Maybe he doesn't want to be found. The thought surfaces sometimes late at night, ugly and unwelcome, poisonous. Maybe he forgot about me. Maybe those months we spent together meant more to me than they did to him. Maybe he moved on, built a new life, became someone who doesn't think about the kid he used to protect in a farmhouse in Georgia. Maybe he's happy somewhere, and I'm just a ghost from his past, a memory he'd rather forget.
I don't believe it. I can't let myself believe it. But late at night, when the searches come up empty again and I lie awake in my bed listening to the house settle around me, the doubt creeps in anyway. It whispers that maybe I'm searching for someone who doesn't exist anymore, who doesn't want to be found, who's moved on and left me behind.
I still have his note. The paper was falling apart after all these years—creased so many times the folds had turned into holes, the inkfading where my fingers had touched it over and over, the edges going soft and fragile like tissue paper.
I was terrified it would disintegrate completely, that I'd lose the only physical thing I had left of him, the only proof that he was real and that he cared about me once. I got it laminated at the office supply store, paid three dollars to seal it in plastic, and now I carry it in my wallet everywhere I go.
Sometimes, when things get hard, when the doubt gets too loud, I take it out and look at it. The handwriting is shaky, uneven, written by a fourteen-year-old boy with a broken arm and a heart full of promises he didn't know he couldn't keep.
I meant every word. I will find you. Don't give up on me. Remember my name.
— J
I haven't given up. I won't give up. Even if he's gone forever, even if I never find him, even if he's moved on and forgotten about me completely, I'll keep looking until my last breath because that's what you do when you love someone. You don't stop. You don't quit. You hold onto the promise even when it feels like holding onto smoke, even when everyone tells you to move on, even when it would be easier to let go.
I remember everything.
I always will.
And somewhere out there, I have to believe—I have to believe—he remembers me too.
Chapter 12: Jay
The bar is called The Rusty Nail, which is the kind of name that tells you everything you need to know before you even walk in the door. Dim lighting that hides more than it reveals, sticky floors that make your shoes peel up with every step, a jukebox in the corner that only plays country songs from twenty years ago. The alcohol is cheap and nobody asks questions as long as you pay your tab at the end of the night and don't start trouble with the regulars.
I've been coming here ever since I turned twenty-one and could finally drink somewhere other than my motel room, could sit at a bar like a normal person instead of hiding in the dark with a bottle.
It's not a good bar. It's not even a decent bar. But it's mine, in the way that places become yours when you show up often enough that the bartender knows your order before you open your mouth and the regulars nod at you when you walk in.
I have my spot at the end of the bar, my back to the wall so I can see the door, so nothing can sneak up on me. Most nights I sit there alone and drink until the noise in my head goes quiet enough to tolerate.
Tonight is a Friday, which means the bar is more crowded than usual. There's a group of guys in the corner playing pool, loud and drunk and laughing at jokes I can't hear. A couple at a table near the window, leaning close and talking soft, their hands intertwined on the table. A few solo drinkers scattered along the bar like me, minding their own business, nursing their own demons.
I'm three whiskeys in and starting to feel that familiar warmth spreading through my chest, that loosening of all the tight places inside me that are usually clenched like fists. I'm not drunk—I'm never really drunk, not the way some people get, sloppy and stupid and stumbling. I just drink enough to blur the edges.
The bartender, a guy named Rick, refills my glass without me asking. I nod my thanks and take a sip, letting the burn settle in my stomach, warming me from the inside.
That's when I notice the guy.
He's sitting a few stools down from me, and he's been glancing my way for the past half hour. Early thirties, maybe. Dark hair, nice smile, clean-cut in a way that says he doesn't belong in a place like this. He's drinking a beer and pretending to watch the TV above the bar, but every few minutes his eyes slide over to me and linger.
I know what that look means. I've seen it before, in other bars, other places. It's the look that says he's interested in me, that he's trying to figure out if I'm interested too, if this is something worth pursuing.
I've never been with anyone. Male or female. Never had the time, never had anything in my life stable enough to let someone else in. But sitting here alone on a Friday night with whiskey in my blood, he seems harmless enough. Seems like someone I could share a beer with, watch the game with, maybe talk to like a normal person for once.
He picks up his beer and starts to move toward me, sliding onto the stool next to mine.
"Hey," he says, his smile friendly and easy. "I'm Daniel."
"Jay," I respond, taking another sip of my whiskey.
"You come here a lot?"
"Most weekends," I say. "You?"
"First time. I'm just passing through town, thought I'd find somewhere to have a drink before I head out tomorrow." He leans in a little closer. "Lucky, I picked this place."
For one moment I let myself imagine what it would be like to let someone in, to feel something other than alone for once in my miserable life.
