“I did, too.” She smiled at me, and there was a moment of silence where we were both just sitting there, looking at each other. I had the worst urge to reach over and touch the side of her face, draw her toward me, feel those lips against mine. I shook my head, trying to clear those thoughts.
“So, what was it that you thought of?”
“I don’t know if this is going to mean anything. It might be nothing. But I have a cousin, Brandon. He and I were close when I was growing up; he was the one person I felt could really understand me. He was Joshua’s son, and he didn’t want anything to do with his cult, either.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, not sure where she was going with this. “Do you think he might know something about why Joshua had Ashleigh’s journal? Should I talk to him?”
She shook her head. “You can’t, because he disappeared, a long time ago. It’s been years; I don’t even know exactly—almost fifteen years? I just didn’t put two and two together until tonight, but don’t you think it seems possible that maybe he and your sister went somewhere together? If they’re both missing?”
“I think, at this point, anything’s possible.”
But that possibility left me feeling like ice was running through my veins. Because if Ashleigh had chosen to run away, that meant she’d left on her own; that meant she must’ve planned it out, and would have had the time to leave a note or something—something so the rest of us would know that she was okay.
“Do you have her journal nearby?” Gwen asked. “I wanted to take a quick peek at it.”
“Sure,” I said. I went into my bedroom and grabbed the journal off the top of the dresser, then went and sat back down on the couch. Gwen shifted so she could look at the pages, her leg touching mine. I tried to ignore this.
“I’m wondering,” she said, letting her finger slide over the blocks of text, “if this redacted name here is Brandon. I mean, it’s obviously the name of someone, and that would make sense, kind of, why Joshua would black it out.”
“Why would he black out his own son’s name?”
“He was so mad when Brandon left. He was grooming Brandon to be the second in line. Even had a marriage arranged for him—this girl who was the daughter of one of his followers. I think that was what finally did it for Brandon, when Joshua told him that he was going to marry the girl. I can’t even remember her name now. But then Brandon left and Joshua refused to even mention his name. So it makes perfect sense that he would do something like that. The only thing I don’t know is how he got the journal in the first place.”
I blinked down at the pages of my sister’s handwriting. While what Gwen was saying did make sense, it also didn’t, because Ashleigh had never mentioned anyone named Brandon before. If she was going to run off with someone, I had to assume that it would be someone she knew well, and if she knew someone that well, I couldn’t believe that she wouldn’t have at least mentioned him to me once or twice.
“I never heard Ashleigh talk about anyone named Brandon, though,” I said.
“Do you think your sister told you everything?”
“Probably not everything, but... I think she would’ve told me if she was going to run off. Just as a courtesy, you know. I’ve never in all these years thought that she left on her own, because she would’ve let me know.”
“Brandon left a note.” Gwen nodded, a distant look in her eyes. “It was so long ago, but I remember now. Grace had it; she’d found it on the kitchen table. I don’t even remember exactly what it said, but it was something along the lines of, I’ve decided this is for the best. I am safe and want to enjoy my life. I hope you all do the same. Something like that. Something that told us he had left of his own accord, hadn’t been kidnapped or anything.”
It was tempting to believe all of this. How long had I been hoping for answers? For something other than the nothing that I’d been coming up with all these years later? But now that there appeared to be some solid evidence, I couldn’t quite bring myself to accept it. I’d had a narrative that I’d told myself: Ashleigh had been kidnapped, or the victim of foul play. Her boyfriend, Ryan, had killed himself once it became clear she wasn’t coming back.
But now, everything that Gwen was telling me was throwing all that into question.
“Hold on,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose between my thumb and my forefinger. “Just hold on a second.”
This was too much, it was all too much. I tried to take a deep breath but it felt like my chest had seized up; I couldn’t get anything in or out. I waited for the feeling to pass, but it didn’t, and then I started to freak out a little bit because I really couldn’t breathe. I turned to Gwen, wanting to say something but when I opened my mouth, nothing came out and it felt like my heart was beating a thousand miles per hour in my chest.
“I can’t... I can’t breathe,” I finally managed to gasp out, and then I was able to take in a breath, a shallow one that didn’t feel like it did anything. In fact, it made me feel even worse.
“Put your head down,” Gwen said, her hand going to my upper back. She applied pressure and I leaned forward. “Keep going. Put your head between your knees. Yes, like that. Now breathe evenly. In. Out. In. Out.”
Shifting forward like that so my head was between my knees seemed to help, but what helped even more was the fact that her voice was so soothing, an unexpected lifeline extended in tumultuous waters. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but eventually I was able to sit up and take in a full deep breath and not feel like my lungs were about to explode.
“Holy shit,” I said. “What the hell was that?”
“That was a panic attack.”
A panic attack? “It was? I’ve never had one of those before.”
“I haven’t had one in a long time, but I remember them well enough. Not fun. The best thing you can do is try to get yourself to relax and know that just because you feel like you can’t breathe, you’re not really going to suffocate.”
“Jesus Christ.” I got up on what felt like shaky legs. How ridiculously embarrassing. “I’m sorry,” I said. “That was... that was weird.”
“You don’t need to apologize.”
“I guess this is just bringing up a lot of old stuff. Stuff that I haven’t really thought about. Like actually finding out what happened to Ashleigh.”
“It is a lot to take in. And maybe you don’t need to do it all at once.”
I went to the kitchen and got a drink of water. This whole thing felt beyond surreal, but I needed to face it. I needed to find out what had happened here, even if all I had to go on was a journal. I stood on the cool kitchen tiles and tried to absorb everything that was happening, tried to put a positive spin on it. This was the most concrete clue I’d gotten in regard to Ashleigh, and I wasn’t going to squander it. How many hours, days, weeks, months had I spent wondering what had happened? Torturing myself over all the unknowns? Telling myself that I just needed some closure, even if it was to find out that she was dead? But it would seem, now, that she wasn’t dead at all, that she hadn’t been taken anywhere against her will. It was that part of it that was really getting to me, and it was because, I realized as I stood there, I felt betrayed. I had always thought I was the sort of big brother who could be depended on to look out for his little sister, and that this little sister would feel comfortable confiding in me if something so serious was happening that she felt she needed to run away. But obviously that wasn’t the case. If Gwen’s theory was right, then that meant Ashleigh had a whole life that I didn’t know about.
And now I was having panic attacks over it. I drank some more water. Part of me didn’t want to go back out there and face Gwen, not after that just happened. But she had been understanding about it, and really, she had been the perfect person to have around. Someone else might’ve freaked out and just made it all the worse. Or would have called 911 or some shit and I’d have the paramedics knocking on my door, wanting to be let in. No, thank you. I set the glass on the counter and went b
ack out to the living room. She looked up from a stack of old photographs.
“You feel okay?”
“Yeah. That was weird, but I feel pretty normal now. Nothing like that has ever happened before. So, uh... sorry.” It was hard not to feel somewhat humiliated, regardless of how gracious Gwen was being about the whole thing.
“You really don’t need to apologize,” she said. “I know that it probably seems a little mortifying, but I mean it—don’t feel bad. You’ve got a lot going on right now, a lot of new information that your brain is just doing its best to process.” She patted me on the back and smiled. “Listen. It’s really late. Probably the best thing for you to do now is get some sleep. I’m going to head out. It’s been... an eventful evening.”
I didn’t want her to go. I really didn’t. But I had never asked someone to stay over before, especially not if they had just informed me that they were leaving. And it wasn’t even that I wanted her to stay over to hook up—I just didn’t want to be alone.
But I said nothing as she got up and grabbed her purse. I walked her downstairs. “Wait a second,” I said. “How are you getting home?”
“Same way I got over here—Muni.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“Sure, you can.”
“No, I can’t. What time is it, anyway? They’re barely running any buses right now; you’d probably be waiting around for hours. Let me get my keys and I’ll give you a ride home.”
I ran back upstairs, glad for something to do. There was no way in hell I would be able to fall asleep anytime soon, and sometimes driving really was the perfect activity. Especially if it was late and the roads wouldn’t be very busy.
She was sitting on the steps when I came down.
“Follow me,” I said.
“Where’s your car?”
“Around the block.”
There was a parking garage a block up where I kept both my vehicles: a Toyota 4Runner I used when I went out to Tahoe or up to Oregon, and then a Volvo S90 I got last year. While I could have gotten something like a BMW or an Audi, I actually preferred Volvos and also didn’t want to be associated with or mistaken for all the dipshits around here who did drive those cars.
“I just have to tell you,” I said, once we were in the car and driving toward her apartment, “that I’m glad you came back over. I didn’t like ending things like that. ’Cause the thing is, I had a really good time up until that point. More than I’d been expecting, to be honest.”
“I did too,” she said. “So that just makes it all the more embarrassing that I acted that way. Just to be upfront, I’m not looking for a relationship or anything like that, so...” She smiled, her voice trailing off. “I don’t know why I said that last part. But it’s true. I’m not against going out and having some fun every now and then, but I’m not trying to get into some sort of relationship with anyone.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” I said, even though I couldn’t help but feel a little rebuffed. Not that I had been trying to get into a relationship with her or anything, but... She was the first person I could remember in a long time whom I had been interested in seeing again. “Because I’m certainly not looking for a relationship either.”
“It sounds like we make a great match then.”
Was I mistaken, or was there a flirtatious tone there? I mean, there was, wasn’t there? I wasn’t just imagining it?
We were both quiet, but the ensuing silence wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable; it just felt like exactly what was supposed to be happening right then. That was also interesting. Most of the women I’d gone out with couldn’t stand to let silences go on for more than a few seconds at most. There would always be some nervous laughter, or a cough, or a blurting out of some totally random question. Some of the women were skilled conversationalists and could keep the talk going from the second we sat down at the table. It was rare when there was silence, and even rarer still that this silence didn’t feel unnatural.
“It’s right here,” Gwen said suddenly, pointing. She tapped against the window. “That building right there.”
I pulled over and threw the car in park. “Well, thank you again. For telling me what you remembered and also helping with me that panic attack. Hopefully that will never happen again.”
“I hope not. But if it does, just remember that it’s not going to last forever and that you’ve just got to breathe.”
We smiled and it seemed if there ever was a moment to lean over and kiss someone, now would be it. It was still technically our first date and all—right?
But I couldn’t tell if she wanted that. She wasn’t making any move to get out of the car and her smile seemed genuine, but I just didn’t know how kindly she would take to it if I leaned over and kissed her.
So I didn’t. And then she reached over and pulled the door handle and she was out of the car, the door shut, waving as she trotted up the steps to her apartment. And I waved back and then she was inside, the door shut, and that was it.
I drove back home and tried to fall asleep, even though there was so much stuff going on in my brain, so many thoughts, first and foremost of them being Gwen.
***
The next day, I went to work and tried to pretend that everything was normal. But how was I really supposed to do that? How was I supposed to just carry on like it was any other day? I had so many fucking thoughts buzzing around my brain that it felt like my head was going to explode.
One thing I didn’t want, though, was another panic attack. So I tried to remember to breathe, and I tried not to let my thoughts get too out of control over the possibility that Ashleigh had left on her own.
When Jason got in, I asked him to come with me into my office. He had the coffee tray from Superior, and he extracted his coffee out before handing me mine.
“Thanks,” I said as he followed me down the hallway. We got into my office. “Why don’t you shut the door,” I said.
He did so, and then, instead of sitting on the chair in front of my desk, we went over and sat on the couch. It might be easier for us to talk this way. I took another sip of my coffee and then set it down on the coffee table. Jason held on to his cup, even though it must’ve been scalding because he hadn’t put one of those insulating sleeves on it.
“Why do I feel like this is not going to be good news?” he said. “I’ve had this bad feeling ever since that girl gave you that journal.”
“It’s not bad necessarily,” I said. “But it’s something that I think you should know. There’s... there’s a couple of things in that journal that I didn’t tell you about.”
“Like what?” he asked. He had a weary—or maybe wary?—look on his face, and I did feel bad for bringing this up. Jason had closure, after all—Ryan had committed suicide. It was not the sort of closure a person would really want, but it was still closure. And now here I was, and I was going to disturb that.
“There’s not really any way to say this, other than to just say it,” I said. “There’s nothing I can really preface it with.”
“You’re prefacing it now.”
He had a point. “Okay. Well. I read Ashleigh’s journal. It would seem that she and Ryan were not actually going out, like we all thought.”
Jason snorted. “Yeah, right. What were they doing, then? Just pretending? They were together all the time.”
“I think that Ryan was gay.”
Jason stared at me. “What? Ryan? Why?”
“Based on what I read in the journal. I’ll show you, if you want. He and Ashleigh were together a lot, it’s true. But it seems more and more like Ashleigh was seeing this guy, Brandon. Who is the cousin of Gwen, whose uncle had the journal.”
“Whoa,” Jason said, holding up his hands. He looked like he was getting a massive headache. “That was a whole lot of information you just threw my way. A whole lot of names that I don’t know. I feel like I need to have a chart or something just to keep it all straight.”
“Why don’t you sit down?�
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If he felt this way already, he was going to have a really hard time dealing with the rest of it. Then again, even I didn’t know what “the rest of it” really entailed. I had this little nugget of information, this clue that had eluded me all these years, yet so much time had gone by now that I wondered if anything could be done.
Jason sat down, rubbing his hand over his eyes. “This is about the last thing I expected you to say when you called me in here.”
“I know. And I’m sorry. It’s not the topic that I want to be talking about right now, either, but you’re really the only one who will understand.”
He inhaled deeply. “So you’re saying Ryan was gay.”
I opened the journal to one of the entries where Ashleigh was talking about Ryan and Zeke. “It sounds like it.”
I watched Jason’s face as he read the text, his frown deepening as each second passed. He pushed the journal back across the desk.
“Okay, so my brother was gay. Yes, that’s how it sounds, at least in that journal entry. And that is kind of a trip, just because, like you, I was under the impression that he and Ashleigh were a couple.”
“Right,” I said. “And why were we under that impression?”
Jason gave me a blank look. “Because they told us?”
“Exactly. But why would they tell us that if it wasn’t true? It’s not like we’re a bunch of homophobes who would’ve tried to chase him out of town or something. That’s the part that really gets me—the fact that they told people this. Why?”
“I have no clue.”
Jason, I realized, was not going to be much help. Which was fine; this had all happened so long ago, and brought with it so many painful memories, that it was understandable he wouldn’t want to further explore anything about the situation. Plus, he had his answers: Ryan was dead. He had closure, despite how awful that closure might be. All I was doing was dredging bad memories back up.
“I’ve never heard of Brandon, or Zeke, or probably anyone else mentioned in there.” Jason shook his head. “What are you going to do?”
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