Chapter 11: The Return

The three days Amelia was gone were the longest of my life. I sat in the penthouse, surrounded by the evidence of my lies, and I waited. I called her phone until the voicemail was full, and the automated voice stopped accepting messages. I texted until my fingers ached, until the screen blurred with my tears, until I realized she was never going to respond. I paced the rooms, the bedroom where I had destroyed everything with my confession, wearing a path in the carpet that I could see when I finally stopped to look down.

I did not sleep. I did not eat. I drank whiskey until I was numb, then drank more until I was sick. I stared at the ceiling until the sun rose and set and rose again. I touched myself, once, thinking of her, and I felt so disgusted, so vile, that I went to the bathroom and vomited until my throat was raw. I was being punished. I knew I was being punished. Every minute she was gone was a minute of agony I deserved.

On the second day, I remembered I paid for her phone. The account was in my name, the bills came to me, and I had access to everything. I logged into the website with shaking hands, my password mistyped three times before I finally accessed the account. I found the GPS tracking feature, the one I had never used, the one I told myself was for emergencies only, and I activated it.

She was at a Motel 6 on the outskirts of Austin, twenty miles away, probably checked in under a fake name. I could see her there, a blinking blue dot on a digital map, so close and unreachable, separated from me by miles and betrayal and horror. She was alive. She was safe. She had not gone to the police. She had not disappeared completely. She was simply ... away. Thinking. Deciding.

Deciding what? I had to know. It consumed me.

I drove there immediately, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard I could feel it in my throat. I found the motel easily, the neon sign buzzing in the afternoon heat, the parking lot half-empty. I pulled into a space near where the dot showed on the screen and I sat there, my hands gripping the steering wheel, my breath shallow, my entire body trembling with the need to go to her, to fall to my knees and beg.

I sat there for three hours. I watched all the doors on that side, willing one to open, willing her to see me, to know I was there, to understand how sorry I was, how desperate, how broken. I imagined her inside, lying on the cheap motel bed, crying, thinking, hating me. I imagined her calling the police, telling them everything, destroying me completely.

She didn’t do that, though. The doors stayed closed. The blue dot on my phone stayed steady. She was simply existing, alone, processing, feeling the weight of what I had told her without my presence to confuse her, to manipulate her, to make her doubt her own horror.

I forced myself to leave. I forced myself to drive back to the penthouse, to give her space, to let her decide without my influence, my presence, my desperate need polluting her thoughts. I told myself that if she came back, it would be because she chose to, because she wanted to, because some part of her loved me despite everything. If she didn’t come back, I would accept that. I would deserve that.

I didn’t believe myself. I knew I would burn the world down to find her if she disappeared. Instead, I waited. I gave her the three days. I gave her the space she needed, the only gift I had left to give.

On the third day, I was sitting on the floor of the elevator lobby, my back against the wall, my knees drawn to my chest, wearing the same clothes I had worn when she left, smelling of whiskey and sweat and despair, when the intercom buzzed, indicating someone wanted to come up.

The sound cut through my haze like a knife. I looked up, my heart stopping, my breath catching, my entire body going rigid with hope and terror.

I didn’t ask who it was, just punched the button on the screen to approve it. Several minutes later, the doors opened.

Amelia stood there, and my first thought was that she looked terrible. Her hair was unwashed, greasy and tangled, hanging in ropes around her face. Her eyes were red and swollen, the lids puffy from crying, the whites bloodshot. Her clothes were wrinkled from three days of sleeping in them, her tank top stained, her shorts crumpled. She looked like she had been through something, like she had walked through fire and come out the other side changed.