Page 90 of Fade (Fighting Fate)

From: Amy Benson [email protected]

To: Daniel Stephenson [email protected]

Date: Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 9:12 AM

Subject: Please come home

Daniel,

It’s been a week since you’ve gone missing now. The longest week of my life. I can’t sleep. I can hardly eat. I can’t stop thinking about what might’ve happened to you. And every thought is worse than the last. I pray every minute of the day that you’re alive, safe, and unharmed. Please come home to me. I need you.

A x

The leaves on the old sycamore tree swayed gently in the breeze. Sunlight flickered hypnotically in time with their movements. Fast and slow. Fast and slow. It was a soothing dance in tune with a harmony only the elements could hear.

Sitting inside, separated only by a thin layer of glass, I wished I could be a part of it. I wished I could let go and just . . . be. Exist in complete clarity, surrounded by a calmness only knowledge and acceptance could bring. But I had neither of those things. No light. No clear vision. No contentment. All I had was a blanket woven with uncertainty and despair.

As I watched the slow dance continue outside the window, I just sat, my eyes stinging yet unable to shed any more tears, the future I was so certain of a week ago, wavering, unanchored, terrifyingly too ready to slip away from me.

For a week I’d been existing in this state. Treading water, yet drowning. Drowning, yet still breathing. For five days I’d been watched by worried eyes. Eyes belonging to those I wished I could reassure. But I couldn’t. I didn’t know how.

Fleetingly, I wondered how Daniel’s family was coping. It had been a hard task telling them the news. I’d barely known how to get the words out; then, when I had, I’d wanted to immediately take them back, as the thin threads of hope I’d been clinging to so tightly stretched even further as I watched Susan’s despair.

Drawing in a deep breath, I exhaled, long and slow, before bringing my knees in closer to my chest. As I lifted my gaze to the sky, I said a small, silent prayer that today would be the day I heard Daniel had been found alive and well.

A soft click sounded from the other side of the room behind me. It broke through the invisible bubble I’d carefully placed myself in, causing a twinge of guilt to settle over me like a fine layer of mist.

In my peripheral vision, a shadow passed by my side before sitting at the end of the window seat.

“Hey, sweetie.”

I turned at the sound of Alex’s voice, attempting a smile, but failing miserably. “Hey.”

“How are you doing?”

Inhaling, I searched inside myself, trying to find a little piece of me that was doing okay, just so I could at least give that to him. Sighing, I lowered my gaze to my knees. “I don’t know.”

Glancing back up, I offered a silent apology.

Alex remained silent, his gaze penetrating and thoughtful. After a few moments, he shifted on the seat, bringing one leg up and leaning back against the wall. “I knew Seth pretty well when I was in college. Did you know that?”

Surprise flared. I wasn’t sure if it was from the information he just divulged or the unexpected topic. I shook my head, curious.

“I also used to see your parents a bit.”

I was unprepared for the lump that formed in my throat with that.

“And you . . . I saw you too.”

I frowned. I didn’t understand what he meant.

Alex smirked. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m quite observant.”

Wariness started creeping in. I could see some method of strategy forming in his eyes, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to like where it would take me.

“Seth had it pretty easy when it came to your parents,” he started. As the argument began to form in my eyes, his eyebrow twitched. “Oh, I know he had some hoops to jump through, but on the whole, he had it pretty easy. He was lucky that what he wanted in life coincided with what your parents considered successful.”

Understanding began to settle inside me. He was right.

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