Day 97
Eve
I’ve spent over a week dreading this moment.
Our GPS has been glitching again, but I knew the roads well enough to direct Adam as we drove through the cities and towns of Vermont.
Another summer storm has been chasing us for the past two days, thunder and lightning and such strong winds that for a few moments, I was sure the car was going to flip over.
But we made it.
And now, looking at the two-story home, I can’t stop the bile that rises in my throat.
“Hey.” His fingers grab mine. “We don’t have to go inside.”
“We didn’t make this drive for nothing,” I try to reason, but my voice is a broken croak.
My home is silent. There are no lights on inside. No smell of cooking. Neither of my parents’ cars are in sight.
Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe that means they left.
I want to move my feet, to walk toward the entrance, but they’re heavy. I feel paralyzed. I feel like my heart is about to pound right out of my chest.
“I don’t—” I choke up, and I stare up, trying to force myself to breathe. “I don’t think I can go in there.”
“I’ll do it.” His soft voice is like a numbing aid.
“Thank you,” I let out, gratitude filling me, almost strong enough to overpower the terror. “Look for their keys. Maybe they just left,” I say as if speaking it into existence might create a reality in which the silence around us means nothing. “If there are no keys or phones—”
“I know.” His fingers are on my shoulder, now. His thumb caresses my collarbone. “I know. I’ve got this. I’ll be quick, okay?”
I manage a nod, nothing more, as he walks away.
I remain rooted in place as the minutes tick by.
A few must pass. Right? Three minutes, at least. Maybe it’s a good thing it’s taking him so long. If he hasn’t found their things, they could be somewhere, safe.
The wait is unbearable.
I can hear him taking the stairs, but nothing other than that. Just his steps through the otherwise silent house.
I try not to read into his face as he passes by the window.
Every beat of my heart sends a fresh wave of pain through my chest.
Come out already, I find myself begging. Against reason. Against logic. I just need him out here. I need to know.
I don’t know if it’s another minute or an hour before the front door opens.
All it takes is his slow, pained head shake, and I feel myself sinking to the grass, right there on the lawn I grew up on.
He gathers me up in his arms as I cry. Sobs tear through me like a knife, wrecking me from the inside out, and my fingers curl into my chest, clawing at my shirt as if getting it out of the way might help me breathe.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers into my ear and it only makes me weep harder, nails digging into my clavicle, leaving behind red marks—maybe I can gauge my heart out, I think savagely, my hands moving without permission, scratching, trying to dig in.
Maybe I can tear it out and squeeze the life out of it until there’s nothing but a bleeding lump of tissue and muscle in my hands. Maybe then it’ll stop hurting.
“Stop.” His hands wrap around mine. “Eve, stop.”
“They’re gone,” I sob into his chest when he stops me from assaulting mine.
“I know, love, I know.” He holds me even tighter. “I’m so sorry.”
“They’re gone.” I choke on the syllables. “I didn’t even say goodbye.” The words only have me crying harder. “I want them back.”
I think he might be crying with me; I’m not sure. All I can do is weep into his shirt in front of the silent empty house I used to call home.