The Way Back to Us

by Jamie Howard

  I tried to breathe, but even that was a struggle. The hurt on his face had ripped me apart, the utter shock like he couldn’t possibly believe I was turning him down. God, how I’d wanted to go. I’d have given anything to be there for him when he needed me the most. But there was no way I could risk an airport. I wasn’t even sure my ID would uphold that kind of scrutiny, let alone how dangerous it would’ve been. One quick, random facial recognition scan and I would’ve been done for.

  “You’re a real piece of work.” Ben stepped in front of me, his upper lip curling back. “What the fuck is the matter with you?”

  “Ben.” Rachel stepped between us, refusing to even look at me. “Let’s just go.”

  His desire to tear into me was written plainly all over his face. This time I couldn’t even blame him. I knew what this looked like from their perspectives. Even from my perspective I hated myself.

  “Please,” Rachel said. A little stronger this time.

  He shook his head, finally relenting. The two of them left without another glance back, not even bothering to slam the door. A quiet click echoed around the empty room and then I was alone.

  I turned, aimlessly, until I spotted the overturned bag of bagels on the counter. They were scattered across the granite, one having tumbled all the way to the floor. I stooped to clean them up, but nearly dropped them, my hands were shaking so hard.

  I deserved every nasty look they gave me and more.

  It came back with a vengeance then, the itch to run, to take action. My bones ached with it, my heart yearned for it. At least now I could tame my response. I changed quick and headed for the other end of Gavin’s condo. I’d only peeked in before, but it had been enough to know it was a personal gym. And right there in the corner was a treadmill.

  I didn’t stretch, didn’t ease into it. Turning the speed up as high as I could manage I sprinted as fast as I could. My whole body shuddered with the impact of my footsteps, but I pushed through it. I pushed past the burn in my chest, the screaming muscles in my legs, ignored the sweat soaking through my shirt.

  Dani, Dani, always running. Did you think this time would be any different? He’ll always want more than you can give him. You’re not enough for him. It doesn’t matter how much you want it, how much you crave it, you don’t get this life. You don’t get him.

  My foot hit the belt awkwardly, ankle twisting, and I went down hard. I didn’t even have time to get my hands up in front of my face before it slammed into treadmill, and the belt threw me backward onto the floor.

  Pain was the first thing to register—my ankle, my forehead, my ribs. Wetness streamed down my face, and I lifted a shaking hand to brush it away, sure my fingers would come back stained red. But they weren’t. There wasn’t any blood at all. I was crying. The tears running down my face and plummeting off my jaw.

  It wasn’t fair.

  Life isn’t fair, Dani, my father’s voice answered me.

  I forced myself to sit up, sucking in a breath at the fresh wash of pain. The wall was behind me and I leaned against it, a trembling, aching shell of myself. I’d fallen into this too deep, let myself get tangled up in all the wishes and dreams I’d fought so hard to deny. I wasn’t the girl who got picket fences. There wasn’t a happy ending to this story.

  I wouldn’t regret it though. Couldn’t really. Because that would mean I’d have to regret Gavin and that’s something I’d never do. What was that line about losing love? That they’d prefer to have lost it because that meant at one point they had it?

  I’d spend the rest of my life with a broken heart beating in my chest, but I’d never be anything but grateful for it because it meant I was lucky enough to fall in love. Even if it wasn’t the kind of love I could have forever.

  With effort, I picked myself up off the floor and limped to the bathroom. I made a pit-stop at the mirror to see if I’d done any really damage to my face. There was a sizeable lump above my eyebrow, dusky with bruising. I had a matching bruise on my ankle, but I could tell from the type of pain it was shooting up my leg it was only a sprain.

  Shedding my clothes, I walked into the shower. Gavin had these nifty shower heads mounted to the ceiling that felt like a gentle rain shower. But much, much hotter. I used Gavin’s shampoo to wash my hair, loving the slightly spicy scent to it. If I closed my eyes, I could almost trick myself into believing he was somewhere nearby.

  After toweling myself dry, I hobbled to the kitchen for the ice. One pack for my ankle, another smaller pack for my face. I took a quick trip to the front door, throwing the dead bolt and locking the handle. Those two little pieces of metal were the only things protecting me here.

  With that thought in mind, I scooped up my purse and dumped it next to the couch before I stretched out along the soft cushions. I meant to stay awake, but the day had taken its toll. Emotionally drained and physically hurting, it wasn’t long before my eyes drifted closed and I slept dreamlessly.

  The sound of a car alarm roused me almost six hours later. Two bags of mostly melted ice lay on the floor, my hand dangling alongside them. I opened my eyes, blinking them, testing to see how much residual pain I had from the treadmill accident. It was a dull throb, a minor four on the pain scale. I flexed my ankle and judged it to be about the same.

  I went for my phone first, eager for news. Hoping Gavin might have landed in New Hampshire to good news. The screen of my phone flashed to life, but there were no missed calls or texts. Honestly, after what happened today, I wasn’t entirely sure Gavin would bother keeping me in the loop at all. Then again, I’d told him my phone was for emergencies only. I hoped he knew this counted.

  Scooping up the old bags of melted ice, I walked them to the kitchen and tossed them in the trash. I sighed. I hated not knowing. It took me straight back to the handful of times Dad and I had been forced to flee with barely a moment’s notice. Waiting at our spot, counting down the minutes until he arrived. Spending each second wondering where he was, whether he was alive, if he was going to show up at all.

  Which . . . was exactly how Gavin must be feeling.

  Shit. I had to know what was going on. Even if it was eleven o’clock at night and everyone hated me.

  Keys in hand, I locked up the condo behind me and took the stairs down one flight to Felix and Juliet’s place. I’d never been before, but from what Gavin had told me I knew they lived directly beneath them.

  There was no hesitation as I lifted my hand and knocked on the door. Felix answered the door a few minutes later, looking grumpier than I’d ever seen him. “Need to borrow a cup of sugar?”

  “Have you heard anything from Gavin?” I wasn’t there to play games.

  “Haven’t you?”

  Jules appeared next to Felix, somehow still looking like she’d rolled out of the pages of a magazine in her pajamas. “Oh my God, Dani, what happened to your face?”

  “It’s nothing.” My fingers traced the edges of the bump. “Have you heard from Gavin?”

  Her gaze narrowed on Felix. “You didn’t tell her what’s going on?”

  “I figured if Gavin wanted her to know he would have told her himself.” He shrugged and wheeled away, effectively leaving the conversation.

  She sighed. “He landed a few hours ago. He’s made it to the house and is there with his mom. His other sister, Lilah, is there with them. The police are involved, but so far they haven’t had any leads. Wherever she is her cell phone isn’t on so they can’t track it. There’ve been no charges to her debit card since she left. It’s like she just vanished.”

  My stomach dropped like the floor had suddenly disappeared. Vanishing might seem easy, but it wasn’t. I knew how hard it could be. Really, truly vanishing like that took effort. “Will you let me know if you hear anything else?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you,” I said with relief. “Out of curiosity, why are you helping me? You must’ve heard what happened. Felix definitely did.”

  “Yeah, I heard.” One corner of her mo
uth pulled up in a smile. “But unlike Felix and Ben, I know what it’s like to have to make a decision that tears you in half. Sometimes you don’t have a choice. And seeing the way you look at Gavin I can only assume that’s why you did it.” She held my gaze. “Am I right?”

  “Trust me, if there was any way I could be there, I would.”

  She rubbed a hand over her jaw. “Not that I’m trying to pry, but I know for certain individuals flying, in particular, can be . . . problematic.” She paused, waiting for me to correct her if she was wrong. But she’d hit the nail on the head. “That being said, Concord is only four-ish hours away. Not that long of a drive if someone were particularly motivated to get somewhere.”

  I blinked, her idea hitting me in the head with the subtlety of a hammer. Driving. Why the hell hadn’t I thought of that? It was so obvious. I’d risk a four hour drive in a heartbeat for Gavin, for something this huge.

  “I don’t—”

  She held up a finger. “Hey, Felix?” Her head tilted to the side. “Can you bring me my keys, please?”

  A few seconds later he parked next to her and reluctantly handed over a key ring. She immediately passed them to me. “I’d tell you to take Felix’s truck because it would serve him right, but my Audi is faster.”

  Chapter 27: Gavin

  My rental car crept down the road. I would’ve gone faster, but there were cars parked on either side—police cars in front of the house, Lilah’s car in the driveway, friends and neighbors up and down the curb in every direction. There was barely enough room to squeeze into the driveway.

  I barely got the car in park before I had the door open. Luckily, I remembered to hold it open long enough for Elvis to hop off after me. After a bit of a struggle with the airline since I didn’t have an approved dog carrier to stow him under my seat, they’d let me buy out the entire row for my K9 companion. I wasn’t entirely sure if that was kosher on their part, but I’d been so frantic at that point that I think they took pity on me.

  Elvis had been a trouper, sitting quietly and gazing out the window. He’d barked a few times at dangerous looking clouds, but he’d managed to charm a pack of crackers off the stewardess. In all honesty, he’d been just the distraction I needed to keep my thoughts from taking a dark turn.

  I took the front steps two at a time and threw open the front door without knocking. “Mom? Lilah? Where are you?”

  “Gav, is that you?” Lilah’s voice shouted, barely heard over the racket.

  The inside of the house was madness. To my left, the living room was bustling, fliers covering the entire surface of the dining room table. Neighbors I’d known for my entire life gathered there, picking up huge stacks of them to pass out or hang up or whatever other mission Lilah assigned them. I didn’t even have to ask to have known it was all her doing.

  “Gav?” The crowd parted so she could slip through. She strode toward me in her power suit, dark hair impeccable, heels sharp staccato notes on the hardwood floor. “Thank God you’re here.” She threw her arms around my neck, hanging on for dear life.

  With firm hands, she straightened her jacket. You’d never know by looking at her that she was frazzled. Lilah never gave her emotions away. “We’ve got a good system going here. Fliers here for any of our neighbors and friends to stop in and take. I’ve got them down in Manchester all the way up to Montpelier.” She slipped through the crowd again and I followed in her wake. This time we stopped at the small table in the breakfast nook. Three teenagers sat there, gaze intent on their laptops. “I’ve got some of Daph’s friends monitoring social media here and getting her information shared. So far there hasn’t been any activity on her page, but you know how she is with that stuff. She’s not on it all that much anyway.”

  She turned and waved at one of the women in the kitchen. “Some of Mom’s friends from work. We’re making sure someone’s making food at all times to hand out to anyone who’s helping and to make sure Mom’s still eating.” A few more steps had us outside the office. Inside, Lilah’s husband, Kevin, sat with a phone to his ear. “Kevin’s working the phones. Keeping in touch with the hospitals and jails. Darlene’s on phone duty too, since there isn’t much else she can do being on the other side of the country.”

  “What about NamUs?” I stumbled over the abbreviation and pulled up my text from Bianca. “The, uh, National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.”

  “Great idea.” With purpose, she strode into the office, plucked a stack of Post-it notes from one of the desk’s cubbies, scribbled on it, and slapped it on the desk. She pointed at it with her pen and Kevin gave her a thumbs-up.

  “Okay, so, Mom’s in the living room with the police. They’re not being as cooperative as we’d like, giving us some run around because Daphne is eighteen so that ‘limits’ them.” She made a face. “I threw around some legal terms and threatened to sue them. Of course I don’t actually have grounds for that but they don’t know that. They’ve been a little more helpful since.”

  I scrolled through the texts I’d been getting on Ben’s phone. There were a handful from Rachel that I read quickly. “Nothing on Daphne’s phone. Rachel says it’s not turned on so there isn’t much she can do to track it. Ummm . . .” I squinted as I tried to decipher some of Rachel’s more technical language. “Best she can tell Daphne was headed south. The last ping on her phone was somewhere near Boston.”

  Lilah’s lips pinched to a thin line. “Boston? So the fliers are useless here.” Her red-painted fingernail tapped her chin. “I’ve got a few contacts in Boston, though. I’ll send them the fliers, get them networking down that way.” She closed her eyes and let out a shaky breath, finally dropping her guard since it was just the two of us here in the hallway.

  I tucked her against me and squeezed her tight. “We’ll find her.”

  She sniffed, rearranging the cool mask she wore over her features. “Of course we will.”

  Lilah set off on her mission, and I stepped into the living room ready for mine. Mom sat on the navy sofa, hands folded in her lap, and across from her a police officer sat on the coffee table, a notepad in hand.

  “Can you think of any place she might have gone?” he asked.

  “Don’t you think if I knew where she might have gone I’d already be looking there?” she snapped.

  I cleared my throat, and had to act fast for Mom’s rapid bear hug.

  “Gavin, oh thank God you’re here.” She drew back to look up at me, tears welling in her eyes. “You know Daphne so well, maybe you can give the officers some help.” She threw a sharp look at the officer. “They can certainly use some.”

  “I’m sure they’re doing their best, Mom.” I directed her back to the couch, keeping her hand in mine as we sat. “How can I help, Officer?”

  An hour passed, chock full of questions. Who were Daphne’s friends? Could I think of anywhere she might have gone? Had I noticed any changes in her behavior lately? Did I think she might have been using drugs? Had she mentioned any strange occurrences? Were there any new people in her life? And on and on and on it went.

  All the while I fielded texts from the guys, giving them what little updates I had to give. We were quickly running out of leads. With her cell phone off we couldn’t track her. Without her using her debit card we could only tell she’d bought lunch at True Brew yesterday afternoon before she’d disappeared entirely. The police had already spoken to the manager, who remembered seeing Daphne, but had no knowledge of where she might have gone when she left. Even our social media outreach was giving us jack shit. The post had been shared almost a thousand times but so far had gotten us nowhere. Ben had even posted something on our official page, and that one had been shared across the globe. All that influence, so much reach, and still nothing.

  As hours faded into the past, anxiety slipped around my neck like a noose, tightening until I could barely breathe. My heart slammed itself against my ribcage like it was a prisoner trying to escape. I was only holding myself together with sheer det
ermination and the knowledge that I was my family’s anchor. That was my role, the one I’d always played.

  That day, for the first time in forever, being the anchor felt like drowning.

  I slumped into a recliner, fatigue starting to seep in. Outside the stars had come out to play and the moon was painting shadows across the living room. Dani could probably tell what time it was just from that, but I wasn’t nearly as talented. All I knew is that it was late, the hour probably creeping toward midnight.

  I scrubbed a hand over my face. I’d really fucked things up with Dani today. Obviously, deep down, I knew she couldn’t just hop on a plane with me. But I’d wanted her to. No, not wanted, needed her to. I needed her, here. I needed someone I didn’t have to be strong in front of. Someone who was my anchor.

  I glanced at my phone, or rather Ben’s phone, for the thousandth time today. Of all the messages I’d sent, all the calls I’d made, none of them had been to her. I’d had Ben send over her number after he’d recharged my phone, but she’d said it was only for emergencies. I wasn’t entirely sure whether that meant my emergencies or hers.

  Food. I needed to eat. The recliner clunked as it rocked backward, and Elvis appeared from wherever he’d been napping, toenails clicking across the floor as he followed at my heels. Light slipped underneath the office door, Kevin’s voice still sounding quietly behind it. Lilah was probably in there as well even though I’d told her to go to bed. I’d been more successful with Mom, but she was practically sleeping on her feet by the time she gave in.

  The kitchen’s hustle and bustle was absent with the late hour, and when I opened the refrigerator the bright light streaming from inside it was the only thing illuminating the whole room. The shelves were packed with Tupperware and foil-wrapped items. I picked one at random—brisket—–and another—roasted veggies. That’d do.