Page 118 of His Heart

But I was still worried. Where had she gone?

I checked her kitchen for bottles. Looked in the garbage. Nothing. Checked her bathroom and the drawers in her bedroom. I kept thinking about her on the couch in that frat house, so wasted she could barely stand. I hoped she wouldn’t do something like that again. But if she was unraveling, I didn’t know what she’d resort to in order to escape her pain.

It would be hard to find her if I just drove around. She didn’t have a car—she walked places, or used the bus or Uber—so I couldn’t find her that way. It was cold as shit outside, so she probably wasn’t walking. She could be pretty much anywhere.

I took out my phone and called her, but it went straight to voicemail. She’d either ignored my call, or her phone was off. Maybe she’d forgotten to charge the battery. Or hadn’t bothered. Damn it.

I texted her anyway, in case she just didn’t want to talk to me. Maybe she’d read it.

I’ll leave you alone if you want but please tell me where you are.

I also texted Olivia and Charlie, asking them to call me if they heard from her. Olivia texted back a few minutes later to say she’d called her, but it had gone straight to voicemail.

There were a few places I could check—places I knew she liked or might go. The bookstore was closed. I stopped at a restaurant we’d been to a bunch of times, but she wasn’t inside. If there was a horror flick playing, she might have been at the theater. I checked the movie times, but none of them seemed like something she’d go see.

If she wanted to drink, she might be at a bar. But fuck, it was a college town. There were bars everywhere. I drove around town a while longer, but there was no sign of her at any of the places I tried.

My last hunch was a little tavern that was walking distance from our neighborhood. I didn’t think she’d have walked in the cold, but I’d checked everywhere else. Might as well stop there, too.

As soon as I stepped inside, I knew she was there. It took me a few seconds to find her. She was on a stool at the far end of the bar. It looked like she was leaning over a notebook and writing something. She had a glass of water near her left hand, and a glass of what was probably whiskey sitting in front of her.

Something came together inside of me at the sight of her. That drive I’d always had. The determination. I felt it again, stronger than ever before. More intense than before any wrestling match—even before I’d faced Charlie at state. It coalesced into a razor-sharp point, and I made a decision. I was going all in. I knew exactly what I needed to do. And there was no turning back.

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