Page 3 of Bliss: Part 2
No one responded. He didn’t have to elaborate. The weight of it was enough.
“We’ll find her,” Tripp said after a long silence, but his voice cracked. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Wewillfind her.”
Dash wiped his face and looked up, eyes glassy and red. “I’m fucking scared.”
I reached over, hand on his shoulder, squeezing once. “I know.”
Rhys muttered something about the cops not doing enough. He looked as wrecked as I felt. His hands were shaking. We were all unraveling.
“They’re doing what they can,” I said. “It just doesn’t feel like enough.”
Odin stood suddenly, grabbing his keys. “I’m going back out. Can’t sit here.”
I didn’t blame him. I was already on my feet, too.
We weren’t stopping. Not until we found her.
Thirty-One
Dash
I couldn’t fucking do it anymore.
Every day that passed got harder. I was breaking apart, bit by bit, in ways I couldn’t explain to anyone. I’d go out and search with the others, but I wasn’t reallythere. Not fully. I was exhausted, my eyes burned from sleep deprivation, and no matter how many blocks we covered or how many places we checked, nothing changed.
Bliss was still missing.
And I was still out here trying to hold myself together with denial.
But I couldn’t stop. Iwouldn’tstop. I’d keep going until I collapsed or until I held her in my arms again.
Still, the guilt…that was the hardest part.
I knew, logically, I hadn’t caused this. It wasn’t my fault she disappeared. But my heart didn’t care about logic. Because if I had gone with her that day, if I hadn’t stayed back to paint the fucking barn with the others, maybe she’d still be here. Maybe none of this would’ve happened. Maybe she wouldn’t have vanished into whatever black hole swallowed her up.
I kept going back to that moment in my head: me standing in the yard, brush in hand, watching her drive off with a smile and a wave. And I let her go.
That was the last time I saw her.
The weight of it was too much. I hadn’t eaten. I couldn’t sleep. Every time someone tried to give me a hug, Dad, Owen, or the guys, I shoved them away. I didn’t mean to be cruel. I just…couldn’t be touched. The second anyone put their hand on me, I felt like I’d fall apart. The grief was sitting just under the surface, trembling like a wire stretched too tight.
I wasn’t ready to come undone.
Not yet.
Not until I knew she was okay.
That’s what I was afraid of the most. That she wasn’t. That maybe she wasn’t even with us anymore. That maybe she was lying somewhere cold and alone and…no.
I wouldn’t let my brain go there.
Still, the thought was there, circling like a vulture. And when it got too loud in my head, I walked out behind the house and clenched my fists until my knuckles turned white, trying to will the panic out of me. Trying to swallow the rage and helplessness threatening to take me down. I wanted to hit something. Break something.
Instead, I paced. I stayed up when everyone tried to get even the slightest bit of sleep. I scribbled names of places we hadn’t checked yet, drew maps, retraced every street we’d already covered. I scrolled through social media I never fucking used, called old classmates, refreshed the Find My Phone app even though I knew it was off.
How could it be that we were all looking for her, so many people, and still no one had found a trace? Nothing. Not even the fucking loaf of bread we knew she had bought.
But even with all that, deep down, something told me she wasn’t far. I didn’t feel like she was gone from here completely. There was this…pull. I could still sense her. She was close. Still in town. Still breathing. Still waiting for us to find her.
