Forgetting August (Lost & Found) (3 page)

A
soothing hand caressed my forehead and my eyes fluttered open; that’s when reality came crashing back to the forefront of my mind.

August was awake.

Oh, God. Did he know?

Would he find me?

I bolted upright, nearly knocking Ryan out in the process. My heart kicked into high gear as my fight-or-flight response took over.

Too weak to fight. Must flee.

Need to leave.

Should never have stayed here.

I should have left. I should have moved far…far away like I’d always planned. But plans have a way of getting muddled and as my breath evened out and my eyes once again opened, I found the reason for my muddled plans staring back at me with nothing but concern and love written across his handsome face.

“It’s okay,” he said softly, gently pushing back a piece of my hair as he leaned in close. “I’m here. You’re going to be okay, Ev.”

Unshed tears stung my eyes and I fought to keep them in place. He pulled me into his arms and I willingly let him, gripping his shoulder as if it were an iron anchor. My body felt like someone had just dropped a hundred-ton lead weight into my arms, like I was carrying every single worry and panicked thought I’d stowed away over the last two years.

They all rose to the surface. All at once.

“Oh god, Ryan. I can’t do this,” I cried.

“You don’t have to do a thing. No one is making you do anything at all, Everly. He’s awake; that doesn’t have to mean anything to you.”

I knew he meant well, but he didn’t understand. He’d never understand.

“I can’t exist in a world where he does, Ryan,” I whispered, as the walls began to close in around me. Panic settled in my bones, had me pulling my knees close to my chest, rocking back and forth in Ryan’s strong arms. The tears continued to fall as I felt myself growing weaker, knowing August was mere miles away, growing stronger by the minute.

How long until he came for me? How long until he found me and ruined the little life I’d created? What happened then?

“Yes, you can,” Ryan vowed, turning me in his arms as he pulled me from the darkness and growing fear in my head. “This changes nothing.”

I shook my head, not so easily convinced. The only reason I’d carried on in his absence was because I’d convinced myself he was gone. For good.

Denial really was a cold-hearted bitch.

“What happened…after…I mean—did you talk to the doctor more?”

I felt him nod. “I hung up to take care of you, but after I got you in bed, I did call him back.”

“What did he say?” I asked, my breath barely audible as I waited for his response.

He pulled back, our eyes locking as he smoothed away the crimson hair from around my face. Warmth and tenderness met me as he spoke. “He wants to see you.”

Fear flooded my system and I immediately tried to retract from his hold, needing space as the room once again began to shrink around me.

Flee. Must flee.

“I can’t,” I managed to choke out as I got up and paced the room. “I won’t.”

“No one is making you, Ev. I already told Dr. Lawrence no.”

My body tensed at his admission. I came to an abrupt standstill in the middle of the living room. “You had no right to do that!” I shouted, my hands flailing as anger coursed through my veins. Ryan looked at me as if I’d lost it, and maybe I had.

“What are you even saying?” Ryan yelled back at me. “Do you see yourself right now? How can you say that when you just know I’m right? You couldn’t in a million years visit that guy. He’s a monster!”

“It’s my decision, Ryan!” I spat. “I’ve already spent enough of my life with someone who felt the need to make decisions for me without consultation. I won’t do it again.”

His hands made a worried run through his hair. “I was just trying to protect you.”

Deep down I knew he was, but part of me—the profoundly damaged part that grimaced every time he uttered words like “mine” or jokingly said “don’t ever do that again”—hated being protected. I loved the safety I felt nestled in his arms, but it was it was another man’s love and overwhelming need to protect that had gotten me into the mess I was in now.

“I need some air,” I said finally, walking hastily toward the front door of our apartment.

“Please don’t leave angry with me, Everly,” he begged.

“I’m not angry—I just need some time.”

“Okay,” he answered, the sound of rejection and defeat clear in his voice. He’d learned not to argue when I uttered this phrase. Needing air was my way of pressing pause, or asking for a time out. Sometimes I just needed to get away and I tried not to think too critically about what that meant.

I don’t know how long I wandered around the city. Everything passed by in a blur until I found myself in that familiar spot by the bridge. It was nearly spring, and the bluff was blooming with wildflowers. As the rest of San Francisco went on with their busy lives, new life was blossoming right here on this hillside.

From here, things seemed much simpler.

The Golden Gate Bridge rose high into the heavens, its red pillars a stark contrast to the grayish blue sky. As I found a seat among the tiny yellow buds, I reached out my hand. The bridge felt so close, its enormity giving it an almost unworldly appearance to the world below. But my fingers only grasped the cool air. Nothing else. My mighty bridge was where it always was, stable and secure in the water beyond.

I’d been coming to this spot since I was a tattered little girl, moving from one foster home to another, wondering when my real mom and dad were finally going to rescue me from the hellhole of a life I’d become accustomed to. I wondered how many foster kids secretly watched
Annie
late at night, hoping they’d be just like that little redheaded songstress, only to find out that dreams like that never happened outside of the movies, and real life heroes are never what you expect them to be.

I guess at some point I could have figured out why I’d been placed in foster care, but after so many years of being considered a problem or a paycheck to others, I stopped caring. That
Annie
-like hope eventually leaks out like dirty car oil and all you’re left with is remorse; remorse and regret for the life you could have had if your real parents had been someone else. Someone kind and loving—someone better.

I’d thought my someone better was August. Turned out he was just another version of something even worse.

I met August when I was eighteen. I stumbled into a nightclub — I was too young to be drinking—too young to be doing a lot of things that night—and when I saw him, he was like the knight in shining armor I’d never had.

Or at least what I’d always envisioned one to be.

He was four years my senior, and at the time he’d seemed so mature and sophisticated. Twenty-two was old enough to drink legally and walk into hotels without a second glance.

It was love at first sight. For both of us. From that singular moment, as the bass boomed in the club and we took our first dance together, we became inseparable.

I never had a mother growing up. Or a big sister or brother. Sometimes kids are lucky and find a good foster family in it for the real reasons.

I wasn’t one of those kids.

I did all right by myself, and had a good head on my shoulders—most of the time—but there was never anyone around to tell me that you should be consumed by love, not the other way around.

Within months of meeting August Kincaid, I was consumed. So consumed, I couldn’t remember where he began and I ended. He became the family I never had, the lover I’d always dreamed of and the friend I’d longed for. He was my everything. He took care of me and made me feel safe. He never made me feel trashy or let my shitty past define me. He was all I’d ever wanted, and soon I couldn’t remember what life had been like without him.

We could have floated away into our perfect fairy-tale love story and that would have been the end. The newspapers could have printed our perfect wedding announcement and everything would have been wrapped up in a neat tidy red bow.

But nothing having to do with me is ever neat. Or tidy.

And that’s where my fairy tale derailed and I found myself living something closer to a nightmare.

Several years into our romance, August became very successful in business—very quickly. Whenever I asked what he did he always just smiled, patted me on the head, and answered with something vague and ambiguous.

“I’m a stockbroker—you know that,” he’d said.

But part of me worried that whatever “business” he’d become involved in was illegal or at least not legit. I should have listened to that part more—she’s one smart bitch.

With the addition of wealth he began to change. He became more possessive, more clingy and domineering. A sideways glance at a party and suddenly I would be pulled into an empty room and fucked ten different ways just to be sure I understood who owned me. If another man looked at me, I was immediately taken home, like an errant child.

My fairy tale became a nightmare and I lived in a constant state of fear. Each and every day, his behavior worsened. It was as if success had made him crazy—pushing him into some sort of manic behavior where he believed everyone in the world was out to get him and I was their means to do so.

Parties and social events became a thing of the past, and I eventually became a prisoner in my own home, unable to leave because he was too paranoid to take me anywhere.

“You’re mine. Only mine,” he’d chant over and over as he pinned me against a wall and came hard and long inside of me. “I love you, Everly. Forever.”

Ryan once asked why I’d never run, why I didn’t seek help.

I knew the answer, but I just shook my head and said I didn’t know, averting his gaze.

Because sometimes the truth hurts worse.

“How are you feeling about your decision today, Everly?” Tabitha asked, in that soothing tone that used to drive me up the wall but now seemed to have the opposite effect.

I curled my feet under me on the worn couch, holding a cup of hot tea in my hands as I contemplated my answer. We were never supposed to blurt out an answer in therapy.
Think before you speak
—that was Tabitha’s motto, and as much as I’d despised it and everything about this place years ago, when I’d entered and found her sitting in front of me with her weird, frizzy gray hair and long, flowing skirts, I had to admit it worked.

Because of this woman and her soothing ways, I’d managed to break out of the rock hard tortoise shell I’d buried myself into after August vanished from my life. Although his coma had been something of a blessing—pulling me out of a life no one should ever have to live—suddenly I’d been forced back into a world I no longer understood.

As much as I hated to admit it, I’d been lost and alone without him. The world was scary and far too big. I wanted nothing more than to run back to the confines of my prison and never come out again.

But somehow, I’d found Tabitha. Attempting to venture past my own driveway, I’d gone for a walk that turned into more of a hike, and found her sign in a little neighborhood not too far from the one Ryan and I currently live in. Her eclectic ways and throwback looks were mind-boggling at first, but I soon found a home with her, or at least a place to return to once a week.

Slowly, she gave me a direction in life. I got a job at a coffee shop nearby and months later, I met Ryan. I took each day as it came, and eventually I stopped wondering when life was going to come crashing down again.

And then it did—or it was about to.

“Everly? Your decision regarding visiting August? How do you feel?” Tabitha asked once more, bringing me back to the present.

“Honestly?”

“That’s all I ever ask for,” she stated.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s okay to be unsure.”

“Even about this?” I asked, biting my bottom lip with uncertainty.

“What are you unsure about?” she questioned, tapping the butt on her pen against her crisp yellow notepad.

“Everything. What will happen if I don’t go? Will he come find me—invade the life I’ve made for myself? If I go see him in the hospital, can I avoid all of that, or am I just perpetuating it? I feel like I’m stuck in this damned if-you-do, damned–if-you-don’t scenario. No matter what I do, he’s going to destroy everything.”

“So you’ve thought about seeing him?” she asked.

“Yes,” I admitted reluctantly.

“You don’t have to feel ashamed in front of me,” she consoled, the smooth tone of her voice giving me the comfort I’d come to find within these four walls.

“It’s more than that. Admitting it makes me feel like I’m betraying Ryan. Just saying the words—Hell…even thinking about the action of doing so makes me feel like I’m cheating on him somehow.”

Silence settled between us as I let my words evaporate into the air.

“Have you ever thought that maybe this is the closure you need?”

“What do you mean? I’ve had my closure—you went with me. You held my hand as I said good-bye to that man,” I pressed, my hands wrapping around my knees like a child.

“I know, but perhaps you need to hear him say the words as well. See his face as he says them,” she suggested.

The idea of seeing him again made the air seem to dissipate around me. What would he look like? What would he say? And how would I react?

My hands shook just thinking about it. It scared the living hell of out me.

And yet, a small part of me still wanted to go. To get in the last word maybe, or to see him weak and fragile in a hospital gown…or maybe just to see him after all this time.

That was what scared me most of all. That after everything, there was still a fraction of me somewhere deep down that missed him as much as the rest of me hated him.

I’d finished up my session with Tabitha and had been staring at my cold cup of coffee for hours when Ryan walked in after a long day at the office.

Cold coffee…such a waste.

“Did the coffee do something to piss you off?” he asked, loosening his tie as he set his keys and wallet into the glass dish on the counter.