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How am I going to fix this, where do I start? “Mike I need the number for that P.I firm that we used before.” My voice sounded dead even to my own ears.
“I’ll get it.” He left the room at a run and I turned back to her. What hell had she suffered without me there to protect her? And why? Why us?
I walked over and took her hand again after pulling the chair closer to the bed. I didn’t say anything, just looked at her as my mind worked to put the pieces together.
I’ll make this right baby. No matter what, I will find our child if he’s out there somewhere. I won’t stop until I do. I fought back emotion and refused to let myself feel.
I refused to play the game of what-ifs. As I sat there all I allowed myself to feel was hope. I had to hold onto the thought that she’d returned so there was still a chance for our child.
I didn’t let my mind return to darkness, but instead focused on what I had to do once she woke up. Everything had been shifted now, now that there was a child involved.
I’m sure that once she opens her eyes the baby will be the only thing on her mind as well. As long as he or she is still alive. Please let my child be alive.
I felt my parents behind me, trying their best to offer support, but it was pointless. Just like the day she disappeared I knew there was nothing that could ease the ache inside me.
I closed my eyes and let my mind drift to happier times. I needed to, to ease the pain in my heart before it killed me.
Three and a Half Years Earlier
“So, are you going to let me take you out or not? If you don’t say yes you know I’m just going to keep showing up here until I wear you down.”
She gave me another one of her sassy looks as she cocked her hip and glared down at me over her order pad. I never get tired of her shit. In fact it’s gotten so I can’t go a whole day without putting myself through this torture.
I’d been back to the restaurant, requesting her section for the better part of a month. No matter what I said or did she refused to give in to my request for a date. She was one tough cookie.
I didn’t bother telling her that there was a long list of women who’d give their eyeteeth to have the honor. I was having too much fun with her attitude.
She had no idea who I was. All I’d given her was a first name. She could easily have found out the rest if she’d asked anyone here, since they knew me pretty well from my many reservations, but she was proving too stubborn to do even that.
“You don’t bother me sir.” I knew she was lying. I hadn’t missed the way she’s been watching the door the last couple of days when my lunch hour drew near.
“Cade, sir makes me sound like an old man.” I smirked at her because that’s one of the things she’d said to me on one of those rare moments when she deigned to say anything to me other than to take my order. She’d called me old.
Of course she knew I wasn’t that old. I was twenty- eight to her nineteen. She may not have asked about me but I had done my research.
I knew that she was a college student at the local university. She became an orphan after losing her parents two months apart when she was sixteen, her mom to cancer and her dad to a drunk driver.
She was put into foster care because there was no one else to see to her care, and she aged out at eighteen, at which time she was headed to university anyway.
I knew that she did not stay in contact with her foster mother because the woman had seen her more as a commodity than a child who needed care after the trauma of losing both parents at such a young age.
She was smart and from all appearances, kind and well liked by her peers. I seem to be the only one she gave a hard time.
I knew that she wasn’t dating anyone, not that that would’ve stopped me, but it was one less obstacle for me to worry about. And worry I did.
For the first time in my life I worried about someone else. Where did she go when she left work, what did she do on her evenings off?
I became a damn stalker. There was no point in staying in the office in those days because I got nothing done. She’d completely taken over my life and the damn girl wouldn’t even give me the time of day.
