Page 66 of Until You Found Me

“If. If she’s out there, and if she is, she probably thinks I abandoned her with that man. That I left her there.”

“Not a chance.”

“I try not to think about it, you know? Because I can’t do anything right now. I’m useless. Dwelling on what he could be doing to her or how awful her life must be…or if she has any life left at all, is pointless. So I try not to think about it and sometimes I succeed. Other times I fail. A lot. Like today.”

He doesn’t know much about good parents. Never knew any himself. Only saw the sting of violence as a child or the indifference of neglect, but even he can tell that Tessa is a good parent. She’s one of those types to join the PTA and make cookies for bake sales. Would have sung lullabies to her sleepy child and held her when she cried. He imagines this kind of loss must be so much harder when the parent actually gives a damn.

“It’s alright to think about her. Might help you remember.”

She runs a hand through her short hair, self-conscious despite how many times he’s told her it suits her. Herforefinger traces over the frown lines on a sad girl with big eyes. “This can’t be the only way I see her. I want to know what her smile looks like, too.”

“Real pretty, I bet, just like her momma’s.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” she replies half-heartedly, putting the sketch on the side table and leveling him with a determined stare. “So, are we gonna talk about it? What I said last night? Because we haven’t yet and if it lingers, it’ll turn into a pink elephant neither of us wants to look at.”

He wasn’t ready for her to broach this subject so bluntly but it must weigh on her as much as it does on him. “Okay, let’s talk about it.”

In the bathroom last night, she fell to the ground and sobbed in his arms until her words were incoherent and any hope of getting to the bottom of this was long gone. He carried her to bed and tucked her in, tried not to smother her to prove to himself she was still alive. They didn’t talk about it beyond her confession because they couldn’t, but now that she’s clear-headed, it can’t be swept under the rug.

The importance of this conversation has his anxiety in overdrive, ready for the hammer of impending doom to drop.

“There was an empty bottle of pills on the ground. So I must have taken them, right? But I was so confused when I saw it. I remember that part, seeing it and not knowing what it meant until my stomach started turning and I threw them up.”

“So you don’t remember actually taking them?”

“No. But I barely remember ten percent of my life, so that might not mean anything.” She pauses, her nose wrinkling in disgust. “He said I couldn’t even die without fucking it up. He was surprised to see me but not surprised at what I did.”

Anger at the man who hurt her is his first reflex, and it’s an effort to curb that in favor of being receptive. She wants to analyze this memory all business-like, but his eye twitches and fists clench. Somehow, he manages to calm his tone before speaking, every word tasting like acid on his tongue. “You’re in the tub, you wake up confused, don’t remember taking the pills, but he isn’t confused at all. What if he drugged you?”

“You mean if what happened in the woods wasn’t the first time he tried to kill me?”

Logan swallows hard with a nod.

“Maybe. Is that better or worse? I don’t even know anymore. It’s all one bad thing after another and we still can’t be sure. I mean, maybe I did try to kill myself. It feels like she’s gone, Logan.” She looks at the sketch again where it sits on the table. “If she died, then it could have been reason enough.”

He doesn’t want to admit that he’s thought the same thing. That losing her girl and being trapped in that house both could have sucked out her will to live. Or, that he worries she might wake up beside him one day and remember how badly she wanted to end her own life…and try again.

It’s only jumping to conclusions, but doubt fuels the fire of awful speculation. He’s only one factor in a mess of trauma. Not enough to tip the scales against the weight of her memories.

“Hey.” He rubs a hand over hers where it rests on the bed. “You feel okay now, though, right? I mean, I know you’re not okay, but what I’m saying is you’re not…you know…feeling likethat?”

He’s fucking this up at light speed. Blurting out, ‘Do you still want to eat a bottle of pills?’ Is far too harsh and so he’s circled around it until his words tanglelike spaghetti.

“No, of course not.” Tessa holds his gaze past the point of being comfortable. “No. I promise I don’t feel like that now.”

“Okay. Okay, good.”

“I don’t want you to worry. It’s why I didn’t want to say anything at first. I don’t want you to think I need a tracking collar and double the therapy or I’ll try again. That isn’t me anymore. I don’t even know who she is.”

Yet, he thinks, you don’t know her yet. He keeps that comment to himself, though. “I’m not worried.”

She raises a challenging brow.

“Okay, I’m worried about a lotta shit all the time. But that’s life. If you say you’re good, then you’re good. I believe you. Come hunting with me today?”

“Hunting? Not fishing this time?”

“Nope. Need to top off the last catch with a few rabbits and deer for the butcher.”

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