The Things We Couldn't Forget

Chapter 22.

For a long moment we just stand in our kitchen staring at each other. I know he's doing the same thing as I am. He's looking me over, trying to fit all of the fragments of the girl he knew with the lost woman standing in front of him now.

It hurts me to know what he's seeing.

"You should have called me." He whispers softly, eyes drifting over my tiny frame. My cheek bones jutting out at sharp edges, my eyes swollen and red from days of crying. All of the hurt I've tried so hard to hide from him, to keep tucked away as another of my secrets, is now so plain to see.

I tried to protect him from this.

From me.

"You wouldn't have answered." I reply coldly. But I know it's not really him I'm mad at.

"Missy, what happened?" His lips part and his eyes fill with tears of pity for the sister he'd left behind.

"Which part?" I laugh without any humor in it. "Why are you here?"

His eyes stay locked on mine with ferocity. "When I couldn't get in touch with you I got worried." He says. "You were still in Vancouver the last time we talked and I called all around trying to find you. I finally talked to the owner of the motel you were staying at and he said you'd paid your last week and left."

"They tracked me down about Aunt Ruth." I don't miss the way his eyes darken at the mention of her. I know the line of thought his brain runs down when he thinks of her, same as me. We both hate that woman, not for not wanting us, but for not hating her husband. The unspoken name between us.

"I figured that out." He nods, lifting his hand to remove his hat and set it on the counter before shaking out his unruly brown curls. "And so I called around town but you weren't staying there. So then when I still couldn't get in touch with you, I got even more worried...thinking of you here...In this place?" He shakes his head as if he still can't make his brain understand finding me here. "That's when I started hearing the news...Missy..."

"So you know then?" I ask, lifting my chin trying to put on a front of confidence that doesn't run even close to skin deep.

"It's so fucked up." He says on an exhale. "You realize it's exactly the same, right? Same places and everything?"

"Yeah, I tried to talk to the police about it, but they shut me out." I nod. "Somehow they think I had something to do with it, or they did, I don't know what they're thinking now."

"You can't stay here, Miss." he reaches out to take my hand and he flinches slightly, feeling how boney and frail it is. "What...what happened to you?"

For too long I've tried to hide everything away, keep it cleaned up and tucked aside, trying to protect his feelings but it's been too long.

I walk into his arms and he holds me while I recount it all. The doctors, the pills, Luke, the homelessness, the addiction eating away at my humanity, the things I'd done to secure my next fix, the stealing, the body...everything. Everything that has happened since the moment he walked out of my life up to the moment he casually walked back into it.

By the time I'm done, we are both in tears.

"I'm so...Missy, sorry doesn't even cover it." He holds me tighter. "I was selfish. I was only thinking of me and what I needed to deal with everything and I was young and thought I was doing the right thing but, God, I'd been so wrong. I wanted to come back so many times but I thought you were ok...it's not an excuse. I should have been there to protect you and I wasn't. I just left."

The words wash over me like a hot shower could never do, sinking right into my very marrow. All this time, all I've wanted from Dallas is to hear he regrets leaving me. That's selfish even in its self, but it's true. I'd held back so long but a dark part of me is glad that my suffering has hurt him too.