The Lost and Found (31 page)

As he approached I looked down, suddenly feeling like a coward. Josiah tried the car door, but it was still locked. “Crimson, what happened? Open the door.”

I wiped my eyes and took a deep breath and I stepped out. He reached for me and I jerked back. Josiah held his hands out toward me before dropping them slowly to his sides. “What’s going on, Crimson?”

“Tell me about Charlene, Josiah.”

“What about her?”

“How did you know her?”

“I told you. It’s a small town, we went to school together.”

My lips trembled now; I knew that he knew her better than that. Internally I begged him not to lie to me. “Is that all? Just from school? You guys never hooked up, you never slept with her?”

“Where is this coming from?” he demanded, his nostrils flaring as his anger began to build.

“Just answer the stupid question, Josiah!”

“No, I never slept with her. We got drunk together and smoked some pot together, but that was it. And, that was a long time ago.”

“Liar!” I screamed at him. “I saw you! I saw you with her. How can you stand there and tell me you never had sex with her? I saw the proof!”

Josiah stepped back half a step; the look on his face registered shock and disbelief. “What do you mean you saw
proof
? What kind of proof?”

“I notice you’re not denying it now, Josiah.”

“I told you I wasn’t a virgin. You knew that. I told you I’d had sex before. You said that didn’t bother you.”

“Oh, so now, because you lied to me, this is
my
fault?”

“I’m
not
lying to you,” he growled menacingly.

“You are. You had sex with Charlene and now you’re telling me you didn’t. If that isn’t lying then I don’t know what is!”

“Again, I’m NOT lying.”

“I can’t believe you,” I whispered brokenly. “I trusted you.” I backed away from him and reached for the car door.

“Crimson wait! Please!” He reached for my arm.

I shook him off. “Don’t touch me. Don’t ever touch me again. She showed me the picture of you two together. Having sex. I can’t believe you.”

“Charlene showed you a picture? Of me? Having sex with her?”

“
Yes
, Josiah. You and her having sex. In a car.”

“That wasn’t me. It wasn’t. I
never
had sex with her.”

“I can’t believe you’re still lying to me about this. I came here, hoping you’d be honest with me, but you just won’t. I can understand if you were embarrassed, or ashamed, but I can’t stand liars. I don’t want to see you anymore. I’m leaving. Now.”

Josiah was in a state of shock; I could see that in his eyes — he just stared at me as if he couldn’t comprehend what I’d just said to him. Using his shock to my advantage, I didn’t wait for him to recover, but quickly got into my car and drove off.

He must have thought I meant I was heading back to the house and that he’d have time to figure things out, maybe just let me cool off and calm down some; I’m certain he never considered that I intended to head back to Virginia — I think he’d have put up a harder fight if he’d known.

I called Gracie on the way home and asked her if I could come stay for a while. She said of course, but wanted to know what was wrong. I told her that Josiah had lied to me and it was big. And that I couldn’t see him right now, not ever again.

Billy and Ethan were a little harder to convince, but in the end it didn’t matter. I was eighteen and legally able to make up my own mind. I didn’t tell them what happened — I couldn’t — it was too shameful, too painful. I just told them I needed to get away for a while.

Josiah tried calling me several times that night. He even came to the house, but Billy wouldn’t disturb me. I went online and bought my tickets — I’d be flying out of Boise in the morning at 11:00 and would arrive in Virginia by 7:00 that night. Gracie said we were going to the beach house — since we didn’t get to go last summer, it was the least she could do. “You need sun, sand, and surf. And clam chowder.”

I agreed; that sounded amazing so I called Tina and let her know I was leaving. I apologized and told her I hated to leave her in a lurch, but I had to get away, and I understood if she was mad at me. She said I was a great employee and to keep her posted, that she’d try to hold my job for me, and that things would work out.

Billy and Ethan drove me to the airport. Billy hugged me tight and said to not stay away too long. Ethan held tears back and said I’d better be coming back and this was not permanent — he wouldn’t allow it.

The flight back to Virginia brought back too many memories, pain that had faded in time came roaring back; I locked it all down, held everything tightly inside. I tried not to think too hard about any of it. I just closed my eyes and thought about the ocean. Imagined myself already there. Calmed by the sound of the sea and surf. I managed to hold the tears back until I saw Gracie. Then the floodgates opened. And everything came out. Gracie let me vent as she drove me back to her house from the airport; she just listened in supportive silence. And I appreciated this. I wasn’t ready for constructive reasoning yet — I was still too raw.

Josiah

JOSIAH SAT NUMBLY ON
his couch. Hollow. He felt like he’d been gutted; he didn’t know how he was still breathing. It’s not possible to live when everything you are has been removed and you’re nothing more than a hollowed-out shell.

She was gone.

Crimson was gone. He couldn’t fathom it. Couldn’t wrap his mind around the truth of it. She couldn’t be gone. She’d been here. With him. She’d been his. He needed her. Didn’t she know that?

Billy had told him that Crimson had left, that he’d taken her to the airport. It was the first time Billy had ever raised his voice at Josiah, the first time he’d yelled at him, wanted to know what the heck had happened. Josiah didn’t know. He couldn’t make sense of the last forty-eight hours. Couldn’t understand the things Crimson had said to him.

Josiah’s thought were disjointed, scattered. It was hard to concentrate through the pain. He tried to focus, to understand. Charlene. She’d done something. She must have. That picture; the one Crimson said Charlene had shown her. The one of them supposedly hooking up. His mind was drawing a blank here.
What picture? What had she been talking about?
He’d never hooked up with her. Never. She’d told Crimson something, shown her something; convinced her. Lied and deceived. And now Crimson was gone. He’d lost her.

Ethan came to see him next. He’d wanted to know what had happened. Josiah told him the same things he’d told Billy. Ethan said Crimson was with Gracie in North Carolina and that he’d try and find out, from Gracie and Sage, just what had happened. He told Josiah that he believed him, trusted him, and that he’d help him get things figured out.

Now, instead of the utter darkness Josiah had been facing, he saw just a small glimmer of hope, a slight little ray of sunshine.

Crimson Sage

THE FIRST NIGHT BACK
in Virginia was hard, and nice. I’d missed Gracie’s parents, Matt and Shelli. They made me feel welcome, missed, and at home. But it was the first time I’d been back since my parents died. The next morning Gracie and I drove to a local florist and I bought some roses for Mom and Dad’s grave then she drove me to Shenandoah Memorial Park.

Hard — that was so hard. I cried and cried, wanting to be able to talk to my dad about this thing with Josiah. To get his advice and cry on his shoulder. I wanted to tell my mom about him and what had happened and how much I still loved him. How much it all hurt. How much I wanted him to apologize and explain what I’d seen and somehow make it all better. And then the painful realization that I’d never be able to talk with her or dad again, that they were just gone, reduced to a memory and a flat, granite marker — that brought on more tears.

By the time we made it back to Gracie’s house I was spent. I headed up to her room and crashed, letting the exhaustion take me. Gracie woke me up when it was dinnertime. We planned to drive out to the beach house about mid-morning, just the two of us, so we didn’t stay up too much later. It’s a five-hour drive to Nags Head in North Carolina, but the scenery is beautiful, making the drive enjoyable rather than boring. I hadn’t bothered to unpack my bags; we just loaded up the car the following morning and drove away.

Mr. Keller had come by the beach house by fortunate occurrence. A long time co-worker of his had gone through a difficult divorce and one of the stipulations agreed upon was that all properties be sold and the income from those sales be split evenly. Mr. Keller got the house for a steal. It wasn’t one of the big, luxurious ones you see in the pictures, but it was charming all the same. The Kellers had named it Shell Cottage when Gracie was just a toddler, and they’d been coming for summer visits ever since.

The cottage was painted a pale ocean blue and had white old-fashioned shutters. It was a two-story cottage, if you didn’t count the ground level, which housed the carport, a storage shed, and an outdoor shower for rinsing the sand away before heading inside. The front of the cottage boasted a wide front porch with steps that led right to the sand and surf. The bedrooms were all located on the top floor, and the master bedroom had its own private balcony. The cottage sat at the end of the street and sand dunes ran right up to it.

I’d like to say that the ocean was right off the porch, but one of those fancy, expensive houses had been built just in front of Shell Cottage about ten years ago. The Kellers didn’t mind though; they could still see the ocean, and the beach was the same distance away, the view was just slightly obstructed.

As it was still only April, the temperatures weren’t warm yet, and there were periods of heavy rain. But as we drove into town, we noticed an inordinate number of motorcycles milling around. We discovered when we stopped for groceries that there was a bike show and seafood bake going on. Gracie thought this was exciting, but at the sight of all those leather-clad, tattooed bikers, I couldn’t help but think about Josiah.

We ate at the cottage the first night and lit a fire in the fireplace. It was nice, cozy, and relaxing. We could hear the waves as they crashed on the shore. We made hot chocolate and just sat on the couch and talked. Not about the elephant in the room, no not that. Josiah was not brought up. And I was thankful for that. I knew Gracie would eventually want to talk about what exactly had happened. Most likely she hadn’t been able to glean too much from my emotional breakdown the other night, and I knew she’d want to know more. Instead, we just talked about her life — what she was doing, how her work was going, how her parents were. We talked about Tanner and the wedding plans. We talked about Ethan and Billy and the ranch, but not about my reason for being here.

Traditionally Gracie and I would get up early and walk the beach, looking for shells and waiting on the sunrise. But the following morning a thick fog had rolled in. We still took our walk, though; it just wasn’t what we’d been hoping for. The fog hung thick in the air for two days, pressing against the windows like a peeping tom. We were starting to feel housebound, and I wondered how long she’d hold out before she sat me down for that talk I knew was looming. On the third morning the fog cleared.

“Finally!” Gracie said. “We are going out. Let’s head to Freaky Pete’s before he thinks we’ve died…” Gracie stopped mid-sentence, her face turning red and pained. “Sage, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think. I’ve been trying to be so casual and not say anything. I just didn’t think.”