The Forgotten Girl

Without much deliberating, I grab a blanket and pillow from my closet, grab a heavy coat and fill up a bag with snacks. Even if it’s only for a day, I need a break from all this madness and there’s only one place I can go to get just that.

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.”