Creed

Chapter Twenty-Four Come Back to Me

A hot summer night in Kentucky, sixteen years earlier, Sylvie is eighteen…

I sat on the pier in the moonlight, staring at the water.

I couldn’t find Creed.

I’d spent hours at the pier the day before, waiting, waiting forever. The Snickers were ruined. My skin was burned.

Creed didn’t show.

I went to his house. He wasn’t there. His truck wasn’t there.

I went back to the lake, waited and waited and nothing.

I was worried.

Creed would never leave me.

Never, never, ever.

Something was wrong.

I called him but he didn’t answer. I called him again and he didn’t answer. And again. And again.

When it got late and he didn’t show, I went back to his house. I broke in the window and lay in his bed, waiting. I hoped he’d come home but I also couldn’t go to my house.

I told Daddy I was leaving. I told him I wasn’t coming back. He was really angry then he got all calm and tried to talk to me. I told him I wasn’t going to change my mind and he let me go. He even said I could keep my car.

It was kind of strange how easily he let me go. I mean, it wasn’t pleasant but it wasn’t as hard as I imagined it would be.

So when he let me go, I went but I told him I wasn’t coming back and I couldn’t. I couldn’t go back. I had a life to begin with Creed and I had a life I hated that had to end.

But Creed didn’t show.

The next day I went back to the pier and waited again.

I didn’t know what to do.

No one knew about us and Creed wanted to keep it that way just in case Daddy sent someone out looking for us, so I couldn’t ask his friends. I told Daddy I was leaving but, as Creed told me to do, I didn’t tell him I was leaving with Creed.

Creed had worked out his notice the week before to get ready to leave but he would also be angry if I went by to the factory, so I couldn’t go there either.

So I got in my car and drove around, drove everywhere, went into the stores and diners and swung by gas stations to check and see if he was around, even if his truck wasn’t outside.

He wasn’t in the stores or diners.

He wasn’t anywhere.

Worried, scared, feeling truly alone for the first time since I was six, I did the only thing I could do.

When it got late, I went to the bar. I stood outside until someone showed and asked if they’d go in, find Winona Creed and send her out to talk to me. I found someone, they went in and she teetered out and proved what I knew. She paid absolutely no attention at all to her son and she cared about him even less.

When I asked her if she knew where he was, she threw out an unsteady hand which made her list to the side before she righted herself and she stated, “He lef’. Goin’ somewheres. Doan know wheres. Just know he sold the house an’ he gone.” Then she squinted her eyes to focus on me and she asked, “Whas’ a Bissenette doin’ askin’ after a Creed?”

I didn’t answer that. I asked, “He left?”

She nodded unsteadily. “He gone.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Sure I’m sure, gurl. He’s my boy, ain’t he?”

No, he was my boy.

And he wouldn’t leave without me.

Would he?

Would he take my virginity then take off without me?

No.

No.

No way.

Creed wasn’t like that. Creed wasn’t like other guys.

Not Creed.

Not my Creed.

“Thanks, Mrs. Creed,” I mumbled, moving away.

“Whatever,” she mumbled back and lurched into the bar.

I went to his house, I drove around town and then I went to the pier.

No Creed.

I sat on the end, my feet in the water and my head spinning. I didn’t know what to do. How could he disappear? No one just disappeared. Should I talk to the police? Should I risk Creed getting mad at me and talk to his friends?

Oh God, I didn’t know what to do. Not only didn’t I know what to do to find Creed, I didn’t know what to do without him.

There didn’t seem a time when he wasn’t there.

I didn’t want there to be a time when he wasn’t there.

And I was terrified. Two days, no Creed. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. I felt it in my bones. He’d never leave me. Never disappear. Never make me wait to start our new lives.

Never.

Something was very, very wrong and that something had to do with taking Creed away from me.

I stared at the lake, our lake, the place we met, laughed, swam, ate, necked and made love.

“Come back to me,” I whispered.

I closed my eyes tight, using everything I had, praying hard, hoping, when I opened my eyes, I’d feel Creed moving toward me.

I opened my eyes and saw lake.

I twisted around and saw the dark grass, wood and pasture, all empty.

I twisted to the other side.

More empty.

No Creed.

I twisted back to the lake, my lips trembling, my nostrils quivering.

“Come back to me,” I begged, the tear slipping over my eye and gliding down my cheek.

I fell asleep on that pier.

Creed never came back to me.

*****

Three days later…

I paced the room.

How did this happen?

How was this happening?

And where was Creed?

He had to be out there. Maybe he’d heard something was wrong. Maybe he knew Daddy knew about us. Maybe he was working to save me.

He had to save me.

There was noise outside. My heart jumped and my gaze swung to the locked door of the room I’d been held in since Daddy found me.

The door opened and my father and a man walked in.

Daddy led the man to me. He couldn’t meet my eyes.

The man was looking at me.

I stared into his eyes and I did not like what I saw. Not at all.

Not at all.

My stomach clenched so hard, I thought I would throw up and I backed up, up, up, up until my body was in the corner.

“Sylvie, I’d like you to meet Richard Scott,” Daddy said to my shoulder.

Richard Scott smiled at me and I did not like that smile. Not at all.

Not at all.

He came toward me. Daddy looked to the floor and I pressed myself into the corner.

Oh God.

Oh God!

Where was Creed?