I scan the area, and I panic because I don’t see Brody.
“Okay,” I tell her.
“Really?” Her eyes light up.
“Really? I know it’s not going to be easy, but I am willing to try.” I hope she won’t question my change of heart.
“That is all I want, for you to try.” She beams, stands swaying slightly. “We should leave as soon as possible then.”
“Okay, let’s get Brody, and we can leave.” I take her hand, steadying her.
“What do you mean? He is already in the car.” She laughs.
“No, Katie, he isn’t.” I jog toward the car and notice something I didn’t the first time. One of the back doors is open.
“He must have run away,” she muses. “But we can still go away together, right?”
“No, Katherine, we can’t. You just sit right here and wait for me to come back.”
I call Grady. “Grady, can you and the guys get here. Brody ran away when he got a chance, not sure how well he knows these woods.”
“Be right there. I will get a copter out as well.”
“Fuck!” I shout. This cannot be happening. I scour the area around the car and seem to have a vague idea of the direction he went in. There are a few broken twigs and things in the area, so he left a decent path. The good thing is that I know this area well.
Katie sits on the passenger side of the car, her head in her hands. I don’t know if it’s regret or drunkenness. Whatever it is, she did a fucking asshole thing today.
I follow the direction I think Brody went in, calling his name. If he is close by, he will hear me. The forest isn’t big, it’s just very dense. If I was Brody, and he is a smart kid, I’d stick to the water, follow the river until he finds a clearing.
I’ve walked for about half an hour when I hear the helicopter up ahead. The noise is deafening as it flies pretty close to the ground. I keep moving, thankful that we still have a lot of daylight. According to Shelby, he’s wearing a red jacket and jeans, white sneakers. I keep an eye out for the red in the greenery.
I feel exhausted more emotionally than anything else. This is what I do, I fuck up everything, and now a boy is lost out here because I couldn’t stay away from his mother. The truth is that I couldn’t stay away from Shelby. It was like fate kept pulling me in her direction, but I am not good for her or Brody, and I know that now more than ever.
“Come on, Brody, where are you, kid?”
I look around me, my head whipping one way and then the next.
“Ember,” Grady shouts, running toward me. “Any luck?”
“No, I’ve been out here for about an hour. This is all my fucking fault.”
“Look, I don’t particularly like the thought of you and Shelby, but she cares about you, and I can tell you care about her too. I saw what you did for Brody, too.”
“It was just a treehouse man.”
“It was more than that, to that kid, it was everything. So thank you.”
“But all this happened because I am here because I couldn’t stay away from Shelby like you told me to.”
“You didn’t kidnap Brody, and you’re the one out here looking for him. Besides, Brody knows these woods. I brought him out here a few times.”
“Brody!” I shout again, only to be met with silence. “Let’s circle the other way.”
“I’ll follow your lead. You know which area you covered,” Grady tells me.
And then we spot them by the water, Shelby, and Brody in an embrace. “It’s them, right?”
“Sure looks that way.” Grady lets out a breath.
