Page 45 of I'm Sorry
I place my untouched beer on the side table and lift my arm. The people around me tell me to lean on the ones I still have in my life, so I text with Junie all day every day, whenever one of us gets to thinking too much or has a breakdown. We’ve been there for one another and it kills me to see someone as optimistic as Junie lose that spark. I try to stay optimistic for her, but it’s damn hard and I’m failing because the desperate look in her eye tells me she’s losing hope. What is this world without a light like hers?
But her sister is everything to her, always has been. They’re close enough to be twins and if you didn’t know any better, you’d think they were with the way they finish thoughts for one another.
Junie drapes the shirt over my chest, then sits down on the couch beside me, tucking her legs in. She leans her body into me, then places her head on my shoulder, burying her face in Lennox’s shirt. Her deep inhale of Nox’s scent is let out in the most soul wrenching sob I’ve heard in my life. I wrap my arms around my sister-in-law and hold her tightly to me, trying my best to keep my own tears at bay. Sure, me and Nox aren’t married—weren’t married—but I’ve always considered this family as if we were. I’ll do anything for this girl, including holding her while she cries.
I’m the reason for her tears, so it’s only fitting. I was the one who let Nox drive away that night. Such is my repentance and I’ll do anything to help her.
After holding my breath as long as I can to keep from breathing in the gardenia scent that I know is going to swarm me—cripple me—I inhale my girl’s shirt as deeply as my tired lungs will allow. Sweet fucking torture it is smelling my girl, right here on my chest as if she were in my lap.
I have no clue how I’m going to survive this. If I finally find her only for her to be beaten, bruised, broken…dead, I’ll lose my fucking mind, but I’ll live on to take care of her. My life hangs in this limbo where I want nothing but the relief of death, but I know I don’t deserve it.
These are thoughts I’ll have to get used to. When we find her, our only options are that she’s dead or broken because it almost never measures out to find a person kidnapped, only to learn they’ve been living a life of luxury, floating on rainbows of marshmallows and unicorns.
Fuck, I need to get out of my head. Junie needs me right now.
“How are you, Junie?” We’ve stopped telling each other that it’s going to be okay when we cry, because we both know our options will not be okay. We either mourn someone we love when this is over, or we find her and bring her back from whatever hell has claimed her. If we never find her again…well… we don’t consider that option. At least not yet.
How much time has to pass before we do? I wonder.
“I’m alive?” Junie croaks the words out as a question and a part of me wants to tell her no, we’ve died and gone to Hell, but this is our living nightmare.
“Yeah, we’re still here.” My weary sigh is heavy. I have my arm draped over her shoulders, and I give the joint a squeeze. The touch only makes her cry harder for a moment.
“I miss her so much, Benny. What did she…What did our family ever do to deserve something like this?” I hate it when she talks like this because one of my biggest fears is Junie turning on her parents.
“Absolutely nothing. Don’t for a second let yourself believe that you or anyone in your family deserves this. This is just nasty people who have darkness inside of them.”
“What do you think is happening to her?” I have to physically stop myself from flinching with her question.Fuck!This cannot be the way this conversation goes. Junie has never broached this subject, opting to keep that elephant tucked away into the corner of the room for as long as we can.
“Junie…” I say, my voice low with a warning plea.
“I know. I know. I’m sorry. It’s just…Those thoughts have been swirling around in my head and I can’t seem to let them go.”
And I refuse to let myself go down that trail.
“So let’s think of better things.” Though finding any light in this void seems pretty inefficient and pointless right now. It’s worth a shot to feel better, even if I don’t deserve that relief. Would it even be a relief? That will only come when my girl is back in my life.
“Like what?”
“Her smile.” Junie sniffles at my suggestion. My girl’s perfect, deep blue eyes pop into my head and the way they sparkle, little wrinkles forming around her young eyes when she smiles. She can’t help it because she smiles so hard they just appear. When we’re old and gray, and those lines are deeper than they are now, I’m going to love them even more. “How blue her eyes are.”
“We have the same eyes,” she muses and wipes her nose with the back of her arm. “Like Daddy.”
“Yeah. The only thing from your dad you have.” It’s true. Marcus’s girls look nothing like him. It’s insane, really. I thought men were supposed to have the stronger genes.
“I heard that,” Marcus chimes from the doorway. He’s carrying two giant bowls of homemade ice cream. All Christina has done since Lennox’s disappearance is cook. We’re nothing if not well fed. Though most of us are struggling to find our appetites. She keeps upping her ante, making anything no matter how fattening or artery-clogging it may be. That’s her way of coping and is probably the healthiest out of all of us. She is productive while doing something that brings her comfort.
“Sorry, Daddy, but it’s totally true.”
“I know, but don’t tell your mothers.” He winks at his daughter despite the despair lingering in his eyes and gives us the bowls. I let mine rest in my lap and Junie sits up, seeming to be the only one to not lose her appetite as she digs in.
Marcus squats down in front of me, that concerned father's aura burning around him. He knows how much guilt I carry and how disappointed I am in myself. Of course, he doesn’t blame me in the slightest, but he should.
His brows squish together when he notices the shirt that is cloaking me. Whatever thoughts he has on it that make him frown, he pushes away when he meets my eyes. He reaches out and places a gentle palm on my knee. Junie’s spoon clinks against the bowl as she takes a break, pressing her fingers against her forehead and groaning.
“Brainfreeze, Junebug?”
“Worth it,” I say before she gets her answer out. On a good day, I can put away just about anything Mama Christina makes, but her ice cream is unmatched.