It's my Jay.
Jesus Christ.
I found him.
Seven years of searching, hoping, and whispering his name into the darkness and waiting for an answer that never came. Seven years of checking every database, every registry, every possible source. Seven years of wondering if he was alive or dead, if he remembered me or forgot me, if he was looking for me or if he'd moved on.
And now he's here, on my screen, looking back at me with empty eyes that don't know I've finally found him.
I lean closer to the screen until my face is inches from it, studying every detail of his face like I'm memorizing it, like he might disappear if I look away. He looks so damn tired. Not just physically tired, not just the exhaustion of a man who's been in a fight.
There's something deeper, something in the flatness of his expression, in the deadness of his visible eye, that speaks to an exhaustion that goes all the way down to the bone, to the soul. He looks like someone who's stopped expecting anything good from life. He looks like someone who's been beaten down so many times he doesn't get back up anymore. He looks like someone who's given up.
No, no, no.
I didn't spend years searching for him just to find him like this. Broken and beaten and arrested in some dive bar.
This isn't how the story is supposed to end. This can't be how it ends.
My vision is blurring. I realize I'm crying, tears running down my face and dripping onto the keyboard. I wipe them away roughly with the back of my hand and grab a piece of paper and a pen from my desk. I write down everything, my handwriting shaky and barely legible—the name of the bar, the date of the arrest, the charges.
The article said he's from Macon, which means he lives there, which means he has an address somewhere, a place he calls home. Which means I can find him. I can actually, finally find him and see him in person.
My hands won't stop shaking. I put down the pen and press my palms flat against the desk, trying to steady myself, trying to breathe. The room feels too small suddenly, too quiet, the walls pressing in.
Downstairs I can hear Rosalyn laughing at something, the clatter of dishes in the sink, Caleb asking when dinner will be ready. The normal sounds of a normal evening in a house full of people who love me.
And somewhere out there, just a couple of hours away, Jay is alone. Beat up and probably still hurting.
I need to go to him.
The thought crystallizes in my mind, solid and unshakeable. I need to get in my truck right now and drive to Macon and find him and—
And what?
The doubt creeps in. Show up at his door like some kind of ghost from his past? He doesn't know I've been looking for him. He doesn't know I never stopped. For all I know, he forgot about me years ago, moved on, built a new life. For all I know, he became someone who doesn't want to be reminded of the scared kid he used to protect in a farmhouse in Georgia, doesn't want that part of his past dredged up again.
But that mug shot.
I look at it again, forcing myself to examine it closely. Those empty eyes. That beaten face. The bruises and the blood and the exhaustion that radiates from every pixel.
Whatever life he's built, it doesn't look like a good one. It doesn't look like he's okay. It doesn't look like he's happy or safe or surrounded by people who care about him.
It looks like he's fucking drowning.
And I might be the only one who knows he's underwater.
I reach into my back pocket and pull out my wallet. The laminated note is there, where it always is, pressed between my driver's license and a ten-dollar bill. I take it out and look at it for the first time in weeks, maybe months. The handwriting is still shaky, still uneven, still the most precious thing I own in the entire world.
I meant every word. I will find you. Don't give up on me. Remember my name.
— J
He was supposed to find me first. That was his promise—he would find me. He was older, he had more resources, he would be the one to track me down and put us back together. But he never did, and I always wondered why. Always wondered if he stopped looking or stopped caring or just stopped being someone who could look anymore, who had the strength to keep searching.
But that doesn't matter.
Not anymore.
