by Anna Cove
Dylan's back faced her. Across the way, Skylar huddled over a shaking Karen Ludlow, her hand up as if to protect her. Dylan didn't notice Laura come in. She was screaming. "This is all your fault. You did this. You didn't allow her to be what she wanted to be, and she ran away, and God knows where she is now."
"Dylan." Laura's voice cut the air like a knife.
Dylan's head whipped around. "Stay out of this, Laura."
"Come here. I have to tell you something."
"I said stay out, Laura."
Aaron was crying now, and the rising pitch of his wails only added to the confusion. Laura bounced and jostled him. The vibrating tension in the room was almost visible and certainly palpable. Laura had to tread carefully here. "Just hold on a second, Dylan."
Laura eased Aaron out of his wrap and shifted him over her shoulder. He quieted. Then she took a step toward Dylan, but before she could do anything, Mrs. Ludlow spoke.
"You know nothing about my daughter," she said, her voice quaking.
"I know more than you. Do you know she hates Girl Scouts? Or that she hates when you try to dress her? She's sixteen, for God's sake, and not your doll."
"Now, Dylan," Laura said. "You need to calm down."
Dylan's hands shook. "If she shows up dead, I swear..."
"Dylan," Laura yelled. She inserted her body between the two arguing woman, placing a hand on Dylan's chest.
Dylan didn't even look at her, her storming eyes slashing into Karen Ludlow. "Get out of here, Laura. This is none of your business."
"You're afraid of losing her," Laura said, keeping her hand right where it was, while the other held on to her baby. She prayed Dylan wasn't crazed enough to hurt them. For the first time ever, she wasn't sure. "We're all afraid of losing her, Dylan."
"When she comes back, I'm never letting her near you again," Mrs. Ludlow said.
Dylan practically leapt over Laura, crashing into her baby-less side. "You try that, you bitch."
Laura slammed her fist against Dylan's chest and bunched her shirt in her hand, jerking her as hard as she could. She needed to do something to kick her out of this moment, to recognize what she was doing.
Dylan relented, but only a fraction. She continued to push against Laura, though her efforts were half-hearted.
"Skylar," Laura said. "Can you take Mrs. Ludlow out back please? I need to speak to Dylan alone."
"Are you sure you don't need backup?"
"Yes, I'm fine, go." She was glad then for her skills as an actress because while her voice remained steely, her insides churned with terror.
Laura kept her eyes on Dylan, watching for hints of the barely contained wildness. Aaron was crying again, and her breasts ached to feed him. She just needed a moment with Dylan. She could talk her down. She knew she could.
"I think you need to talk to someone, Dylan," she said softly. She released hold on Dylan's shirt. A spider's web of wrinkles remained as a result. "Isn't there someone on your crew team who is a therapist? Alex? She's hung back in case anyone needs her."
"I don't want to talk to anyone. I want to go out there and look for Jo."
"I hear you. You're upset. You're—"
Dylan tore herself out of Laura's grip. "Don't do that bullshit psychoanalysis with me. I told you I don't want to talk to anyone."
Laura could see how Dylan had escalated in such a short period of time. She could see the progression from losing Katie, to talking about Katie for the first time, to becoming vulnerable, to the thought of losing someone again and the impossibility of surviving that loss. She felt for her. "I know it's hard to lose someone or to think you're going to lose someone."
Dylan's jaw went back to clenching, but she said nothing.
"But you are not losing Jo. She's out there having a grand time. She's probably messing around with her girlfriend and has no idea what's going on here."
"But I missed her call." Dylan's jaw trembled. "She tried to call me and I was too busy. I wasn't there and I wasn't at work and I couldn't help her."
"You were living your life. You get to have a life, Dylan. You have to have one especially if you want to make a career of helping others. If I've learned anything, it's that. Right now, the best thing you can do is to have faith. Have faith in your community and have faith in the police and the park rangers. Everything is going to work out."
Dylan's nostrils flared. She folded her arms across her chest.
"Now, I have to take care of Aaron. Can I leave you for a moment? Or do you need me to stay with you?"
Dylan's eyes clouded with tears and her bottom lip trembled. She turned away from Laura, then turned back. "How can I have faith when faith has never helped me before? I had faith that Katie would come home that day from work. I had faith that she would wake up from her coma. I lost my faith the day she died. I don't think... I mean... how do you have faith in a world where not only random things, but awful things, can happen to people who don't deserve it?"
She was looking to Laura for an answer. Laura had often thought about faith and fate and how some people seem have bad luck heaped on top of more bad luck. She could have gone down the path of self-pity many times in her life, but she refused it every step of the way. She didn't really know why she persisted in her optimism. She just did. "Because if I didn't, I would just lie down and never get up again. Today, Jo needs you. So you need to take care of yourself and be there for her. Okay?"
Dylan sniffed and nodded.
"Good. And stay away from her mother for now. You don't need that additional stress."
Dylan nodded again. Laura wanted to hug her, but she wasn't sure if it would be welcome. She'd come to know her so intimately in the past week, but this whole thing made it feel like an impenetrable wall had come up between them.
"I'm going to go feed the baby. I'll be right back, Dylan. Okay? Here's some water, and I'll be right back."
Dylan stared at the floor. She didn't look at Laura as Laura handed her the water. Laura hurried off to the storage pantry where she could get some peace and take a breath for herself. Aaron's cry droned on.
"Shh," she said and rocked him, as much to calm herself as him.
By the time Laura finished feeding Aaron and returned to the main area of The Snuggery, Dylan was gone. Skylar was talking to the kids. She caught Laura's eye and hurried over. "Dylan went out for some fresh air."
"Did anyone go with her?" Laura asked. She blinked. Why had she thought it a good idea to leave her alone? Maybe she should have dragged Dylan with her to feed Aaron. But she wouldn't have been able to relax with the tension rolling off Dylan. Aaron needed to be fed. It was the only call she could have made.
"No. She went alone. But I checked outside a few minutes ago and her car was gone."
"Do you know where she went?"
Skylar sighed. "Probably to look for Jo."
"Why didn't you stop her?"
"Turns out you were right. She's stronger than me." Sky smiled a sad smile.
Laura dug in the diaper bag for the keys. Why are there so many pockets in this darn thing? "I have to go after her."
"Dylan is used to dealing with crises. She needs to help. If we don't let her do something, she'll hate herself. Leave her be. She'll be fine. Plus, she needs to process things on her own."
Laura continued shuffling the objects in her bag, shaking her head. "Things are different now. We talk about everything."
"She would want you to stay. You're doing great here." Skylar placed a hand on Laura's arm and only then did she stop looking. "We need you. And Dylan needs you here."
One of the kids stumbled over from the dining table. "Laura, I think I found something."
"Stay," Skylar said.
Laura blinked then turned to the student to see what she had found. It was an Instagram photo, just posted to Jo's account. Laura sprang into action. She brought the phone to Officer Lucinda to see what they could do with the information. She started making calls to the park rangers and the lay search cr
ews. Every second was busy. The place was abuzz again with the new lead, and people kept asking for Laura's attention.
It was crazy.
It was almost too much.
But in that moment, Laura realized that this is what she loved. Directing people. And her heart broke into a million pieces when she realized she might never do it again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DYLAN WAS ALONE IN the dark.
The moon hid behind the clouds on this late spring night, the noises of the darkness surrounding her. A rustle here, a slither against disintegrating leaves there. Dylan could only see a few feet in front of her at a time, and only where the beams of her phone flashlight touched. Her body was in a heightened state. Her cellular battery was dying, and she was on Blackhead Mountain. Alone.
It was 2:07 AM and Jo and Olivia still hadn't been found. Dylan received a notification that her phone would soon shut down. She called their names into the blackness one more time, but the absence of human presence was total. She kept trudging through the forest, tripping on rocks and roots she'd missed seeing.
A text came through from Laura.
We found them. They're fine. Where are you?
Dylan stopped walking and started typing a message, but before she could send it through, her phone flickered, and the screen went dark. They found them, she thought. She even found herself smiling into the dark. They found them! Alive.
Dylan huffed and puffed like she had just been running. She pressed the heel of her palm into her chest where the pain unwound itself slightly. For a moment, she didn't even care about her dead phone.
But as the minutes passed, the thrill wore off, and Dylan grew aware of her needs. Hunger gnawed at her stomach. Thirst parched her lips. In her haste to help in the search, she hadn't brought supplies with her.
She listened to the sounds around her to orient herself. She had been systematically working in a snaking movement up the mountain, regardless of trails, tromping through brush and undergrowth.
Now, she had no idea how to get back to her car.
A breeze rustled the leaves. The air hung heavy. It smelled of earth. The rustling increased until Dylan could no longer deny that it was raining.
"Shit," she muttered.
Well, at least that takes care of my water needs.
She secured her phone in her pants pocket and squinted into the forest. It would probably be best to go straight down. Maybe she could pick up a trail if she did. She tried for a few minutes. Branches slapped her face. The trail was becoming slick with the rain. She would be better off finding shelter and waiting until first light to head out again.
Inching forward and using mostly touch, Dylan found a protected area under a dense thicket of trees. She sat on a felled tree stump and huddled around her knees to hold in what little warmth remained.
She could do this. She could get through the night here, and it wouldn't even be the worst night of her life. Because Jo was okay.
All day, Dylan had imagined the worst. She had imagined the two girls setting out on an adventure and being abducted by some pervert. In another scenario, they simply lost their way and were never found again until they were just two piles of bones huddled together along a streambed. She imagined worse, even, in her search for them along the mountain. Things she couldn't acknowledge now.
But none of that had happened.
They were found and they were fine.
As she sat huddling, Dylan went over the day. It was ending so differently than it had begun. An early morning wake-up with Laura and Aaron, simultaneously looking forward to and dreading going back to work, working on the Connect Four game with Laura, and then a phone call that changed everything.
It hadn't taken long for her to go to pieces after that, had it? Dylan had thought she'd built up a wall around her heart over all these years. But it hadn't worked. Jo had launched over that wall and given her heart a hug and made Dylan love her. Now, she could see the impossibility of protecting her heart. There were too many people she cared about now—Jo, Aaron, Skylar, Laura—to succeed.
Laura. Dylan groaned. The moment Dylan had found out about Jo's disappearance, Laura had sprung into action. She'd organized search parties and run the whole operation like a champ. She'd even kept hold of her empathy and tried to help Dylan, and what had Dylan given her? Grief. An attitude. Then she'd done the worst thing of all and had gone into flight mode. She'd run. Again.
At that thought, Dylan almost got up and started picking her way down the mountain. So what if she showed up cut and bruised and full of poison ivy and God knows what else. She'd left Laura without saying anything and now she wasn't answering her calls.
Would Laura worry about her? Would she send a search crew?
That would be embarrassing.
And also kinda sweet. Dylan had been alone in the dark place of her mind for so long that Laura's shining light had made her squint. She'd been fighting her. Even when she agreed to do what Laura asked, what Dylan's own body demanded, she was fighting them both all along.
Why? Because she thought it would somehow taint her relationship with Katie?
In the actual dark, alone on the side of Blackhead Mountain, she saw clearly for the first time. It was impossible to taint her marriage with Katie. That was the past, and this was a new dawn, a new life...
And Dylan wanted to spend it with Laura.
Now that she had decided, every second ticking by was another second wasted. She dozed uncomfortably. As soon as the gray rays of dawn gave her enough light, she made her way back down to the car.
FROZEN AND SOAKED THROUGH, she knocked on the door to her cabin. She was shaking, but not because of her physical state. If she had to wait a moment longer, she would burst.
The door whipped open to Laura's wide eyes and wild hair.
"I'm sorry, I—"
Laura crashed into her, wrapping her arms around her middle. "Thank God. You're okay. You're okay."
It took every ounce of Dylan's strength to push her away.
Laura's face crumpled.
Dylan hurried to reassure her. "I'm soaked and I probably have poison ivy oil all over my clothes. I want to touch you. I want to do more than touch you."
Laura folded her arms over her chest. The lines on her forehead smoothed. She said nothing. Absolutely nothing.
It was Dylan's turn to speak, to make everything right. "I made a mistake. I shouldn't have left, and I'm sorry."
"I was worried sick."
"I didn't mean for that to happen. My phone died..." Dylan lifted an arm. It was all one long excuse and it was keeping her from what she wanted to say. "I had some time to think on the mountain overnight. I don't want to lose you, Laura."
"God, Dylan, seriously?" Laura threw her arms out. "Why would you think you were losing me?"
Dylan's face heated and she felt that stiffness come into her throat that had made it hard to talk for so long after she'd lost Katie. "The things I said at The Snuggery... I didn't mean them."
"I know. You were under a lot of stress. You—"
"What I'm trying to say is..." Dylan raced forward, clipping Laura's words so she could get it out before she wimped out. "I love you, Laura. I want to be with you and Aaron. And I'm going to do everything and anything in my power to make you the happiest woman on earth. Starting today."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
LAURA CHECKED ON AARON and, finding him still fast asleep, turned on the shower water to heat it up.
As she went through the motions, various thoughts rang through her head. Why did you have to run? Why couldn't we have done this together? Damn it, Dylan, I love you, too. She pushed them away. Before Laura said those words, she needed to make sure Dylan understood her actions the previous day had been unacceptable and could never happen again.
Just then, Dylan was in no state to talk. She stood in the foyer, arms-crossed and shivering, with blue-tinged lips and mud-stained hair flattened around her head. Laura took her firmly by the shoulders an
d guided her into the bathroom. She peeled off her clothes piece by piece. The skin underneath was cold, clammy, and webbed with purple bruising.
Hurriedly she took her own clothes off and pulled Dylan into the shower with her.
Dylan continued to shiver as the warm water pounded down on her body. Laura grabbed her face cloth and soaked it, placing it on Dylan's arms. She leaned out of the shower and grabbed two more cloths from the shelf and did the same on other exposed parts of her body. Laura ran her fingers over Dylan's skin, washing off the dirt and looking for damage. Other than bruising and some surface abrasions, she seemed okay. Nothing serious. When she finished, Laura washed her hair. As her fingers massaged her scalp, Dylan's tired eyes met her searching gaze and Laura's heart melted.
I love you, too.
Laura loved her despite what had happened in The Snuggery the day before. She loved her because of it. She loved her in a way she had never loved anyone else and it scared her to death. Because would Dylan—passionate, fierce, faithful Dylan—ever stop running? Could she ever allow herself to truly be cherished and held?
Laura re-warmed two of the cloths and placed them on Dylan's still-cold thighs. With another, she took a bar of soap and rubbed it on the cloth, then slowly washed her body. Dylan's daze fell away with each stroke, her gaze growing in heat and intensity, but Laura held herself away. She couldn't give in, not without letting Dylan know how small she'd made her feel. When she finished rinsing Dylan, she stepped out of the shower. She took a towel and dried herself, then offered one to Dylan.
"I'm going to get some clothes for you. I'll be in the kitchen when you're ready."
"Okay," Dylan said from the shower.
Laura tiptoed into her room where Aaron still slept. As quietly as she could, she opened her drawer and pulled out clothes for herself and Dylan. She dressed, exited the room, and gently closed the door behind her.
Dylan stood in the living room dripping, wearing only her towel. She looked like herself again, but the memory of her crazed actions the day before was fresh. Dylan opened her mouth, and Laura handed her the clothes and turned toward the kitchen.
