Giving up is what she did best—I guess I am my mother’s daughter after all.
Chapter Ten
Devin
Panic is nothing new for me—but this level of fear, of panic, of dread is unlike anything I have ever felt.
Three time now I have watched the woman I love walk away from me. I had no idea that night at the fair what she would become to me. The day I found her again at the mall, I thought it would be a passionate fling that would run its course once summer was over. When I watched her walk out of her place this morning, I knew I was in love with her, that it wouldneverrun its course, and that she was running out on me as fast as she could.
We were so close to grabbing hold of it all together. So close to starting a future. All summer we’ve talked about growing up, becoming adults, letting our childish ways go. We drug our feet by playing at the arcade, going skating, and fooling around like horny teenagers. We might have been talking about growing up, but we hadn’t been ready yet.
Now I am ready, and she is gone, and that just will not do.
“Yes, she has taken off before. Never for this long. I am worried.”
Pacing in front of a very pregnant Jenna and a worried Jordan, I nod. It has been almost a week since she took off that morning. After signing up for college classes, shopping with her best friend, and going to band practice, she just vanished. I waited at her place until dusk, guts twisted up, heart churning because I could see something dark in her eyes that morning.
Jenna and I have become very good friends in this past week as we worry over where she could have gone and why. Well, I had a good idea about why. Seeing her mother that night at Skateland had shaken her. I knew that I felt in how she spoke, how the darkness in her eyes stayed even after I told her I would never let her mom hurt her again.
It seems I let her hurt her again anyway.
“Her mother blamed her for everything that went wrong. All the bad choices she ever made were Debi’s fault,” Jenna explained the day after she had taken off and I had gone to her in desperation. “When her father died...it changed everything between them. There had always been that tension, that unease between them. It is why she was always with me. After that, they began to hate each other. Blame each other for their misery.”
After we looked all over town for her, I ran into her peach of a mother at a bar. No surprise there. I tried to avoid her, but she followed me out after she overheard me talking about Debi. It was one of the places I hoped to find a clue about where she could have gone—but I got a lot more than a clue.
“That girl won’t be found. Not until she wants to be. If I taught her anything, I taught her how to disappear. It was all I was ever good at.”
“Debi is not you,” I had argued heatedly. “The biggest difference is she has people who love her. People who want her here, who would do anything for her and give her anything. You drove her to seek love anyplace she could. So she did. But people love her even if she did not know it, even if she could not see it or feel it. Because you never taught her a thing about love.”
“No. No, I did not. I ought to be ashamed about it, but I can’t be. Because how could I teach her about love if I know nothing about it.”
“Here’s a lesson: stay away from her. Stay out of Pine Grove. Go be miserable somewhere else, so she doesn’t have to fear seeing herself in you. Because she is not you and she never will be.”
To my utter shock, those words seem to hit home with her. No one has seen her since, and I hope it stays that way. But I know she meant what she said. Debi will not be found until she wants to be. I hate that she is out there somewhere without me, thinking I am maybe better off or that she deserves to be alone.
Debi deserves everything and I intend to give her just that.
Jenna and I joined forces to get the entire town involved in finding her. It has been a little like a game of telephone where we have everyone talking about her being gone. Mostly they get the facts right. Debi left town on a whim over a week ago and we want to find her. Why she left, where she may have gone, and if she will come back is where they get it a little wrong.
Some say she left because she got a huge record contract and bailed on her band. There were whispers that she ran off to Hollywood to get famous. A few folks pinned the blame on me for breaking her heart. They say I drove her out of her town because I romanced her all summer just to end things.
“I do not mind being the bad guy,” I admit to Jenna. “They can say whatever they want to say about me. Hell, they’ve all been talking all summer about the two of us. I do not care. All I care about is finding her.”
“Purple Hearts has a gig at the fair tonight. Do you think she would leave them hanging?” Jenna wonders as she rubs at her very round tummy.
“No, I don’t so. I also doubt she will stay gone long with you being due so soon,” I suggest as I stop pacing long enough to gather my thoughts.
Debi is the best friend I have ever had. Not just to me. To her band, who all guys she adores and would do anything for. If they could not eat, she would feed them, if they were fighting with their parents, she let them stay with her, and if they had a show she never, ever failed to show up.
Jenna is due in just a few weeks. Debi has spoiled her best friend rotten as the date comes closer. Taking her out to get whatever she is craving, going to the birthing classes if Jordan can’t make it, and doting on her all the time. I do not think for one moment she will not be here for her best friend.
For me...well, I was a fool to let her go, again. I should have stopped her that morning. Should have told her nothing anyone says, not her mother, not all of Pine Grove, not even her, could ever change how I feel about her. She is giving, loving, and the sweetest, kindest person I have ever known.
I love Debi and nothing will ever change that.
I regret not telling her, not giving her the words, not letting us both hear them, so we had no doubts. I love her. She is the best thing to ever happen to me and I am not letting her go. I am not giving up on her, and I will keep looking for her until she is back here with me.
“Why don’t we just go to the fair? If we go, if the band goes, if we get Blair and Brendan,” she starts ticking off their friend group. “Paige and Pierce, Mandi, Noah, the whole gang, we can search town then meet up at the fair. I think she will be there. I do. Besides the band...the fair is where she met you. Debi loves you, I know she does. It just scares her.”
