Found (Lost and Found #2, New Adult Romance) (Lost & Found) (14 page)

“This is your house and these are your memories. I’m not going anywhere you don’t want me to go,” I tell him, and then in a whisper, I add, “I’m
never
going anywhere you can’t follow.”

“I can do just one room,” he says, smiling weakly and taking my hand in his, and he leads me to the first door on the left.

Even though I’ve never seen his bedroom before, I instantly recognize it. The wooden desk in the corner, the framed photographs all over the walls... does Owen realize what he’s done? Does he know that he’s recreated his childhood bedroom in his apartment? I decide not to ask. If he doesn’t know, all the realization can do is hurt him.

As he sits on the edge of the bed and stares vacantly around the room, it feels as if he’s suddenly hundreds of miles away from me. He’s not seeing me anymore; he’s seeing his old house, his old life before everything crumbled and fell apart.

“Do you have any good memories of your father?” I quietly ask. He’s silent for such a long time that I almost think he didn’t hear me, but then he finally answers.

“One,” he whispers. “I remember being very little, and we were playing together in the back yard. He crouched down with a football and waddled away as I tried to tackle him. I was laughing and laughing as I chased him...”

He shakes his head sadly, gets up from the bed and heads past me out the door.

“The worst part is that I don’t even know if the memory is real,” he tells me, choking on the words. “I think I made it up so that I could pretend that I had a
good
father once upon a time. It has to be a lie, because I can’t believe he
ever
did anything like that with me.”

I grab him at the top of the stairs and draw him into a tight hug. I can feel his pulse racing and his quick, short breaths as he lays his head on my shoulder. He’s reliving everything right now, isn’t he? We shouldn’t have come here. I should never have let him come back and see this horrible place. I should have known that walking through this house would bring all his nightmares to life again. Some girlfriend I am, letting him protect me when I’m weak but not even
thinking
about how badly he’s being hurt.

“Come on,” I whisper. “Let’s go. Bill’s waiting in the car for us.”

“No... not yet. One more room,” he says. His eyes are red and puffy, and if he starts crying, I’m going to start too.

He takes my hand and shakily leads me down the hall past his parents’ room, past the bathroom, to a door at the far end. His hand hovers at the doorknob for a long time before he finally takes a deep breath and pushes the door open.

A tall loft bed, pastel pink walls, and piles of stuffed animals of all shapes and sizes... Samantha’s room is unchanged after seven years. A thick layer of dust coats everything, but in my mind’s eye, I can still see the little girl lying on the floor in a yellow square of sunshine, playing with her stuffed pig. The sunlight fades in the window and Samantha disappears. She’s never coming back. She’s gone.

“Let’s go,” he finally says, and he turns away and leaves her room behind. I close the door quietly behind me and follow him down the hallway. Halfway down the stairs, he stops and sits on the landing.

“I’m sorry, Samantha,” he whispers. “I know I promised, and I’m so sorry I failed you.”

His voice drops to a nearly inaudible whisper, and I keep my distance and give him his moment. In my mind, Samantha is sitting next to him, putting her tiny arms around him and hugging him. She forgives him—I know she does. Someday, I hope he knows it too.

God, it’s breaking my heart to see him like this. I want so badly to cry and let out all the pain I’m feeling at seeing him hurt like this, but I can’t. I can’t be the one to break down. I can’t let myself fall apart while Owen needs me.

When his silent conversation with Samantha is finished, he stands up and continues down the stairs.

“Thanks for coming with me,” he tells me, his voice a little stronger now. Maybe talking to Samantha helped him more than I thought it did.

“It’s okay,” I answer. “Is there anything else you want to see before we go?”

“No... let’s go. There’s nothing left for me here.”

––––––––

“A
lright... last stop. Everyone out,” jokes Bill as he pulls into the parking lot of our apartment complex. He gets out of the car and opens the door for me, and I groggily climb out of the back seat. It’s almost midnight and I’m completely exhausted. I’ve been drifting in and out of sleep for the last two hours.

“Thanks for the ride,” says Owen as he climbs out of the front passenger seat.

“No problem. Really,” answers Bill. “I still owe you a ton for how badly I screwed up.”

“You’ve done so much for me, Bill. Stop that.”

“I’ll stop when I stop feeling guilty,” the sheriff tells him with a shrug.

Owen stares silently at him for a long time before speaking again and I resist the urge to yawn. I’m absolutely exhausted.

“So what happens now?” he finally asks.

“Well, if the DA has any say in things, I’ll be fired the second I walk in the door tomorrow,” answers Bill with a thin-lipped smile. “I don’t think he’s got quite the clout he thinks he does, though, so the next thing up is getting your family’s will settled. I know a pretty good guy and I’ll get him in touch with you as soon as I can.”

“Seriously? You’d do that for me?” asks Owen, almost in awe. “I...
thank you
. I don’t even know where to start on any of this.”

Bill nods and shoots him a smile.

“That’s what the estate lawyer’s for. He knows this shit—took care of my mother’s stuff after she died, so I know he’ll be good to you.”

Owen grabs his bag, walks around the front of the car and then hugs Bill.

“Thank you so much,” he says. “You didn’t have to do any of this.”

He smiles at Owen one last time, and then he waves goodbye to me and gets back in his car.

Owen and I stand together, clinging tightly to each other’s hands, until the sheriff’s car disappears into the night.

Owen

I
can barely keep my eyes open as I struggle through my population modeling class. I’m so tired. Oh God, I’m
so tired
. I haven’t slept a full night since I came back from Long Island.

I know why, too. It’s because of what I did. It’s because I killed my mother.

I’ve dreamed about her every single night since it happened. I’ve dreamed about her hand going cold, her chest slowly sinking and deflating, and worst of all, the horrible, sickening, phlegmatic sound of her final seconds.

The feeling of guilt last night
crushed
me. At least when I feel guilty about Samantha, I can blame it on my father. I killed my mother—there’s nobody else to blame.

“
No, I didn’t. She was brain-dead already.
”

Yes, I did. I signed the form. I sat there as they turned off her respirator. I killed her, no matter how much I want to rationalize my actions.

The voice in my head doesn’t bother fighting back anymore but instead gives up, and the unbearable guilt returns, weighing down on me and squeezing the air from my lungs. Why did I even come to class feeling like this? I’m a mental wreck right now and I’m not paying attention to a damned thing.

“Alright class,” says Professor Daniels, “my teaching assistants will hand back your tests while I write up the score distribution.”

My hand shoots up as he starts to write test scores on the board. I’ve emailed him every day since I got back from Long Island and also left him two voice messages, but he still hasn’t gotten back to me about when I can take the exam. This may not be my best class but that doesn’t mean I want to be given an unfair advantage by seeing what everyone else’s grades were.

“I’ll get to you in just a moment, Mr. Maxwell,” he calls out flatly, acknowledging my hand, and he continues to write out test scores. Most students scored in the seventies, but a chill runs through me as he draws a solitary zero at the end.

“As a whole, the class did remarkably well on the midterm this year. The mean and median overlap, indicating...”

Professor Daniels loves to analyze test results and treats them like statistical puzzles. He does this in every class he teaches. Normally I’d find it interesting, but I’d normally have actually taken the test. He’s been ignoring my requests for a week now.

“... and we can conclude that, with the exception of one student, all grades received on this test fall within the limits of the expected population model. That one student,” he says, staring directly at me, “should really come talk to me after class, because he or she missed the test and wasn’t in compliance with the university’s academic leave policy.”

Panic rises inside me. He can’t be serious! He can’t
really
be giving me a zero for going to see my mother in the hospital, can he? That’s got to be covered by the academic leave policy—I’m almost certain it is.

When class finally ends, I wait behind as everyone else funnels out of the classroom. Professor Daniels leans on his podium, looking very unimpressed as I approach him.

“Excuse me, professor, but I’d like to know why I wasn’t permitted to...”

“You
were
permitted to take the exam,” he interrupts. “You had a chance on Monday last week, just like everyone else in the class.”

“I was with my mother in the hospital.”

“I know,” he answers. “I saw your e-mails.”

“Then why can’t I take the test?” I ask.

“Did you have an illness covered by the university sick-leave policy?” he asks.

“No, my mother was...”

“Was there a funeral?” he interrupts again.

“Three days later,” I answer. “I didn’t even get to go to it because I had to come back here for class.”

“Owen, here’s the problem,” he tells me. “I have to schedule my exams with the university and I have to stick to their rules. The university’s leave policy requires either a doctor’s note for the student, a funeral
on the day of absence,
or three days advance request to the professor. You provided none of these and therefore I
can’t
give you a separate test date.”

“But...”

“There is nothing I can do, Owen,” he tells me with a shrug. “I didn’t write the policy. The grade stands.”

“Are you saying that you’d stay here for a test and not go to see your mother before she died?” I ask him.

“No, I’d have given the required three days notice and done it correctly.”

“I didn’t have three days!”

My mind screams in panic. He’s seriously going to flunk me for going to see my mother. He’s going to wreck my chances at grad school over nothing.

“Professor, that’s forty percent of my grade,” I plead. There’s no way I can pass the course without taking that test.

“Take it up with your department head if you’d like,” says Professor Daniels. “Maybe he can do something, but I don’t have that power. Blame the bureaucracy, not me.”

I watch in stunned to silence as he heads for the door, flicks off the lights and leaves me alone in the dark, empty classroom.

I... I’ve just failed the course. There is absolutely no way I'm coming back from a zero percent midterm grade. I race out the door and up the nearest stairwell toward the graduate student administrative office. I have another class in ten minutes but that doesn’t matter right now. I need to find Professor Meador, my grad advisor, and explain to him what happened.

I can kiss my PhD program goodbye if that grade goes through.

––––––––

“T
here has to be an exception in here somewhere,” mutters Professor Meador, adjusting his glasses and then stroking his graying beard as he rifles through the university’s leave policy. “This is preposterous.”

My graduate advisor is just as confused as I am about the failed test, but as glad as I am to have someone on my side, I’m nervous that he hasn’t found a way around it yet. We’ve been reading through the university’s policies for almost two hours and we can’t find anything about my particular circumstances.

“Okay, here’s what I’ll do,” he says, sighing and pushing aside the stack of papers. “It’s late now, but first thing in the morning, I’ll stop by the program director’s office and see what he says about it.”

“Do you think he’ll help me?” I ask anxiously, trying to control my panic. There’s a lot riding on the director’s reaction to my appeal. If my application gets rejected, I have
nothing.
What would I do then? I can’t go home. I haven’t found a job yet and I can’t imagine anyone is going to hire a theoretical mathematician without a PhD. Once upon a time, you could get a job at an investment bank with only a bachelor’s degree, but that just doesn’t happen anymore. It’s PhD or nothing now.

“I can’t imagine they’ll give you the boot over going to be with your mother,” he answers comfortingly. “Just keep focused, and I’ll get back to you as soon as it’s resolved. Come find me next week if you don’t hear back from me before then, okay?”

“Thanks so much.”

He shakes his head and sighs as he packs his briefcase, and then we call it a night and head for the stairs.

“You don’t need to thank me,” he responds and then, with a grumble, adds, “I ought to be apologizing to you for having to go through this in the first place. This school’s getting too stuffy for its own good, if you ask me. You don’t need rules for every damned little thing.”

I follow him down to the parking lot, talking about projects and classes the entire way. For the first time in forever, he doesn’t have homework for me to grade. I’d be ecstatic about it if I wasn’t so nervous about the test score. I wave goodbye to him and start walking, but he calls after me before I get very far.

“You’re still walking home after all these years?” he asks incredulously.

“I can’t afford a car, sir.”

“Oh get in already,” he groans, pointing to the passenger-side door. “I’ll drive you home.”

I grin at him and then hop in. I stare out the window, lost in my thoughts as the university flies past, until he finally breaks the silence.

“I would’ve thought you’d have a car by now. Aren’t we paying you a stipend?” he asks.

“I get just enough to pay for rent and food,” I answer. “Though for the last few weeks, the food money’s been going to medical bills.”

“Your parents really weren’t helping you at all, were they?”

I shake my head, and he sighs and goes silent for the rest of the drive.

He pulls into my apartment complex about ten minutes later and I hop out of the car.

“Thanks for the ride, professor.”

“Any time,” he says. “Oh, before you go...”

“Yes?” I turn and look back at him expectantly.

“Whatever comes out of this mess, I don’t want you to worry about it one bit, you hear me?” he tells me, his expression stark and serious. “At the end of the day, I don’t care what the university says. I take care of my students.”

I give him a half-hearted smile and wave goodbye before heading down the stairs toward my apartment. I appreciate his reassurance but I know he’s just trying to make me feel better. He has no more power over the university’s rules than I do. What could he possibly do to take care of me? I’ll just have to hold onto hope that the program director is reasonable and accepts me.

“
Or he could be an asshole rule-stickler and reject me for visiting my dying mother.
”

I shake my head as my thoughts immediately turn to negativity. After a lifetime of broken dreams, I’m not very good at hoping.

––––––––

T
he doctor leaves me alone with my mother, and I sit silently by her side, holding her hand as it slowly goes cold. This is all my fault. Dad hurt her, but I killed her.

I gasp and wake up back in Ithaca. It
is
my fault. She’d still be alive if I hadn’t signed those forms. She’d be alive if it wasn’t for me. Even though the nightmare is fading, the guilt only intensifies as I lie in bed and stare at glowing green digits of the clock. It’s three in the morning.

Every night is going to be like this, isn’t it? Every time I go to sleep, I’m back at my mother’s side, watching her die. I’ve relived it in my dreams almost every goddamned night for a week, and the one time I didn’t, I dreamed about Samantha instead. I’m going insane—there’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep if this keeps happening to me.

If I’m not going to sleep, I might as well get out of bed. I tiptoe downstairs, turn on the television to distract myself and then head straight for the fridge. I rummage through the drawers and behind the leftovers in the back, check the door and even the freezer. There’s no beer.

Maybe it’s in the kitchen cabinets. I rifle through them one by one. Bread... dishes... cereal... wait, there we go—Craig’s mixers. He has a tall bottle of vodka, and while it’s not beer, it’ll work just as well. I yank it out and pour myself a double shot. He won’t notice that it’s missing.

The vodka burns as it goes down my throat and hits my stomach like a fiery brick. It’s not enough, and another double quickly chases the first down my throat. I lie on the couch and start flipping channel, and the alcohol starts taking effect well before I’ve found anything worth watching. My brain starts to spin pleasantly and then I’m numb to everything. Nothing matters and nothing hurts. I don’t care that my mother is dead anymore. I barely even care that I’m the one who killed her.

The alcoholic haze silences my nagging doubts and my eyelids flutter shut.