Found (Lost and Found #2, New Adult Romance) (Lost & Found) (16 page)

Owen

I
wake up from my third nightmare of the night, scramble out of bed and fall clumsily to the floor. I’m dizzy, my head won’t stop spinning, and my garbage can floats nauseatingly back and forth in my field of vision as I try to crawl toward it across the carpet.

My stomach clenches violently, a warning of what’s about to happen. I need to get to the garbage can soon or I’m going to throw up all over the carpet.

I make it just in time. The stench of alcohol permeates the room as I heave my guts into the trashcan. I’m so dizzy that I can barely keep myself from falling over as my stomach empties itself again and again. What the hell did I do? I don’t remember this. I don’t remember any of this...

...but I recognize the empty bottle at the bottom of the garbage can. It’s Craig’s bottle of vodka. So
that’s
what I drank.

“
You’re drinking to cope, and that’s a really, really dangerous habit to get into,”
Craig’s voice echoes inside my aching, addled head.

No shit. I’m drinking to cope because my life’s crumbling around me. Anything that didn’t fall apart on its own, I broke because I’m fucking worthless.

Maria’s heartbroken tears burst to life in my mind. She’s on the other side of the door from me again, locked inside her room, weeping bitterly because I’ve hurt her so badly.

I struggle to my feet and cling for dear life to the bed frame as the room sways sickeningly. I’m drunk... so, so drunk. I want to get to the door but I can barely keep my eyes focused on it. It feels as if my brain’s spinning in one direction while the rest of the world spins in reverse.

The door seems impossibly far away but I need to get to it. I need to get out the door and... I don’t know what then. I need to go downstairs. I should go outside. Is that it? I don’t know. I need to go somewhere.

I need to get away. I need to get away from my father’s hateful glare and my mother’s cold hand. I killed her. I killed my mother. I signed that paperwork and let her die. I need to get away from my incredible ability to hurt anyone who comes near me, to ruin anything and everything. I betrayed Maria so badly that I might as well have killed her. I ruined my own future and failed a course
just so I could kill my mother
.

And here I am now. Alone. Drunk. Trying to drown myself in vodka to forget what I’ve done.

I need to get away from myself.

Immeasurable, meaningless time passes as I creep slowly across the room, catching hold of anything that seems like it might support me on the way to the door. Finally I’m there, fumbling with the knob, nearly tumbling over as the door swings open.

The hallway lurches to the left, or maybe it’s me stumbling to the right. I don’t know or care anymore. All I know is that I need to escape from myself before I hurt someone else.

The stairs spin sickeningly in front of me, blurring in and out of focus, and suddenly I’m falling. Stair after stair... tumbling, falling, catching my shoulder painfully on the banister, until I finally hit the bottom. My arm throbs and my vision swims as I stare up at the ceiling. This seems so familiar...

Samantha stares up at me, her neck contorted in an impossible way as she lies crumpled at the bottom of the stairs. Her beautiful gray eyes are empty, their sparkle quickly fading. I failed her. I failed her in the worst way I possibly could have. I can’t tell if my heart is sinking into my stomach or if my stomach is rising into my chest. I feel like I’m going to throw up.

“What the hell happened to you? Are you okay?” shouts Craig from upstairs.

I struggle to my feet and steady myself against the wall as I head for the door. Craig races after me down the stairs, still in his boxers.

“I’m okay,” I lie. “Just... I just have to go outside.”

“Owen, you’re drunk. Get your butt over here and sit down,” urges Craig, but I ignore him and keep stumbling toward the front door.

A crack of thunder rattles the windows and the power flickers for just long enough to reset the clock in the kitchen. It’s still pouring outside but I don’t care. I’m inside, and I have to get away from myself, so I’m going outside. Maybe I won’t follow myself out there in the rain.

I lose my balance and slam painfully into the wall, but I still push Craig away as he tries to stop me.

“Owen, stop it!” he pleads with me as I finally reach the door. What does he think I’m trying to do? I’m
trying
to stop it, and the only way I can is to get away.

“I... just stop. Let me go,” I babble almost unintelligibly. My voice slurs so badly that I sound like a completely different person. What happened to me? What have I done?

“
You killed Mom and betrayed Maria,
” answers a harsh, cold voice inside my head. I can’t tell if it’s my own voice or my father’s.

“Look, just wait for me to put on some clothes and I’ll get you over to health services. Give me two minutes, okay? I’m not letting you go out there alone,” Craig tells me, and then he pulls out his phone and starts dialing a number as he heads toward the stairs.

Before he can stop me, I stumble outside into the pouring rain. Craig shouts after me but I ignore him and silently keep walking. I don’t need Craig’s help—he can’t help me anyway. I don’t care how drunk I am or how cold it is out here. I have to get away, and I don’t need a coat where I’m going.

His voice soon fades, overpowered by the howling wind and torrential rain. The lights flicker again and then lose power completely, and I disappear into the darkness.

––––––––

I
can almost walk straight now, but my vision keeps spinning in slow circles as I stumble out onto the bridge. The wind is so strong out on the bridge that I can barely stay on my feet. Just a little further and I’m there... just a few more steps. A deafening crack of thunder echoes through the gorge and the streetlights flicker to life for just long enough to see the railing before plunging me back into darkness. I’m almost to the middle of the bridge.

A sharp gust knocks me off-balance and I hit the railing hard as I fall. The pain doesn’t matter. I’m going to be free of it soon. I’ll be free from all of this—from my father, from my mother’s cold hand, from what I did to Maria—and it’ll all be better.

It will all be better.

The streetlights turn on again and this time they stay on, their dim light leading me slowly out to the middle of the bridge. I wipe the rain from my face and stare down into the darkness below. The wind is so loud, the downpour so strong, that I can’t hear the raging water at the bottom anymore. Maybe there
isn’t
any water. Maybe there’s nothing down there at all—just blackness, a place to escape.

“
No... I’m going to die if I jump. Don’t do it
,” says a voice inside my head. It’s pretending to be reasonable, pretending I have any reason to stay here now.

I clutch tightly to the railing like it’s a ladder, and I climb the bottom rung.

“
Don’t do this,
” begs the voice inside me. It’s a cruel, evil voice...it wants me to stay and hurt even more people I care about.

Second rung. One more and I’ll be able to lift my leg over it.

For a moment, I hear a strange sound drifting on the wind—the sound of someone screaming, yelling into the pouring rain—but I know it’s my imagination. Nobody else is out tonight. Nobody’s insane enough to come out in a storm like this. In all my years in Ithaca, this is the worst storm I’ve ever seen.

Third rung. The railing is so cold and slippery that I nearly lose my grip and fall backward. The power goes out again, but seconds later, a brilliant flash of lightning illuminates the bridge and I regain my bearings.

All I have to do is lift my leg over the railing. I can forget everything on the other side.

“
You’ll lose everything!”
screams the fraudulent voice of reason in my head. “
Don’t do this! There’s nothing down there for you.”

Shut up. What do I have left to lose? My mother? Nope... she’s dead. Maria? Look what I did to her.

The wind howls viciously over the gorge, chilling me to the bone as I steel myself for the final step. I’m tired of being scared and I’ve hurt too many others to stay. I don’t want to remember them anymore—failing Samantha, my mother, Maria...

I’m so sorry, Maria.

It’s time to go.

As I lift my leg over the railing, something hits me from behind. I lose my grip and start to fall.

Maria

“M
aria! Please let me in.”

Tina bangs loudly on the door for what feels like forever, calling to me, pleading with me to open the door, before she finally goes away. I’m not letting her in. I’m so fucking messed up right now that I can’t bear the idea of her seeing me in this state.

“
Why did you have to read my book, Owen? Why? Why did you do this to me?
”

I can’t believe he read it. He knew about the book and what it meant to me, that it’s where I hide all the bad memories. It’s as if my nightmares came true, that Owen was there watching Darren rape me. It’s different from me telling him what happened because the book contains every last detail of what happened and what it did to me afterward. When I walked in on him and saw him reading it, the horror on his face was palpable. In his mind, he was there watching it all unfold.

He was there at the worst moment of my life, watching as I died on the inside, and I wasn’t ready for that. That’s when I lost my mind and threw him out.

A crack of thunder rattles the windows and the power flickers just long enough to reset my alarm clock. The glaring red numbers flash twelve o’clock over and over. No matter what time it is, it’s midnight now. It’s been midnight to me for a very long time.

I sink to the ground, my back against the door, and try not to start crying again. I don’t even know why I’m crying anymore. Is it because of how much he hurt me, or is it because of what I did afterward? Seeing Owen with my book felt like he’d stabbed me in the chest and left the knife there, but I also feel terrible now for reacting like I did. He just lost his mother, for God’s sake, and I screamed at him and threw him out. What’s wrong with me?

Everything’s wrong with me. I’m psychotic. I’m more protective of a notebook—a notebook I
hate
and wish I’d never started writing—than I am of my boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend? I don’t know anymore. It’s like I warned him when we were first intimate together—I can’t predict when I’m going to go crazy, when the nightmares are going to drag me down with them.

Maybe we’re better off not seeing each other. He needs someone stable, someone less fragile... he needs someone who isn’t me. I can’t hurt him if we’re apart, and he can’t hurt me either.

“I need to calm down, take a deep breath and call him.”

No.

“We can talk through it. He can apologize, I can explain, and it’ll all be okay.”

No way. Not after what he did to me.

“Shut up and call him!”

I bite down hard on my lip, yank my phone from my pocket, and just as I start to dial, the lights go out and plunge me into darkness.

A crack of thunder scares me half to death and rain lashes against the windowpanes as I dial Owen’s phone number. It rings five times and then goes to his voicemail. Again and again... five rings and voice mail every time I call. He’s not picking up.

Lighting flashes and for one brief, terrible moment lights up my bedroom. Harsh, terrifying shadows appear everywhere, crawling out from behind all the furniture, and then they’re gone as the room goes dark. They’re not gone, though—in my mind, they’re still coming closer, still sneaking up on me in the blackness.

I have to get out of here.

Why won’t the door open? I struggle with it, panicking as the shadows close in on me, and finally remember that it’s locked. I throw the door open and race down the stairs in the darkness. Craig and Tina are in the living room—I can hear their raised voices, but this isn’t their usual, friendly argument. Their voices are tinged with fear tonight.

“I have no idea where he went!” Craig shouts to Tina, shielding his eyes from the glare of her ridiculous headlamp. I never thought I’d see the day that thing was actually useful.

“You didn’t go after him?” she asks him incredulously. “He’s your friend!”

Tina turns and glances at me as I come downstairs and join them, but she quickly returns her attention to Craig.

“One, I had no pants,” protests Craig. “Two, I was on the phone with Cornell’s alcohol support line. I was trying to get him help.”

“Get who help?” I interject. I know they’re talking about Owen but I don’t know what’s going on. “What happened?”

“Don’t worry about it,” answers Tina, shrugging off my concern. “We’ll take care of it. You just calm down and...”

“No. What happened to Owen?” I almost shout back at her.

I shouldn’t care what happened to him after how badly he hurt me, but I do. I care because I’m afraid that whatever happened is my fault.

“He got drunk—like totally
trashed
drunk—fell down the stairs and then stumbled out into the storm,” Craig tells me. “He could barely even walk. I called the health center, but then the power went out and I lost sight of him.”

Why on earth would Owen do that? Why would he go out in the storm?

Oh no... oh God, no. Please, not that. Please don’t let it be what I’m thinking.

“When did he leave?” I ask Craig. “How long has it been?”

“Like ten minutes ago maybe? He just kept saying he needed to get away, and I couldn’t stop him,”

I run to the door and hurry to put on my sneakers. I know exactly where he went. My chest tightens in fear as I throw the front door open in a panic and race out into the storm.

“Maria! Come back!” shouts Tina, but I don’t listen to her. I have to get to the bridge.

––––––––

I
’m completely soaked and my clothes cling to my freezing skin as I race toward the bridge. All the streetlights are out as I run blindly through night, guided only by the intermittent flashes of lightning. A strong gust pushes me off the sidewalk and I twist my ankle as I hit the cement. Sharp pain shoots up my leg with every step. It hurts so much, but I can’t stop now. I grind my teeth together and keep running—really just hobbling—up the hill. Please don’t let me be too late.

The bridge is shrouded in darkness when I reach it, and I fumble for the railing in the pitch black and pull my soaking wet hair away from my face. The wind is so strong that I can barely stand upright without clinging to the railing.

A flash of lightning. Someone else is here.

I grip the railing tightly and hurry toward the middle of the bridge as quickly as my throbbing ankle permits me. The entire bridge sways and creaks loudly in the howling wind. It’s so windy that it’s raining sideways now, blinding me as I fight my way out to the middle.

Another flash lights up the bridge and I watch in horror as Owen climbs slowly up the railing. Don’t do this! Please,
please
don’t do this to me. I call out to him, screaming his name at the top of my lungs, but the wind steals my words. He can’t hear me over the storm.

Suddenly, I’m running. I don’t need the railing and not even the storm is going to stop me. It doesn’t matter that my ankle hurts with every step I take. It doesn’t matter that Owen hurt me and the notebook doesn’t matter either. None of that matters
at all
. The only thing that matters right now is the horrible feeling bubbling up inside me as he climbs to the second foothold on the railing.

I call out to him again, shouting so loudly that my throat burns, but he still can’t hear me. He’s up to the third rung, and he’s lifting his leg over the railing. He disappears again as the lightning fades and cloaks the bridge in darkness once more.

“
You can't do this to me!
” my mind cries out in terror.

Another blinding flash of lightning arcs through the darkness, and suddenly he’s right in front of me. I grab him, yank him backward off the railing with all my might and tackle him to the ground. The storm lights up the sky again and rain pours down on us as I cling to him.

“Stop it!” I scream at him in terror and I press my head to his chest. I can’t bear the idea of losing him. I can’t be without him anymore. “You can’t leave me!”

I scramble up to his face, kissing his lips in desperation as he stares blankly back at me. His eyes are glazed over, unfeeling, almost as if he’s empty—as if he’s not in there anymore. He reeks of alcohol, but I know we can get past that. He’s alive and that’s all I can ask for right now. I found him before he took that last step off the edge.

“I can’t live without you,” I whimper, holding him close. “Please, don’t do this to me.”

I burst into tears and lay my head on his chest again as my fear of losing him flows out and mixes with the freezing-cold rain. Owen’s body is warm against mine and somehow, being together blocks out the icy chill of the storm.

Slowly, he puts his arms around me and pulls me close to him. I can’t see him in the darkness, but I know he’s back. The darkness has lost its grip on him and he’s safe with me again.

“I love you, Owen,” I tell him, choking up on every word. “I love you so much. Don’t ever leave me like that—don’t go where I can’t follow you.”

He squeezes me tightly, pressing his cold cheek to mine until both our faces are warm again.

“Maria?”

“Yes?”

I softly kiss his lips and wait for him to speak.

“I... thank you. Thank you so much,” he says, choking up as if he’s just now realizing what he almost did.

He trails off and goes silent, overwhelmed by the enormity of what just happened, and I hold him tightly and kiss him again as we lay together in total darkness on the bridge. Our kiss is different from anything I’ve felt before. It’s not about passion, longing, about
anything
like that—it’s about love and fear. It’s about everything we nearly lost forever tonight, everything we could never get back again if he’d taken one more step. I need him forever and I almost lost him.

“Owen... we need help. We can’t do this alone,” I tell him, and I press my lips to his with almost frightened desperation as the rain pours down and the wind howls around us.

“Whatever help you think we need, I’m with you,” he answers me, almost shouting over the storm, and then he draws me close and kisses me again. I love him so much. I love every last bit of him, broken or not.

I struggle to my feet and clutch at the railing to fight off the wind, and Owen slowly rises to my side. His warm embrace supports me like a crutch as I limp beside him away from the bridge. We’re broken as hell and we need help if we’re ever going to fix ourselves, but tonight, we’re alive and we’re together. Together, we’ll make it through the storm and find our way home.