The Forgotten Girl

Chapter 24

Maddie

I rip the house apart until I find my car keys. She’s hidden them in the freezer of all places, pretty coincidental considering I woke up in a freezer they morning Sydney was found. I get in and drive up to the foothills, stopping near the turnout. I text my mother that I won’t be coming home tonight then turn off my cellphone before she can flip out on me and stop me from bailing out for the night.

I know I’m running away from my problems. Know it’s probably the chicken’s way out of this. But it’s hard to live life when nothing makes sense around you or inside your head. There’s no downtime. No quiet. No peace because even when the detective and my mother aren’t accusing me of being someone else. I am. I know what I am. Fear what I am. Yet at the same time part of me likes it and the like makes me sick, makes me feel wrong inside.

The closest stop near the cabin still leaves me a couple of miles in walking distance. Thankfully, the rain has ceased but it’s still cloudy and the ground is a murky mess. By the time I arrive at Ryland’s, it’s late. The sun is lowering behind the mountains and pastel colors glow from underneath the clouds, making the sky look like a watercolor painting. I’m exhausted. Hungry. Out of breath. My boots and bottoms of my jeans coated in mud. And more mentally drained than I’ve ever been in my entire life. But as soon as I see Ryland standing inside the cabin, watching me from out the window trudging through the field, my panic silences. Air enters my lungs easier. My steps become lighter—life becomes lighter.

I’m free for the moment.

“You’ve been gone for a while. I was beginning to think you’d finally decided not to come up here anymore,” Ryland says, sounding disappointed that I’m here as he opens the door to let me in. He’s wearing old jeans and a stained white shirt, his sandy hair its usual mess, and everything about him screams comfort. Safe. Home.

“I’ve been on lock down,” I divulge as he moves back and lets me enter the cabin, closing the door behind me. I drop the bag and blanket onto the living room floor noting that he has a few leaks in the roof, rain slipping in from a handful of different areas. The fireplace is burning bright, making flashes of memories surface in my mind, but I don’t feel a thing, because I’m here.

Safe.

“My mother pretty much has me trapped in the house,” I admit, turning away from the fire and facing him with my hands on my hips.

“And why’s that?” He tentatively walks up to me with his hands tucked into his pockets.

I shrug, not wanting to get into any of the crazy stuff. “I don’t know yet, but I need to find out.”

We stare at each other briefly, a silent exchange. I swear he can read my thoughts, sees through me and sees that I don’t want to talk about why I’m here, that I just want to be here and not think about my life away from him. He gives me a soft, but depressed smile as I sit down on the floor in front of the fire. He follows my lead without questioning me and then we lay down, side by side, with our arms stretched out. Rain trickles in through the holes in the roof. The smell of rain usually provokes fear, but not this time—not up here. It could downpour and I could drown in it and be completely and utterly okay with it at the moment because Ryland is here with me and somehow I know that with him everything will be okay. At least until I leave the cabin.

“I wish I could stay here forever,” I admit, lying motionless as I close my eyes. “Life would be so much easier if I just stayed up here and lived with you.”

“I think you’d think differently if you did live up here,” he replies.” I think you’d realize how lonely it can get being by yourself all the time.”

“I already feel like that most of the time. Even when I’m around people, it feels like I’m alone. But with you… I feel like I exist. Me… Maddie…”

It takes him a while to respond, so quiet I worry he’s vanished. “I think I’m becoming your crutch whenever things get bad,” he conclusively says. “And I’m not sure if it’s healthy anymore.”

“That’s not such a bad thing,” I say, refusing to open my eyes and see the heartbreaking look on his face that he always wears. “You and me and the cabin. Nothing else. What’s so wrong about that?”

“Because it’s wrong,” he whispers. “You and I and this thing we have is wrong. You shouldn’t be up here with me.”

It hurts me to hear him say it. Silence stretches between us. Thunder booms in the distance. The wind starts to howl and rattle the walls, but I swear I can hear voices in it, telling me he’s right.

“I didn’t mean for that to sound so bad,” Ryland says softly. “Please, tell me what you’re thinking.”

I breathe in the fresh air that smells like rain and fresh grass. “I think I might be in trouble… I think Lily might have done something really bad.”

“Like what?”

I suck in a deep breath and let it out slowly. No fear with him. “Like killed someone… people.” I discretely attempt to reach over to him and touch him, but he’s too far away.

“No, there’s no way you’re a killer,” he says. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”

“How do you know that for sure… Some of the things I think about sometimes… Lily makes me think… see…” I shudder, hugging my arms around myself. “I could very easily be one. Even the cops think so.”

“You need to stop thinking you’re a bad person,” he says in a firmer voice than I’ve ever heard him use. “I’ve told you before that we all have a little bit of crazy in us. You just fixate too much on yours. And the moment you realize that it’s okay to be yourself, is the moment it’ll be easier for you to live.”

“I’m pretty much two people and I found out that my alter ego, my bad side, is named after my… sister,” I tell him as I feel the first couple of raindrops splatter across my face. “A sister that my mother seems to think is bad.”

“What? How did you find that out?”

“I found her birth certificate and my mother told me about her, so I’m not sure if it’s the truth or not. But it definitely would make me crazy. An alter ego named after my dead sister.”

“I’ve already told you we’re all crazy in one way or another,” he reminds me once again. “And we’re all two people in a way... The one we show to everyone else and the one we keep hidden to ourselves. I think your other side just gets out sometimes, because you try to hide it so much and it becomes exhausting for you. You need to just focus on being yourself.”

“But which one is truly me?”

“That’s for you to find out.”

“I don’t know how, though,” I say, thinking about the multiple times I felt conflicted over being good and being bad. Being Maddie and being Lily. “The only time I really feel like myself is when I’m here… that good girl that my mother swears exists, only exists here. But she’s still not even completely good… she’s just… well, she’s just me.”

I’m not even sure if I’m making sense, but it feels so good to say it aloud, feels so good to not be the girl lying all the time, the girl handcuffing people up to protect themselves, the girl who does anything to hide who she really is. Not with Ryland. With him I’m just me, good or bad. I feel like he really understands me on a level no one else can. I wish I could just finally get the courage to touch him. God, I could only imagine how amazing it would be. I should just open my eyes and do it. Lean over and press my lips to his, like I’ve did with River just moments ago, only this time I would just be me and maybe, just maybe it’d finally mean something—I’d finally feel something.

It grows silent again. I can hear my heart beating steadily in my chest. Thunder rumbling. Birds chirping from somewhere. The fire crackling in the fireplace. I wish I could die right now and sink into the earth and never come back. Death would be so peaceful. So renewing.

“Maddie, open your eyes.” His voice is so soft, so breakable.

My eyelids flutter open and I blink against the raindrops, my body magnetized, tingles kissing my skin, my heart dancing. River is leaning over me. One eye blue, one green taking in every inch of me. Wisps of his sandy hair dangle across his forehead and his full lips are only inches away. His arms are next to my head, close, but still not touching me. He doesn’t say a word. Simply leans down like he’s going to rest his forehead against mine, but leaves a sliver of space between our skin. “I want to kiss you, but I’m afraid…” He shuts his eyes, his hand coming up beside my cheek, but again not completely touching me, yet I find myself shivering in anticipation. He lets out this soft groan as if this is the most human contact he’s had in ages and I shiver more, moaning. His body leans over me and I nearly stop breathing from his closeness. All I’d have to do is lift my body up an inch and we would finally physically connect with each other after all these years. That’s all it would take, but I don’t do it, fearing the moment we do, all this peace will shatter, that everything I have with him will be ruined—changed forever.

“I want to kiss you, too,” I say so quietly the sound of the rain sweeps it away. I close my eyes and lie there as the rain seeps down on us and dots my clothes and hair. Any craziness in me stills.

We remain that way until it stops raining outside, until the sun goes completely down, then he takes a deep breath and rolls to his side, lying next to me again. It’s dark, except for the fading fire. Night surrounds us and my insomnia wants to surrender. I try to let it, but even next to Ryland I can’t get my mind to a state where it’s okay to go to sleep. So we end up lying there for the entire night, underneath my blanket, not touching.

If I was smart, I’d let things stay that way forever. I’d never move until time really did standstill. But I can’t do it. When the sun comes up, I know it’s time to go home. Something’s telling me to go back there—to get some answers. To face what I ran from. Plus, there’s also a voice inside my head saying I can’t stay here forever, that I need to let it go—let Ryland go. I think it might be Lily, but it’s so faded that it’s hard to tell for sure.

“I have to go,” I finally say with a sigh as the sun shines down on us through the window. The rain has saturated the wood floor and my clothes. I’m dirty and smelly but I’ve never been so content in my own body.

Ryland doesn’t argue, getting to his feet with me and brushing the dirt from his damp jeans. He walks me to the door without saying a word, but as I’m getting ready to duck out he whispers, “I don’t think you should come here anymore.”

I turn to face him, hitching my thumb under the handle of my bag and hugging my blanket to my chest. “Why not?”

He swipes his fingers through his hair, slicking his hair back out of his eyes. “Because… I…” He lets out a frustrated sigh. “Because I just don’t think it’s healthy for you to come up here anymore—I’m not healthy for you.”

I get that Ryland must have his own problems, otherwise he wouldn’t be living up here, secluded from society, but I still need him. “But I don’t want to stop,” I say, wringing out my wet hair. “I like it up here with you, good for me or not.”

“If you want to keep coming up here, then you can,” he says miserably. “But I just don’t think it’s good.”

I explore his eyes for signs he’s gotten sick of me, but all I see is the comfort and tranquility. “What do you want me to do?”

He gives me a torn look. “You know it’s not about what I want. It’s about what you want.”

“I’ll see you in a few days,” I tell him, stepping out of the cabin and into the dewy grass.

The sadness in his eyes deepens as he watches me walk away. “If that’s what you want.”

“That’s what I want,” I say then hurry away through the grass, feeling my peace slip away with every step I take.