by Lissa Kasey
She put her hands on his face, using her thumbs to wipe away his tears, then cupped his cheeks until she could stretch up to brush a kiss across his lips. “He’s home and safe. I’m here and safe.”
“Not because of anything I did,” he said sounding heartbroken.
“That’s okay,” Sky assured him. “We don’t expect you to be Superman. You need to be here for us. Can’t that be enough?”
I let Lukas go, giving him a little nudge toward Sky. He turned completely and enfolded her in his arms. She accepted his embrace and almost seemed to melt into it.
She kept murmuring, “We’re safe. It’s okay.”
It was one of those moments that I realized as put together as Lukas was, it was all a façade. He’d lived so long under the mask of control, that when something didn’t go right, he didn’t know how to deal with it. Chaos was sort of my brand rather than his.
Focus, he’d said he wanted for me. Something more than the past. It was what he needed too. I patted Lukas on the back. “How about you go and take a nap. I know you haven’t been sleeping well.”
He looked at me, exhausted, full of fear and loneliness, afraid we would all vanish from his life, I think. “I don’t know…”
“I’m going to order a grocery delivery for you,” I told him.
“I want you to stay here,” he begged.
“I can’t hide forever.” I glanced at Micah thinking there was more in life I wanted than to lock myself away. “We can’t waste our lives waiting for something bad to happen. I want a chance to live it, without constantly looking over my shoulder.”
“But we don’t know what happened…”
“No,” I agreed. “And as you told me before, we don’t need to. We can still move forward and try to find something new to focus on. You have someone who needs you.” I motioned at Sky. “I’d like to try too. Yeah?”
He frowned but stared at me with a mix of emotions plain on his face. Fear, worry, anger, and sadness, but also understanding. “Text me the minute you get to his house. I’ll be watching on the cameras.”
“Creepy, but okay.” I glanced at Sky. “Can you handle the groceries that I order?”
“I can put my own damn groceries away,” Lukas grumbled.
“I want you to relax.”
Sky nodded. “We’re good.”
I looked at Micah. Was he still okay with me coming home with him? I really wanted to curl up in his space and watch him craft if that was what he needed, or even mindlessly watch a show with him. I was too emotionally exhausted to do much more, but the idea of sitting in his presence and enjoying the calm acceptance he gave me, was enough.
“I’ve already ordered an Uber for us,” Micah said. He looked at Lukas. “We won’t be walking home. And I’ll make sure we both text once we’re home. It will be from my phone since we have to get Alex a new one, but we can call if that’s better for you. So you can hear his voice?”
It took a moment, but Lukas finally nodded. He pulled Sky close, dragging her with him to the couch where they both collapsed curled around each other. I used Micah’s phone to order groceries for delivery and hoped there were easier days ahead. Lukas needed back to his normal routine which I had interrupted by showing up in his life. I felt kind of bad about that, but couldn’t keep punishing myself for not being like everyone else. Maybe this was the chance I needed to really be me. Even if that me was messed up and a little nuts.
Chapter 29
Micah’s place was different inside. He’d reorganized the entire layout; the lower floor had been changed to a craft space instead of having it all hidden away. The futon was pushed off to the side, looking mostly unused and Micah’s sewing machine had a prominent place toward the back of the room. A new wall of cubes had appeared and little colored boxes filled it. I recalled he had a smaller one upstairs originally, and this was like that only four times as large.
That worried me since he tended to go crazy with crafts when his head got too loud. Was the closet so full he’d have to expand outward? Had he slept at all while I was gone? He looked okay. No bags under his eyes, or weight loss. Not like Lukas. That didn’t mean he’d been taking care of himself properly. It could mean he was better at moisturizing his face than my brother was.
“Do you have groceries?” I asked once we’d gotten off the phone with Lukas.
“Yes. Sky always makes sure there’s food here. Are you hungry?”
“Not at the moment. I wanted to make sure the pantry was full before we settled in for a bit.” I heard the familiar thump of Jet jumping down from something, and a moment later he appeared from the loft. He let out a little “erp” sound from the top of the stairs and raced my way. A moment later he wove around my legs giving me happy little mews.
“Hey, buddy,” I said. “Missed you too.”
I bent down to pet him and scratch his head. “You been taking care of daddy? Giving him lots of snuggles while I was gone?”
“He has been very clingy,” Micah said.
“Protective,” I corrected and gave the cat a kiss on the head. “Good boy.” I stood and looked at Micah. “Sarah is really okay?”
“Yeah, she and Jared went home. She was a little dehydrated, but physically okay.”
“Does she remember anything?”
“Not really?” It was more a question than a statement.
“Like you don’t really remember anything?”
He shrugged. “It’s bits and pieces that I’m not sure if they are a dream or not. She and I are keeping in touch. I sent her a text that you were back.”
I reached out to touch his face, thinking again that he was so beautiful. Delicate bone structure, but nerves of steel. “How about you? Are you okay?”
“Maybe? Happy that you’re here, safe.”
Remembering how he explained his previous return I wondered if that had changed something between us as well. We’d barely begun to know each other, then I was gone. Would we fit anymore? “It feels like only a few days for me,” I confessed. I didn’t feel any different. “Do we fit?”
Micah studied me for a minute. “When I got back…” he paused as if debating whether or not that was the right phrasing, but continued, “Tim was bitter. I was confused, a little lost, and disoriented. He sort of went on the attack… like Lukas.”
“Protective, yet blaming.” That made sense. Normal human emotions, even if they weren’t always rational. “Is that why you didn’t fit anymore?”
“I didn’t feel exactly the same,” Micah said. He bent down to pet Jet, who seemed thrilled with the attention. “I mean I felt like me, only more aware? I’m not sure how to explain it. For a few days I tried to ignore the little things. Small signs that we didn’t fit anymore. His irritation, backhanded comments, and short tone. At first it was Tim, then it was everyone. They were placating, looking at me like I was broken. Eventually, I decided it was me who had changed and not everyone else. Now I’m not so sure.”
“Are you bitter? Angry that I was gone?”
“No. That would be silly. I don’t think you had any more control over what happened than I did.”
“Even if people told you I’d killed myself.”
“They told everyone in my family that too. That I’d done something and they hadn’t found the body. Or got lost and died of exposure. It’s how we as humans rationalize the unknown.”
“What do you think happened?” I asked, wondering if his suspicions ran in the same terrifying directions mine did.
“I think it doesn’t matter now that you’re back.”
“So we move forward like nothing happened?” I wasn’t sure I could do that. My brain was already working through a dozen scenarios, and none of them friendly.
“Will dwelling on it help either of us?”
I sighed. He was so fucking good at truth bombs. “No,” I agreed.
He nodded. “Then let’s find a new normal. What is normal for us at least.”
“Weird as we may be?”
He gave me a tiny smile. “Yes.”
“Sounds like a plan. How much crafting did you do while I was away?” I headed to the closet to look at what Micah’s anxiety might have wrought, but when I opened it, I was surprised to find it very organized. The wall of fabric was gone, likely in the bins that had been placed along the back wall. And the sections of closet rods were sorted into specific things with paper signs on each section: WIP, Done, with errors, Ready for Sale, and Micah’s collection.
“A little,” he acknowledged.
“Were the signs your doing, or Sky’s?”
“I sorted them. Sky put the signs. I think it was because I kept telling her I needed this or that put in a particular place and she couldn’t remember.”
The section that was Micah’s looked mostly new, but since the prior mess was gone, it was hard to tell. Some of them looked to be his size, but the coat I’d tried on before was there, along with a few others that looked more my size than his. The area for the shop was mostly clear, just a few bags, and a small throw. The error section was actually pretty small too, surprising me. Micah was a bit of a perfectionist, so I’d assumed he’d find lots of little errors with things.
“I cleared out stuff. Brought old projects to the shop and priced them to move to make room for new stuff.”
I smiled at him. “A good thing, yeah? Not staring at all the stuff you thought didn’t turn out right?”
He shrugged. “I guess. I didn’t realize before how much having that stuff in there got me down, my wall of messed up projects. I had Sky help me go through them. We donated the stuff that wasn’t saleable to the college textile department, and took the rest to the shop. Most of it has already sold. And the college was grateful for the fabric even if they had to cut stuff up.”
“What’s up in the loft now?” I asked.
“I rearranged it to the sleeping area. I needed the table for the sewing machine and a real chair.” His cheeks pinked. “My back started to hurt from being hunched over so much. I’m not as young as I used to be.”
I had to laugh at that, and leaned forward to give him a kiss, which he accepted. “Still my boy toy?”
He groaned. “Sometimes you’re so weird.”
“Yeah but my weird works with your weird… old man,” I teased.
“Jerk. If I’m an old man, then you must be a dinosaur.”
I put my hand over my heart. “Well I never…”
We both broke out laughing. I pulled him into a hug and kissed the top of his head before letting him go to study the new downstairs craft layout. The sewing machine sat on a full-sized table and was inset into it. A chair which looked more like an office chair with a huge back and webbed lumbar support sat on a clear mat tucked into the table. The set up looked pretty sweet actually. Like he could roll from the wall of cubes to the sewing table to a corner table which looked to be set up for cutting.
“It looks a lot more comfortable of a set up than the one upstairs was,” I said, then narrowed my eyes at him. “Have you been sleeping at all?”
He sighed and looked at me. “A little. Sometimes I’d dream of you.”
“What about the noises from outside?”
“Only happened once while you were gone.”
Well that was good news. Could whatever heightened activity he’d been experiencing be caused by my presence? No. He said it had started before I arrived. So maybe it was something the other tour guides had done? I hated not having all the answers. The sad part was, that not having all the answers was life, and even before vanishing, if that was what had happened to me, I had decided I would live life and stop hiding from it.
“When days went by, after you disappeared, and I didn’t hear it, I thought it took you, and that’s why it was silent.”
Fuck. I frowned at him. “It was not your fault.”
He hugged himself. “The night the noise showed up again I went out into the garden and demanded it bring you back.” He looked away. “Nothing happened.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “That’s great.”
“Not great,” he said, glaring at me now. “I wanted you back.”
“Not that part,” I agreed, waving my hands. “But that nothing happened again. It’s a noise. As annoying as it is.”
He sighed. “It hasn’t happened again. But I also moved up into the loft and sometimes sleep with earplugs in. So maybe I’m not hearing it?”
“Either one of those work for me,” I assured him. I headed up to the loft to look at the space. That too, had changed a lot. Jet’s little bed was still there, but most of the storage was gone. A fan had been set up into a small area of the pony wall to circulate air. And the space felt cool and clean, dust free.
There was a large mattress looking thing pressed up against the wall in the corner, and made up to look like a bed. It wasn’t huge, maybe a queen at most. And it wasn’t thick enough to be an actual mattress. One of the storage chests sat at the foot of the mat, the one that normally contained the extra pillows and blankets. And there was a small cube shelf next to the bed that had an alarm clock, a small lamp, and a stack of books as well as an e-reader.
The area would have been a perfect little bedroom if he’d put up curtains or something to block out the light from the rest of the space. I wondered if we could get some shades or something.
Micah had followed me up. “It’s still pretty cramped, but I sleep better curled up by the wall since I’m alone and all. I think I’m used to small spaces.”
“I like it,” I told him. “Thinking maybe we could put some curtains or something at the edge there. Sort of privacy and room darkening all at once?” I pointed to the area in question.
He examined it. “Sure. I could make some Roman shades. That’s easy enough.”
For him, easy. For me, I’d have to buy something and hope it fit. I wasn’t even sure I knew what a Roman shade was, but I smiled, agreeing with his idea. “Sounds great. Do you have some fabric that will work for it?”
He nodded. “I have a section of home décor fabric that will work, and some room darkening liner. It’s downstairs in the green bins.”
“Color coordinated bins?”
He shrugged. “Helps me find stuff fast. The quilt cottons are a little more complicated because I have them broken up by pattern instead of color, but still in bins with a certain design on them.” He went to the chest at the end of the bed and opened it. A second later he pulled out a new quilt. This one was green, with leaves and tiny dragons. It was part the roll of strips he’d had me choose, and the little dragons. He must have gone back for more of the fabric. Micah handed me the quilt and I opened it, marveling at the pattern and the size. It was huge. I wrapped it around myself, loving it instantly. This was better than any of those cheap Walmart comforters I’d had.
“You fucking rock.”
A smile curved the edge of his lips. I grinned at that little break in his mask. How long would it take to tear it down again? A few hours? Days? Weeks? “You thought I’d be back?” I asked him.
“I hoped,” he admitted. “Your disappearance didn’t fit the others.”
“Because I didn’t vanish in a state park? I’m sure people vanish in the middle of big cities all the time.”
He nodded and looked somber for a moment. “A lot of those are due to drugs or sex trafficking. You don’t fit either of those profiles.”
That was true.
“I thought maybe you got lost in that other place. The one that sucked you down.” He glanced away. “I kept dreaming that I couldn’t save you.”
I pushed the blanket back, letting it fall onto the bed, and wrapped him in my arms, reminding him of what we’d told Lukas earlier. “I don’t need you to save me. I need you around, yeah?”
“Yeah,” he agreed, accepting my embrace.
I glanced at the bed. While I was tired, I wasn’t tired enough to sleep and it was only four in the afternoon. Did he need a nap? “Are you tired?”
“A little, but no
t enough to sleep?” He said, more a question than an answer, like did I understand? And I did. He had stuff in his head he needed to sort out.
“Do you want me to go?” Maybe I should have stayed with Lukas. Though I kind of thought he needed time with Sky to finally sort out what was in his head.
“No. I like having you here.” He seemed to think for a minute. “Not because it assures me you are really back, but you help slow my thoughts, calm the everyday anxiety? Like my brain knows that if something happens, whatever it is, you’ll know what to do.”
“Even if that something is run away screaming,” I agreed.
He laughed. I loved that sound. “You’re so damn snarky.”
“Are you complaining?”
“No.” He rubbed my arms, like he was reassuring himself that I was real. “Let me set up a bath for you. A twenty-minute soak and your skin should feel better.”
“Yeah? That easy?”
“You’ll probably have to repeat it over the next few days, but it will help.”
“Okay,” I said. “What will you do while I bathe?”
“Watch you. Maybe crochet?”
“Sounds like a plan.” I followed him down to the bathroom and watched him fill the giant tub and add a bunch of things to it. Whatever they were smelled heavenly, and the heat wafting in little steam trails off the water looked deliciously inviting. I stripped without thinking about it, and slipped into the tub, sinking down until the water reached my chin.
Micah brought some new crochet project in and sat down beside the tub, working his magic while I half dozed in the heat. It was amazing. My body awakening slowly to the sensation like every muscle had been cramped up to avoid pain or something. By the time the water began to cool and I was pruney, every inch of me felt softer, smoother, and more awake than when I’d found myself in that Georgia hospital. We barely spoke the entire time and that was okay as the silence had been comforting.
“Do you want me to shave off the rest of the beard?” I asked him after he handed me some shampoo that was supposed to help moisturize my scalp.
