Page 47 of Never Give Up

Jake doesn’t respond for a long time, and as the silence stretches and grows loaded, I shift where I sit.

“Fuck. That.” When he finally says it, he’s whispering hoarsely. “Fuck that, and fuck her, Brian. You’re not the one who handed her a bottle of pills. You’re not the one who took those pills and then tried to kill your boys too. That was all her. You don’t owe her anything. You didn’t break her. You didn’t hurt her. All you did was give her a piece of yourself. I’m not gonna sit here and let you throw away what could possibly be the best thing in your entire life over the memory of someone who was selfish and almost took your boys with her.”

Jake clears his throat and I’m too choked up to answer him, so I just nod. His words don’t erase everything, all the doubt, but they do a hell of a job silencing the fear that I’ve felt over letting myself love Maya.

“If that’s why you’re holding back, don’t. A woman like Maya, she’s more than anything ever before. If you let her, she’ll be the eye in a hurricane for you. The center of every storm, every emotion, every feeling of love that you could possibly have.” Jake’s got a faraway look in his eyes, and I know he’s hiding something about his own love life. Something we’re gonna have to talk about soon.

But for now? Right now, I have to focus, because if I don’t, I’m gonna lose Maya forever. “I won’t screw this up.”

“We’ll see about that,” Jake says. “Just one more thing.”

“What?”

“Find the right way to do it. Don’t just go in and demand that she listen to you. You tried that once, didn’t you? When we were putting together the tree house and shit.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s what I thought, man. If you tell a woman even one time that she isn’t what you want, or reject her for someone else, she’s never going to forget it, Brian. No matter how many times you tell her afterwards that she is the most important person in the world, she’s going to be taken back to the moment you crushed her existence. And it’s up to you to make that right. To give her a new moment to look back on when she’s with you. When she sees you. When you kiss her. When you hold her.”

Then he picks up a file from the table in front of us and he hands it to me.

“Now let’s find the asshole who hurt her.” We go to work poring over case files and the evidence from the scene, looking for something we might have missed, knowing we’re just beating a dead horse but doing the work again just in case there’s something, anything to help.

As the pictures and evidence start to blur in front of my eyes, I know Jake is right.

I need to find the right way.

But there’s no doubt in my mind.

Maya’s mine.

16

MAYA

“Jake,it’s been over two months. Is there anything you can tell me?”

I force down the frustration that’s become an old, unwanted friend and look at him, struggling to keep my expression soft.

Meanwhile, I’m rotating the rubber bracelet around my wrist, both annoyed and comforted by its presence.

“I’m sorry, Maya. There’s nothing new to tell you.” Jake glances away from me as he leans against the counter in the face of my interrogation. “I wish I could do something for you to make this better.”

I pace the kitchen at the station, too restless to sit and angry with no one to take it out on. “You could tell me you found something or you found him. That’s what you could do.” Words filled with venom that he doesn’t deserve eat the friendliness between us. I put a hand to my forehead. “Sorry, I’m just...”

“I know, you don’t need to explain anything to me.”

“I didn’t make him up. I didn’t just fabricate what happened out of nothing. I didn’t stab myself, Jake. And right now, it feels like I did. It feels likeIdid this to myself.”

“Hey.” He reaches out and grabs me by the hands, offering a steady show of support. “No one thinks that. No one at all. The problem is,” he says quietly and trails off before coughing. “There aren’t any other victims I could find, and your description of him wasn’t the most detailed. Again, not your fault. But if there’sanythingyou can remember now that you’ve had time to think about it, just let me know.” He looks at me with a mix of resignation and hope. Resignation because we both know that the more time that passes, the less reliable a witness is, and hope as though my memory will just magically conjure up a detail that will crack the case.

A sigh and a shrug are the only things I can offer.

“Trust me, Jake. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I replay every second of the attack. From the way his eyes looked blacker than the night sky, like they had no irises, to the fact his skin was like a bad vampire movie with how pale it was. I will never forget the way his voice scratched over my skin when he spoke, or the smell of woods and mold. Every word of what he said is burned into my memory, like the rest of those facts, but I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup if he was standing right in front of me.” I speak the words quietly, but their intensity fills the air.

“He might have known me, but I know voices. I know sounds. I don’t remember ever hearing him before, and it’s not like we can run a catalogue of people by their voice. The tattoo on his arm was black. I mean, it was big too. But it looked like some sort of flower, I don’t know. I can’t see it clearly in my head. I see the gloves on his hands and the fact that his jeans were rough against my legs. But I can’t remember anything else.” Tears threaten to fall at the fact that I don’t have any information. I can’t help. “I’m sorry.” I feel bad for snapping at him, but the answers I need are out there, and he’s the only one who can find them.

“You have no reason to be sorry,” Jake answers me, and I forgot for a second that I’d said anything. “You didn’t do anything to deserve this. I know we’ve told you that over and over, but you’re going to have to start believing it if you really want to be able to put it behind you.”

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