Julien talked me down from my anger at Liz. Just another tick mark on how many times I’m going to fuck up when it comes to her. I felt horrible about the way I yelled at her and the guilt has been eating me up ever since. I noticed headlights and heard the sound of a car around four this morning. I knew it was her from the sound the car engine. Part of me wanted to run out of the house and grab her into my arms, beg her to forgive me, and tell her how much I love her. The other part of me needed more time before I faced her because I’m a coward. I fucked up and I know it. I just don’t know what to say to her so she’ll forgive me.
It's six in the morning and I hear is Ryder’s Challenger outside. I'm already dressed for school so I step out onto the front porch. He parks behind Liz and Hailey's car in her driveway. What’s he doing here?
“Hey, man. What are you doing here so early?” I yell out to him.
Ryder stops mid-step up the pathway and turns toward me. I jog down to meet him halfway.
“How’s Julien?” he asks me.
“He’s good. Did Liz tell you?” I wait for his answer before I blow a gasket because if she told him when she wouldn’t tell me, I will absolutely fucking lose it.
“Nah, man. I already knew. She didn’t have to tell me anything.”
“You knew? Did Julien tell you?”
“No, Jay. I figured it out a long time ago. It wasn’t that hard to see what was going on.” His pointed jab scores a direct hit. I am Julien’s twin brother. I should have known. I should have been there for him and I wasn’t. Another thing to feel guilty about.
“So you saw her last night then?”
“Yeah. She came by and we talked.”
“Then what are you doing here now?”
“Jay, what’s with the third degree. I can see Elizabeth whenever the hell I want to. I don’t need your damn permission.”
I eye him suspiciously because I feel like something’s up. “Is Liz ok?”
“No, she’s not.” Ryder glares at me for asking such a stupid-assed question. Of course she’s not alright. I treated her like a grade-A asshole last night.
“Look. I would love to stand out here and shoot the shit with you, but I promised Elizabeth I would see her this morning before school. So,” he trails off and turns to walk back to her house.
“Shit. Ry, wait. Let me come with you. I need to apologize.”
He keeps walking. “Do you think that’s a wise idea? Maybe you should give her some space.”
“No. I’m not going to give her some space. She’s my fucking girlfriend. We had a fight. I want to apologize.”
Ryder turns around and pushes against my shoulder to stop me from following him. “Whatever, man. But if she wants you to leave, you leave. Understand. Otherwise, I’m not letting you take one step inside.”
I grit my teeth in annoyance but acquiesce. “Yeah. Fine. Got it. I just need to see her. Please, Ryder.”
We walk up onto her porch together but Ryder jerks to a sudden stop and presses his face to the sidelight window next to the front door. He rips his keychain out of his side pocket to unlock the door. We all have had keys to each other’s houses since we were teenagers.
“Ry, it’s early. Why don’t you knock first?”
Ryder ignores me and throws the front door open when he’s finally able to unlock it. The first thing that hits me is the smell.
“What the fuck is that smell?”
“Elizabeth! Are you in here?” Ryder shouts.
I turn my head to the side and grab Ryder. “Holy shit! Holy fuck!” There’s blood everywhere. I gag. Ryder pulls his arm out of my grasp and runs upstairs to Liz’s room. I hear him yelling for her, calling her name out over and over.
“Liz!” I shout for her. “Liz, you in here baby?” Terror and panic claw at me from the inside out. I follow the trail of blood from the foyer into the living room. “Jesus Christ! Ryder!” I hear him racing down the stairs. He collides into me and we both stand there, horrified, not knowing what to do.
A small sound has us both turning toward the dining room and kitchen. I take out my phone and dial 911. I don’t know what I say to the dispatcher, but I’m pretty sure I give them the address.
I hear Ryder’s anguished cry and drop my phone, running to where he’s kneeling down on the floor. I blink. I must be asleep or something. This isn’t real. I’m having a nightmare and when I wake up, I’ll be cuddled next to Liz in her bed. I’ll kiss her bare shoulder before tangling my fingers through her long, blond hair. I’ll hear her sweet giggle before I roll on top of her to get lost in her beautiful green eyes.
Ryder’s cries pierce through my mental fog. He’s lifting Liz’s limp body into his arms. Jesus, there’s so much blood. Oh, god, Hailey. I can’t look. I think I’m going to be sick.
“No, no, no, Elizabeth. Please, baby. Please. You’re going to be ok. Please don’t leave me. Please Elizabeth. I can’t live without you. I love you so much. So, so much, Elizabeth.” Ryder raises his head and screams at me, “Jayson, call 911!” He’s sobbing violently. “Hold on, baby. We’re here. I’m here sweetheart. Just hold on.”
I can’t move. I’m frozen in place. No. That’s not my Liz. He’s mistaken. Not my Liz. The girl I love more than life itself. He shouts her name again in agony. My legs give out and I fall to the floor next to them. Her body’s dangling in Ry’s arms. She can’t be dead. Not my Liz. Not my girl. I slide next to Ryder and take Liz’s head in my hands and press my face to her jasmine-scented hair crusted with blood. “Liz, baby girl. We’re here. You’re safe. I love you. We’ve got you, princess. Just hold on. Help’s coming.”
The sound of sirens can be heard in the distance. I try to give her hope. “See, baby. Just hold on. Help is coming. Hold on. Don’t leave. We need our princess. We need more next times. I’ll hang a thousand stars on our tree. I’ll fill a million jars with stars just for you.”
Ryder and I are mirror images of one another – sobbing, pleading, praying, making promises, begging, telling Liz we love her.
Before the paramedics forcibly pull us away from Liz, I swear I hear her say “I love you.”
Ryder and I try to push our way back to Liz, not wanting to leave her for a second when one of the paramedics yells out, “We're losing her!”
Epilogue
A Year Later…
Ryder
Julien walks into the kitchen, takes a cold bottle of water from the fridge, twists it open, and guzzles the entire thing down. His shirt and shorts stick to his skin which is drenched with sweat. I’m standing at the stove scrambling eggs to go with the bacon I just took off the burner. Julien grabs a piece of bacon and leans against the counter island.
“Jay up yet?”
“Yeah. He’s on the phone.”
Julien perks up at that. “Any news?”
I shake my head no and divide the eggs onto three plates then add bacon to each one. Sliding Julien’s over, he grabs it and shovels a fork full of food into his mouth. He’s usually starving in the morning since he gets up at five to run ten miles, rain or shine. Julien needs it. Running for him is an outlet, ten miles that allow him to shut his brain down and just be in the moment.
Normal moments have been few and far between for the three of us this past year. My release is racing. I need the adrenaline rush to steady my thoughts and keep me grounded. There’s a professional race track a half hour from here where I spend most of my evenings. Jayson is a different story. His escape used to be at the bottom of a liquor bottle. Now his emotions are channeled through his fists in an underground fight club.
We hear Jayson walking toward the kitchen. “Yeah, yeah, ok, man. Thanks. You know the drill. Call anytime if you find something. Yeah. Good. Alright, man. Talk to ya soon.” He tosses the phone on the counter and grabs his plate. “Fucking hell.” He falls onto the stool next to Julien.
“Why do we keep paying this guy again? It’s been months and he still isn’t any more successful than we are.”
Jayson
spreads his arms across the counter, dropping his head with an exhausted sigh. “I know. I fucking know.”
I notice his cut and swollen knuckles and I open the freezer to grab a bag of frozen peas. He fought last night and I’m surprised he isn’t more banged up. He usually comes home with a black eye or two or a busted lip, or bruised ribs. I’d rather he use his fists to fight his demons than get cirrhosis of the liver. He was a fucked-up mess for a while. Soon after Elizabeth disappeared, Jayson started drinking heavily to the point he would black out most days. I envied him. I would have given anything to escape the pain I woke up to every damn day she wasn’t in it. But I needed to be strong for her and do what I know she would have wanted. That meant helping Jay, giving him a reason to live. There was a time when Julien and I thought we would lose him too. It took a lot of tough love from all of us, our parents included, to lift him out of his deep depression and bring him back to the light. He’s surviving, barely. It’s good enough for now.
Julien has fared a bit better than his brother. He has Elijah. Elijah helps take some of that weight off my shoulders. He keeps Julien grounded, keeps him going. I will never be able to thank him enough for that, for giving up his dream of going to Stanford to come here to CU to be with Julien. Elijah’s a good man.
I think about the past year. The year without Elizabeth. You always hear people say that time moves on. Days turn into weeks that turn into years. Seasons change, people change. Time stopped for us when Elizabeth disappeared, when she was taken from us to who knows where. Our families struggled with the pain of losing her, of losing Hailey and their parents. Their killer was never found. No resolution, no justice. Nothing.
I don’t think any of us will ever recover. I don’t think Jayson and I ever will. We were the ones who first found all of them. Found Elizabeth gasping for breath on the blood-smeared floor, red pooling all around her, staining her blond hair an ugly scarlet. I can still feel the weight of her limp body in my arms as I watched her life slowly drain away. Her parents both dead in the living room. And Hailey. God, Hailey. A fucking nightmare. It never ends. Just plays like a goddamn horror movie set on repeat in my head day after day after day.
After Elizabeth’s attack, we visited her every day in the hospital until an incident between Jayson and a staff member got us all banned. A short forty-eight hours later, Elizabeth was gone. Since we're not family, no one would tell us anything. We now live in an empty void, wondering what happened to her; if she’s still alive, if she exists only in the shell of her body, if she ever came out of the coma. Does she dream about us? Is she scared? Does she think we abandoned her? Every night we fall asleep with thoughts of only her. Every day we wake up the same. We hunt for any clue online that she is out there, praying that one day there will be something to give us hope - a picture, a post, a news article, hell, even an obituary - anything that tells us what happened to her or where she is. Several months ago, we hired a private investigator, the guy Jayson was talking to on the phone. We will never give up until we have answers.
Jay, Jules, and I live together in a condo off campus. It's a two-story, three-bedroom floor plan. Our parents leased it jointly so the three of us could live here. We kept our promise to come to Carolina University, but honestly, I don’t remember most of last year or if I went to half of my classes. We were just trying to survive day to day. I’m surprised we made it to our sophomore year, but here we are, three weeks away from the start of the first semester. Jayson bailed on his swimming scholarship, but his parents were more than happy to fit the bill for his education. Anything to help Jay from tumbling back down into the soul-sucking darkness again. Julien maintained his scholarship and is a center forward for the CU soccer team. I still plan to get my MBA. Elizabeth was so excited for me to do that and I won’t let her down.
I tip back the rest of my coffee and rinse the cup out. I started drinking black coffee with two yellow packets of sweetener just like Elizabeth loved. Small things to help keep memories of Elizabeth fresh in my mind. They help keep her close to me.
I grab my keys and wallet. “I’m out of here guys. I have to stop by the student store and pick up a textbook.”
“Elijah’s going to pick me up in an hour. We’re reading to the kids at the library.” That’s Julien’s little echo of Elizabeth that keeps her close to him.
“Jay, what’s on the agenda for you today?”
“Sleep. Web search. Work out. The usual.” Yep. That’s our new normal now.
“I’ll help you when I get back. Give me about an hour.”
“No rush, man.”
I brought my Hellcat with me to college because there’s no way I will ever sell it. I remember the first day I took Elizabeth out in it. She came out of the library and basically drooled all over it, saying she was going to marry it. She named it Stella. I laugh at the memory. God, that was a good day. I park Stella in one of the student pay-by-the-hour lots on campus, lay my head back, and shut my eyes. I can picture Elizabeth sitting next to me in the passenger seat, her long flaxen hair flying around her face from the wind through the window. Her squeals of joy and excitement when I raced around the track at the Fields. The way she smelled. Her fucking delicious scent of jasmine and sunshine. I miss her so goddamn much. I take a deep breath and shake my head to stave off the sadness that will overtake me if I allow it to.
As I walk to the CU student center, I encounter other students and faculty members mulling about the grounds, the campus full of students doing summer courses. It’s the first week of August, the heat of summer bearing down, hot and sticky. The mingled smell of dirt, grass, and honeysuckle vines is pungent. Girls are lying on towels spread out in the grass. Some in bathing suit tops and denim shorts trying to get a tan, others reading or working on their laptops. A group of guys throwing a frisbee, all shirtless because of the heat. The sun is out, puffy white cumulus clouds dot the sky. It’s a gorgeous day. Unfortunately, I’m not in the mood to enjoy it. I never am anymore.
“Hey, man. I’ve been yelling your name for the past two fucking minutes. Where’s your head at?” Fallon jogs up to me.
Out of all the people I would have expected not to go to college, especially a state-run college since his family has more money than Midas had gold, Fallon coming here shocked the hell out of me. Yet, here he is, also a sophomore like us since he took a year off after graduating high school to sail on his family’s yacht. Come to find out, his parents went to school here and they donate a shitload of money to the university. One library and an academic hall are named after them, and Fallon is a legacy member of his dad’s old fraternity.
“Surprised to see you here,” I look at my watch, “before noon.” Fallon’s usual M.O. is to stay up all night and sleep all day.
He throws his arm around me. “Fuck yeah man. We have to clean the frat house and get it ready for incoming rush. Fucking freshman virgin holes.”
“Fallon, you were one of those freshmen last year.”
“Shit no. I’m a legacy. I am the king. Everyone else bows to me motherfucker.”
“Thanks for reminding me why I never want to join a frat, ever. Having to put up with your bullshit antics day in and day out,” I trail off and he just cackles.
“I have a proposition for you, Ry.”
“And that would be?”
“I bought a new car and want to test it out on the track to see what she can do. You in?” I think this is Fallon’s third new car this year. I can’t complain much seeing as I’m the lucky guy he asks to test drive them on the track. Why he doesn’t do it himself remains a mystery to me.
“What car did you buy?”
Fallon licks his lips, one of his tells. “A totally kickass Radical RXC.”
“Hell yeah! I’m in. When?”
“I thought you’d want to pop her track cherry. This weekend good?”
“Yeah. Send me a text. I’ll be there.” We get to the student center and walk in. Fallon spots a group of girls and veers away to chat them up. J
ust like in high school, he’s as much of a manwhore in college.
I head to the back of the store where the textbooks are located and search for the one I need for Marketing Analysis and Development. I’m looking at the price and debating whether I should find the book used online or see if there's a digital version when someone’s laughter catches my ear. The hairs on my skin stand up. I look around me. I hear the sound again and my body follows it like I’m a fish caught on the fisherman’s line being reeled in and there’s nothing I can do to escape its pull.
I see Preston, a guy I know from one of my classes last year. He spots me heading his way and is talking to me, but I don’t hear anything. Sweat breaks out all along my forehead, my palms go clammy, my heart begins to pound out of my chest, a sick feeling swirls in my gut. I feel like I am about to pass out or explode into a million jagged pieces, my body can’t decide which. My vision blurs and I use the back of my hands to wipe them. Am I crying? Am I even breathing? My legs have stopped moving but I feel like I’m flying. It’s a strange sensation. I blink a few times to clear my vision. Each blink is like the click of a camera shutter. My brain catalogs each blink, each click, storing every image away. My ears record every hum, every noise. I swallow thickly, my mouth bone dry.
My gaze is frozen. Unmoving. Locked onto the person standing next to Preston.
My brain can only process a few words.
Holy fuck.
Holy shit.
Holy fucking shit.
I must have said the words out loud. The person in front of me turns around. Sage green eyes, pale blond hair tipped with rosy pink, full lips, the most beautiful face I have ever seen. A face that has haunted me for over a year. A face that I have loved for most of my life. She’s here.
“Elizabeth?”
Their story continues in Paper Stars Rewritten: Fallen Brook Series, Book 2.
All Our Next Times: Fallen Brook Series: Book 1 Page 28
