Page 36 of Needing to Fall
I typed in Robert Jameson. Surprised wasn’t the word for it. Shocked, torn in a small way, happy. The first thing that popped up was an obituary. I was scared of the man. Terrified. I had never wanted to see him again, but I didn’t expect to see this. I clicked on the link, opening up the document, and sucked in a breath. My body temperature spiked as my father stared back at me, his cold eyes still as hateful as I remembered.
I read though the words, not feeling an ounce of sadness. Should I? I couldn’t, not after what he had done to me.
It said he had died of massive heart failure and was survived by Rebecca Jameson, no mention of me. Why would it? I was non-existent to them. However, it didn’t stop the small pang of hurt that aimed right at my chest, and I could feel the waters beneath my feet beginning to swirl.
I closed my eyes and took in some calming breaths.I can do this. I can.Opening them back up, my father’s gaze cut through me like a knife. Yes, if it made me a bad person, then so be it, but I was glad he was gone. He was one less person I had to worry about coming to find me. He didn’t need to matter anymore. Ever.
I wasn’t going to tell Andi. If she even suggested I go to his gravesite, I would lose whatever I had in my brain holding it together.
Trey. I needed to get ahold of him to help me find my mother. I liked this. It gave me purpose, a goal. It made me feel like I was doing something worthwhile instead of just sitting on the couch and staring into space.
I didn’t have my old phone; therefore, I didn’t have Trey’s number. I could go to the bar, but the only thing I could do there was wait for him. As a result, I did the next best thing: I called my boss who gave me his number.
When I dialed, it went to voicemail.
Two days later, when I hadn’t heard back from him and still had no word from Lynx, I started to feel anxious. I could feel it climbing up my skin, cloaking me in heat, each inch it covered getting hotter and hotter. I couldn’t control my breathing, and my hands began to shake.
I wanted to believe Lynx would come back, but each tick of the clock was a second lost.
Deep breath, Reign,I told myself, sucking in a breath as I sat on the toilet.
Andi was making dinner, and I didn’t want her to see me like this. I didn’t want to worry her, and I knew it would be exactly what she would do.
In. Out. In Out,I chanted as I inhaled and exhaled.You’re all right, Reign. You’ll figure this out.
I kept sucking in air. After several minutes that felt like hours, the heat began to recede. It didn’t fully disappear, but at least my hands weren’t shaking anymore.
I rose from the seat and looked in the mirror. My eyes looked scared. I closed them and reopened them, hoping they would change. When they didn’t, it felt like a punch to the gut.
The plan, Reign. What’s the plan?The plan … right.
I kept breathing and then began counting down from fifty. At number twenty-two, I felt the control slowly come back and grasped on to it with two hands.
Looking back in the mirror, I watched color come back to my face as my eyes began to look more relaxed. It was then that something weird happened.
I felt … pride. I was proud of myself for coming back and not getting sucked down into the dark tunnel. I had that control, and that was a great feeling.
I hadn’t heard anything from Trey, but it didn’t affect me as much as not hearing anything from Lynx. It had been five days since I had gotten out, and nothing. He had forgotten about me, not that it was a hard thing to do. My parents had done it easily enough, but I wanted him to be different.
Digging through my stack of stuff, I finally found what I had spent the last hour looking for: a blue and gold, large shoebox. Gripping it tightly, I pulled it from the larger one. I had almost forgotten I had it. It had been so long since I had looked at it.
This was the only thing I had that connected me to my past. This was it, and it was in this small, little box. It was sad my life was reduced to this container.
I opened the lid, sucking in a deep breath. Inside were documents of my early life, including my birth certificate, the report from when I was taken, and my first foster family’s information.
Tears welled in my eyes before I pushed them back. I needed the address of my mother. It was a long shot, and I had no faith she would actually live there, but with my “help” not responding, I had to do something. I shuffled through the papers, finding the exact one I needed. As my eyes skimmed, I found the address. Gathering the rest of the papers up, I shoved them back in the box and then shoved the smaller box into the bigger one.
I grabbed Andi’s laptop and plugged in the address. I didn’t have a fancy phone that had GPS anymore. I was lucky enough Andi had gotten me a prepaid flip-phone for emergencies. I was so grateful for it. It was just the small bit of security I needed.
I wrote the directions diligently, noting it would only take a few hours. I knew it wasn’t the smartest thing to go alone, but I had dropped Andi off at work today, so I had her car. Since she was getting a ride from a friend of hers, I didn’t have to worry about that.
Would she like it that I went? No, but it was something I had to do. I wanted to know why. Why did she allow my father to hurt me? Why didn’t she put me first? Was I nothing to her?
The motivation to find the answers was what pushed me. It was a drive, a purpose, a reason to keep going, to find out why I was the way I was. The sea beneath me was spinning, but I was treading water for the first time, strong enough not to get swept up in the current.I could do this. Ihadto do this.
I was a bitch because I only left Andi a note, knowing she would be livid with me. I should have called her at work and told her, yet I didn’t know how she would react.
I grabbed my bag, throwing a few things in, instantly missing that I couldn’t throw my gun inside for protection. Andi had said I wasn’t ever getting it back, and “It wasn’t in the apartment, so don’t even try to find it.” I thought about what I could grab. The only feasible thing was a knife. It was stupid since I didn’t have much control over it, but it was all I could get.
