Chapter 50

The One Where She’s Lost Without Him

A R I E L L E

I pad through the house at half past three in the morning, feeling like that fucking meme of the tiny alien in the doorway.

The me walking to my parents room at two a.m. telling them I threw up one.

I’m surprised when I step into the living room to find that Chase is still awake and watching television. He hears me approaching and immediately lowers the volume, giving me a worried look. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes, sitting up on the couch. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“You didn’t. I can’t sleep.” My eyes feel near swollen shut as I seat myself beside him, hugging my fleece blanket from my bed tighter around my frame. I think I fell unconscious, honestly, from crying so much because it really doesn’t feel like I slept a wink even though my eyes were closed for the last two hours.

“Do you wanna’ talk?” He wraps his arms around me, hugging me tight to his chest and if I had any tears left in my ducts, I’d probably be bawling again.

I can’t help the lonely, empty feeling in my chest. Without Nate around and knowing that he’s missing but currently having no way of figuring out where he is or how to figure out what happened to him has me lost. I am who I am because of him so without him by my side I don’t feel like me.

I feel robotic, almost. As if I’m simply going through the motions of day to day life but I’m not feeling anything. There’s no joy, there’s no excitement, there isn’t even anger or sadness. It’s just this consuming dread and emptiness that I don’t know how much longer I can handle.

I feel like I’m losing my sanity, replaying the days over and over, trying to look for warning signs or clues. Thinking every little sound I hear or that my brain makes up is him walking in the front door. And when I finally fall asleep in the rarest of times, I dream of him and it’s like it’s real. I can feel him and his warmth, I can smell his cologne, I can taste his kiss—all of it feels like he’s with me only for it to be ripped from me the moment I wake up.

I probably sound dramatic as fuck, but I haven’t seen him in nearly a week and the fact that every form of contact I have with him is leading to dead ends is so worrisome that I can’t even put it into words. I know him and he isn’t the type of guy that would up and leave without telling me first. If he knew something was about to happen, he would’ve texted me, met me in person, phoned me—he would’ve given me a heads up in some way.

“Ari?”

“No,” I tell him. “There’s no point in talking it to death.”

“Are you sure we can’t go to the cops?” Chase asks and I know he’s only trying to help but I can’t help but feel frustrated. I’m backed into a corner and I’m merely doing what animals do when they’re backed into a corner.

“No,” I snap. “Ezra and Hayes have connections. It’ll never even become an open case.”

“Even though he’s been missing long enough that it would be considered missing persons?”

“I’m positive, Chase. If we do that, we’re only further drawing attention to our plans and if there’s one thing I’ve learned with having Ezra as a step-father, it’s better to keep some things secret because he’s always eight fuckin’ steps ahead of anyone and everyone.” I sigh, adjusting myself so that I’m laying on my side on the sofa, watching the television show that Chase was watching before I entered. “At least this way, he doesn’t know where we’re searching for Nate and he doesn’t know how we’re doing it. Which probably means nothing but I’m fuckin’ mentally exhausted and I can’t be bothered right now.”

Silence succumbs us and I’m both grateful and dreading it. The silence is nice because I’m not obsessively talking about it but the dreadful part is that means I’m just obsessively thinking about it.

“What are you watching?”

“True crime,” Chase explains.

I want to question him on why he appears to be watching a documentary at such an odd time of day and when we both have brains that are swamped with fatigue and can’t absorb any of what we’re observing, but I don’t have the energy for it. Everything seems overwhelmingly exhausting these days and I know why that is but I try not to think about it.

And let me tell you, it’s damn hard.

Instead, I wonder why Chase was sitting out here in the middle of the night watching television instead of being in bed, sleeping. It’s possible that he was worried about me and decided to stay awake in case I sauntered into the living room—which is exactly what I did—but part of me believes that nobody would worry about me that much.

I glance over at him for a moment, thankful for someone as wonderful as him in my life. He’s been my best friend for so long that I consider him a brother. I never had siblings growing up—considering how much Vivien loves her only daughter, it’s understandable that she’d never procreate after the failure that is me—so Chase has become my adoptive brother.

More than that.

He’s like a blood sibling to me. I’d gladly take a bullet for him and I’d like to think he’d do the same for me. We’ve always had this brotherly-sisterly bond ever since I can remember that it’s become what our relationship is. There was never any sexual attraction, never any curiosity about what it’d be like. There was a drunken kiss once, but it was such a turn off that we joke about it and never fail to crack up.