Seeing Black (24 page)

“Say something, damn it!” Alexander grabbed the
lapel of Oliver’s gray shirt and shook him. “She. Is. Not. Dead!”
He fisted the shirt tighter, his knuckles white, as tears flooded
Alexander’s eyes. Suddenly all the emotions of the last months came
pouring out, and he collapsed into Oliver’s chest. “Fuck! Oliver,
say something! Tell me she’s not dead! Tell me!” Alexander yelled,
as the tears flowed down his face. He had held it together now for
months, well, if yelling at everyone, searching all of Texas,
harassing the entire Austin Police Force, and calling Rocco
repeatedly was holding it together. But he hadn’t cried. He wasn’t
even a crier, but he had reached his limit. The dam burst. Oliver
reached for his brother and hugged him tightly. Alexander sobbed
loudly and uncontrollably in his brother’s arms for the first time
since, well, for the first time ever. Oliver just let him cry. He
didn’t say a single word as Alexander cried and shook and begged
and prayed and yelled.

“Jill is not dead.” His voice faltered. “She’ll be
back,” Alexander whispered. He pleaded. But deep down, he knew that
after all these months without a single word from her things were
looking bleak. “She’ll be back.” Who was he trying to convince?

A light knock at Alexander’s bedroom door startled
them both.

“It’s me, Heather said. May I come in? The front
door was unlocked.”

“Yeah,” Oliver answered quietly.

Heather meekly opened the door. Alexander looked at
her. In the last six months, she had lost a significant amount of
weight, and dark patches shadowed her eyes. Heather sat down in
front of the twins with her legs crossed. “Any news?” she asked,
but the look in her eyes showed that she knew very well that there
was no news.

Alexander used his shirt to wipe his face. At this
point, he wasn’t ashamed about the crying. He wasn’t ashamed about
anything. He just wanted his girl back. He sniffled and cleared his
throat.

“No. Nothing. Flynn’s going to see what he can do
about getting someone to search Taylor’s homes.”

“That’s a good sign.” She reached for Alexander’s
hand and squeezed in an effort to reassure him.

“At least it’s something,” Oliver replied.

Heather reached for Oliver’s hand, and for the next
few minutes they sat on the floor of Alexander’s room, quietly,
each lost in their own thoughts.

***

Red-eyed, cotton-mouthed, and heavy-hearted,
Alexander stumbled out of bed two days later. He still wore the
same ratty t-shirt and gym shorts he’d worn to bed when Heather and
Oliver had left two days earlier. They had helped him into bed. The
last six months had felt surreal. He hadn’t been drinking, but he
felt drunk. The emotions had been so strong that he was
immobilized.

“I’m coming, dammit!” Alexander yelled at the
incessant knocking coming from the front door. He shuffled forward
as he rubbed his temples with his hands. He covered his eyes to
shield them from the blinding sunlight that surely awaited him on
the other side of the door, in complete contrast to the dark crypt
that was now his home. He swung the door open and turned without
bothering to look who stood on the other side. He heard the door
shut behind him as he shuffled right back to his bed and under the
covers.

Alexander felt a dip in the bed behind him. “That
bad, huh?” a familiar sultry voice, asked.

He turned and opened one eye. “What are you doing
here, Miriam?”

“You don’t answer your phone; you don’t return your
texts or emails. I got worried.” She bent down to get a better
look. “I see that I was right. You look like shit. You using
again.” It wasn’t intended as a question.

“No. I’m not. Please leave. It isn’t any of your
fucking business.” Alexander turned the opposite direction and
pulled the sheets over his head, giving her his back.

Miriam leaned towards the night table and turned on
the lamp. “I was in a bad place six months ago, and you helped me
get clean. I owe you for that, so I’m making it my business.” She
stood up, went around the bed, and sat down, her back against the
headboard. Her long legs were now right next to his face. “Talk to
me. What’s going on?”

He put a pillow over his head. “Just leave,” he
mumbled. “Get out!”

Miriam tossed the pillow he had over his face to the
floor and Alexander growled.

“Aw. Did the whiney redhead dump you?” Without
missing a beat, Alexander sat up. It took every inch of his
self-control not to hit her. He’d never hit a woman, but he was
tempted, really tempted. Miriam must have noticed the sudden change
from depressed to rage because she shifted her body and leaned
back. “Shit. She did dump you. I was just kidding, Alex. I didn’t
mean anything by it. I had no idea.” She held up both her hands
apologetically.

“This is partly your fucking fault, Miriam.” He
inched closer, and she leaned a little more back.

“My fault?” Her crystal blue eyes opened to the size
of saucers.

“Yes.” They were both still on the bed, but he
inched closer to her as his words came out in a furious hiss.
“Your. Fucking. Fault.”

“W-what?” Miriam slowly leaned back even further and
away from a menacing Alexander.

“Did you tell Jillian you were my girlfriend?”

Still scooting back, Miriam tried to stammer out a
response. “I, uh, well . . .”
Thump!
“Ow!” She had shifted
further and further away from Alexander, who looked like a predator
ready to pounce. Unfortunately, she hadn’t noticed that she had run
out of bed underneath her, and she fell to the floor. From the
floor, she looked up at the predator.

“What the fuck, Miriam?” he yelled. “Jillian left
angry, and I haven’t seen or heard from her in six months! I
defended you. I was so goddamn stupid. How could I have defended
you? I thought she was being irrational and jealous, but she was
right, wasn’t she? You told her you were my fucking girlfriend!”
Alexander’s voice kept getting louder and louder as he looked down
at her. “How could you? You fucking lied to her, and I, like an
asshole, defended you!”

Tears streamed down her face. “I am so sorry, Alex.
I don’t know what to say.”

“Why’d you do it? Why’d you lie?”

Miriam hesitated for a moment, slowly crawling back
and sitting on her haunches. She looked down, embarrassed. “I was
jealous. I was detoxing. I wasn’t thinking straight. I always
thought you and I had something, and—”

“We don’t!”

“I know that! I do! Please, forgive me. I’m sorry.
Please. I was in a bad place when I saw her. I’m so sorry,” she
pleaded.

Alexander sat back slightly, knowing he had been too
harsh. It wasn’t all her fault, well, not completely. He shouldn’t
have defended her; he should’ve believed Jillian. Yes, Miriam
screwed up, but she was strung out when she had done it. Not that
it excused the behavior but . . .

And anyway, he knew beyond a doubt, that Jill’s
disappearance went beyond a little fit of jealousy. She wouldn’t
have picked up and disappeared without a trace over boyfriend
problems. She may have been mad at him, but she wasn’t mad at
Oliver or Heather, and she wouldn’t have left them without a call,
an email, a text—anything. When he was a little calmer, just a
little, he leaned back against the headboard.

“I’m fucking pissed off at you. You shouldn’t have
told her what you told her, but this isn’t all your fault. I mean
you didn’t abduct her or anything.”

“What? Abduct?”

“I think someone took her. It’s not that she dumped
me as you so blatantly put it. She just vanished. It pisses me off
that wherever she may be, she may be thinking that I cheated on her
or that I’m carrying on a relationship instead of dying little
deaths every day that I don’t know where she is.”

“Why would someone take her? I feel like I’m missing
something.”

Alexander wasn’t about to disclose anything to
Miriam. It wasn’t his secret to tell. “It’s a long story, but she’s
been missing more or less since you spoke with her. I saw her one
other time and that was it. The weird thing is that the last time I
saw her I thought she was going to forgive me for your stupid
comment. I mean she was mad as fuck, but still, I felt we would be
okay.”

Miriam slowly stood and hesitantly sat back up on
the bed, but as far away as the bed would allow. “I’m sorry, Alex.
You’ve helped me so much the last year. I want to help. I screwed
up. I’m so sorry. What can I do?”

“Five years ago you helped me sober up, Miriam. So,
we’re even. We’re good. Don’t worry about me. Just go home.”

“Hey, hey. We’re friends. This isn’t about being
even. I want to help.”

“There’s nothing you can do. I’ve tried everything:
gone to the police, hired a PI, looked everywhere.” He pointed to a
cork board by the door of his bedroom with photos and articles and
other clippings and clues he had gathered throughout the
months.

“So you’re starting to feel hopeless?”

He nodded.

“Well, first of all, there’s not much you can do
moping around in bed all day. So let’s get you up and start by
taking a shower and getting dressed. Then we’ll talk some
more.”

Alexander moaned.

“Come on, stinky. You kind of smell, and this room
is a mess. Go. Get up, or I will dump a bucket of cold water on
you.” When Alexander didn’t move, Miriam stood up. “I’m heading to
the kitchen to get water if you’re not up in the next thirty
seconds--”

“Fine! I’m up. I’m up.” He held his hands up in
surrender.

A few minutes later, a freshly bathed, shaved, and
hair-brushed Alexander walked out the bathroom with a towel wrapped
low around his chest and headed to his bedroom and closed the door
behind him. Dropping his towel, he reached for his drawer and took
out a clean t-shirt and gym shorts then turned around in order to
get dressed.

UMPH!

He crashed right into Miriam, who had been reaching
under his bed to grab all the clothes that had been thrown around
and had accumulated over the weeks.

The only thing between a completely naked Alexander
and Miriam was a handful of clothes she held in front of her. “Oh,
shit!” She took off her ear buds and averted her eyes. “I didn’t
hear you walk in. Sorry.”

“No, no. I should’ve said something.” Embarrassed,
Alexander quickly slipped his clothes on while a mortified Miriam
turned around and busied herself by straightening his room.

“You can turn around now. Sorry again. That was kind
of—”

“Mortifying?”

“I was going to say unexpected.” Completely
flush-faced, she continued to clean up. Alexander kept looking at
her as she helped. The last six months had been completely awful,
and the first time he got out of bed, he flashed the woman who may
or may not have been the cause of the shittiest time of his life. A
nervous snort left his mouth, and suddenly he was bowled over in
hysterics. Confused, Miriam looked at him, and his infectious
laughter caused her to start laughing until tears streamed down her
face. After a few minutes of non-stop laughter, they both fell onto
the bed, clutching their stomachs and gasping.

“Sorry, it’s just . . . My life has been hell, utter
hell, for the last six months, and then you come here from nowhere
and I crash right into you completely buck-ass naked, while you
clean my room. Plus, I looked like some sort of homeless
yeti-person with long hair and a beard. It’s just so unreal, as if
it were happening to someone else.”

Miriam didn’t speak for a while.

She reached for his hand, “Hey, you know it’s going
to be okay, right? You will get through this. So long as you stay
clean and focused, we will figure this out.”

“I’ve never fallen off the wagon, Miriam. I don’t
plan on doing so now. I feel so lost without Jill, and I’m so
scared for her. I’m just completely helpless to do anything.” The
tears of laughter that had filled his eyes changed to tears of
sorrow.

“Hey, it’s okay. Come here.” She turned her body and
hugged him, both still lying in bed.

A minute or so after he realized he was lying in bed
with Miriam crying, he pulled back. “Okay, enough with the pussy
shit. This crying doesn’t resolve anything, nor does it get Jill
back.”

“It’s not pussy shit. You have a right to
mourn.”

He winced and jumped off the bed. “Do not use that
word again.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it as in she passed away.
You have a right to feel emotions, Alex. Men, even tough, macho men
like you have feelings. Sometimes they cry. It doesn’t make you
weak. It makes you human.”

“Yeah, well, I’m done. I’ve allowed myself two days
of brooding. I’m done. I have to find her. She’s alive,” he said it
matter-of-factly. “I know you think she’s not. It’s been six
months, but I know she is. I don’t know how to describe it, but I
know she’s alive. I know she needs me to find her. She wouldn’t
have just disappeared.”

“Okay, Alex. I believe you. We’ll find her.”

“How long are you in town?”

“I have a job interview the day after tomorrow in
Houston. I was just driving by because I was worried. I’m leaving
tonight.”

“I’m just going to make some coffee. You want some?”
Alexander asked. Miriam nodded.

A few minutes later, Alexander was pouring coffee
into two mugs. Miriam sat down on the kitchen counter quietly.

“How you’ve been holding up, Miriam?”

“I’ve been good, real good. Been clean a little over
six months. Been staying with my sister. But it’s time to sort
myself out, get a job, and go back to the real world.”

“The big bad world,” Alexander mumbled into his
coffee cup.

“Yeah. The big scary bad world.” Alexander smiled up
at her and she smiled back. It was awkward. He wasn’t sure if it
was the naked incident of a few minutes ago or the fact that he’d
been harboring a lot of anger towards her for the last few months,
but there was an awkwardness between them that hadn’t been there
before. They attempted to make small talk for about half hour. They
talked about the weather, her nieces and nephews, the job
interview—a lot of nothing was spoken. “I’m just going to finish
tidying up a little before I head out.”