ways that day, I was so excited about finally finding the two people who mean the most to me in this world, but as I sat down on my bed and typed her number into my phone…I froze.
I stared down at my phone for what felt like hours, not moving and unable to bring myself to hit call, all the ‘what ifs’ plaguing my mind.
What if they chose to never get in touch?
What if they are happily together and don’t even remember me anymore?
What if our childhood dreams were just that…childhood dreams.
It took me an entire week going back and forth before I came to the conclusion to wait until after I graduated. At least then I’d have something to offer if – no, when – I finally found them.
It made focusing through my exams difficult, I almost broke a number of times and called her, but somehow I got through it and not even an hour after I graduated, I called Mia and arranged a meeting.
Ariana had come with me, offering support as I told her sister everything I knew about Bonnie and Jace.
I’d known Bonnie my entire life. We grew up together, and when her father married Jace’s mother, the three of us became inseparable.
Until one day they just…vanished.
I went to bed with a smile on my face thinking of the plans we made for the next day. But when I woke, their house was empty, their phones disconnected, and their social media accounts deleted.
They didn’t leave a note. No explanation. No goodbye. They were just…gone.
Every day I checked my phone for missed calls or text messages, but I never received any from them.
Every day I would race out as soon as I saw the postie to see if maybe they’d send something in the mail.
We used to love the idea of pen pals, writing notes to each other and slipping them in each other’s letterboxes. But there was never any mail for me.
For six months I held on, so sure that they would contact me.
My teachers and parents watched helplessly, walking on eggshells around me, waiting for the day it would sink in that they weren’t coming back.
That they weren’t going to reach out. They were waiting for me to give up, to lose hope. To break down.
But it never happened.
We had a plan. No matter what, the three of us would attend the same university. We discussed it in great length, planning which university we would go to, which degrees we would each take and where we would live.
They might not be able to contact me, but I knew they’d be working just as hard as I was to ensure our future.
So, I kept my head down, got the best grades I could, studied the subjects I needed to get into the course we’d settled on and then I got in.
But I looked everywhere for them when I started. Every lecture I walked into I’d scan the auditorium, looking for their faces in the crowed. Every stranger I came across who resembled Bonnie or Jace I would do a double take.
But they were nowhere to be found.
I studied at the university we swore to attend together. I studied the degree we had planned. Alone. Instead of sharing a house off campus, I lived in the uni village with no idea where the missing parts of my soul were, or even if they were okay.
That’s all I wanted to know by that point. I just wanted to know they were okay. That they were alive. Everything else…I’d accept. If they had moved on with each other and were happy…I’d accept it. It’d hurt, but I’d be happy for them. Just as long as they were okay.
I just need to know they are okay.
Akira places my coffee down on the table in front of me, pulling me from the past. I force a smile on my lips and thank her. My hands tremble a little as they wrap around the hot mug and I take a tentative sip.
Mia had sat through it all, without interruption as she listened to me recount everything. It wasn’t until I was finished that she started asking questions. Questions I’d asked myself thousands of times over the years but didn’t have the answers to.
When it was over, she told me she would be in touch and left.
That was months ago.
The ritual of religiously checking my phone for missed calls and texts was an easy one to fall back into but just like back then, there weren’t any.
Until last night.
The jingle of the bell above the door has my head snapping to attention before I’ve even fully register the sound and I quickly wipe my sweaty palms on my pants as I spot Mia already looking in my direction.
Adrenaline courses through my veins and my heart races as she smiles my way before heading to the counter and greeting her sister. My knee bounces as I wait, the seconds stretching into what feels like agonising minutes before she reaches my table and sits down across from me.
Fuck, why did I think I could do this alone? Ari offered to come with me when I called her after receiving Mia’s text, but I’d stupidly told her no.
She was settling into her role at Trident Industries with Eric by her side and I didn’t want to pull her away from it again. Not when there was a good chance Mia was here to tell me that she had found Bonnie and Jace and they’d both moved on.
This could all have been for nothing, and if I’m being honest with myself…I didn’t want Ariana to witness that.
“Hello Charlie, thank you for meeting me this morning.” My breathing speeds up and my heart sinks at the formality of her tone.
Hello. Not hey.
Shit. This is going to be bad, isn’t it? I don’t think I can do this alone.
“Sorry it’s taken so long for me to get back to you,” she continues on, unaware of my internal freak out and I force a smile, trying not to overanalyse everything for answers.
“Hi,” I manage to croak out and I take a mouthful of coffee, trying to think of something to say. What exactly is the protocol in a situation like this? What am I supposed to say?
Her eyes flick between mine before she dives right in. “Okay, so from what you told me last we spoke, I was able to confirm that Bonnie’s father, Grant, lost his job during the pandemic and moved his family out of state, into a…cheaper neighbourhood.”
Did I imagine the pause she took before she said cheaper? What isn’t she telling me? Where exactly did Grant take them and why would he not want the friends he's known for decades to know?
Mia clears her throat, and I refocus my attention on her. “He put the house on the market and started looking for a job but unfortunately, his position became redundant, so he wasn’t able to find work.
“By the time the lockdowns were lifted, he owed quite a bit of money that he couldn’t cover. He started drinking and one night-” There’s no mistaking the pause this time. “-he killed his wife.”
All the air in my lungs rushes out. Kate's dead?
“The police report stated that Jason-”
“Jace,” I correct. “He hates the name Jason. He prefers Jace.” I don’t know why I’m clinging to that detail, but she doesn’t comment on it, simply nods her head before she continues.
“The report stated that Jace had gotten up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. On his way back, he saw Grant in Bonnie’s bedroom, pinning her to the bed and…and strangling her.
“Jace pulled him off and the two fought until the police arrived and were able to arrest Grant. Kate's autopsy showed he had been physically abusing his wife for some time. He is currently serving a life-sentence for domestic violence, murder and the attempted murder of his daughter.”
My heart breaks more and more with every word she speaks. It’s hard to picture Grant as anything but the loving caring parent in my mind. He was like another father to me, Kate another mother. If I wasn’t home, I was across the road in their house. They were kind people. Good people.
To think she was gone and he done it was hard to wrap my head around.
“W-What about Bonnie and Jace? What happened to them?” Saliva pools at the back of my throat and my coffee turns sour in my mouth as I’m filled with trepidation.
“With no other living relatives, they were placed in the foster system.”
“But…they had us. My parents wouldn’t have hesitated to take them in,” I whisper. Why weren’t we contacted?
“They were placed together,” she continues, and I nod my head absently. At least they had each other. “That is until it became apparent they were a little too close for siblings. Then they were separated.”
“But they’re not siblings. They can’t do that!” My outburst causes a few heads to turn our way, but I pay them no mind. It’s getting harder and harder to pull in a proper breath.
After everything they went through, they were separated. Forced to be alone.
“That’s not fair. They’re not siblings,” I repeat, hating the look of pity she gives me.
“In the eyes of the law they are. They grew up together, were raised as siblings,” her voice trails off and I can tell she’s being careful with her words.
I shake my head. “They’re not related. There’s nothing wrong with us – them – being together.” She doesn’t respond to my words or acknowledge my slip up and I wipe my tears away with the back of my hand.
“What happened to them?” I repeat my earlier question, my voice sounding small to my own ears. This is so much worse than anything I could have imagined.
“Jace was moved to a foster family a few hours away, on this side of the state line. He took the separation hard and at seventeen, he was diagnosed with bipolar. I don’t have all the details around that, only what his foster family reported to his social worker, but he stayed with them until he graduated. They were good for him.”
Her words don’t offer the level of comfort I’m sure she intended, and she slides a folder across the table to me. When I go to take it, her hand doesn’t move, and I’m forced to look back up at her. “I did find his current residence. He’s a few hours away, working at a local construction company.”
I swallow around the lump in my throat and open the folder as she removes her hand. My eyes skim over everything she’s outlined about Jace and sure enough, at the bottom is his current address.
But it’s not lost on me that she hasn’t mentioned anything about Bonnie, nor is there anything in here about her.
“And Bonnie?” my voice cracks as her name passes my lips and a lead weight settles in my stomach at the sorrowful look in her eyes. “Just tell me.”
“Bonnie was deemed a risk to herself and those around her after she attacked her foster father. He was closing her bedroom window as a storm had suddenly hit in the middle of the night.
“She was placed in a psychiatric facility where she stayed until she was eighteen. I don’t have any information about her whilst she was inside but when she left, she received a scholarship to a local university which she attended for a year before she dropped out and got married.”
She doesn’t give me a chance to process her words, continuing to speak but I don’t hear a word of it. All I hear is Bonnie is married.
And it isn’t to me or Jace.
“A few months later, the two went on a trip overseas,” her voice trails off and I shake my head, my breathing coming in in rapid gasps. I clutch at my chest as I see her lips move around the word accident.
No.
“Bonnie didn’t make it.”
My head spins and I throw a hand over my mouth. I don’t give her the chance to say anything else, bolting from my chair towards the bathroom.
I barely make it in time before my stomach heaves, forcing what little is inside up my throat and into the toilet bowl.
Bonnie was in an accident.
She didn’t make it.
My stomach heaves again and a silent scream works it’s way through my body as nothing comes out.
Bonnie’s dead.
She can’t be dead.
I would have felt it. I would have…
I collapse onto the ground, not feeling the cold tile beneath me as I pull at my hair. An agonising scream rips my throat to shreds just like my heart.
How many times have I laughed, made jokes and had fun whilst one of the loves of my life lost hers?
I’ve spent four years in university, cling to the dreams we once shared all the while she’ll never get to live them.
I should have tried harder to find them. I should have done more.
Now it’s too late.
She’s gone.
Dead.
I’m still sitting on the cold tile floor of the bathroom, hating myself for simply living whilst Bonnie is as six foot in the ground when the door opens.
“How did she die?” My voice sounds cold, detached as I ask the question, unable to look at Mia standing inside the doorway.
“That’s just it Charlie…I don’t think she did.”