Collared(74)

In my desire to protect them, I still hurt them.

It’s inevitable. I’ve accepted that now.

I’ve absorbed a decade of isolation and despair. I am swimming in it, and I can’t just find the right place to squeeze and wring every drop of it away. I might be able to find a way to drain a couple of drops here and there, but it will take time.

It might take as long to be free of it as it took accruing it.

I might never be free of it.

My thoughts have been dark for most of the day, and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to slip up to my room undetected and get a night’s rest before confronting my parents. I’ve barely turned the key over in the back door before I hear their muffled footsteps rushing in my direction.

By the time I’m inside and locking the door, they’re both here. Mom’s face is puffy, and her eyes are red. She starts crying again. The wear from the day doesn’t show on Dad so obviously, but it can be found in the finer details: the way his hair isn’t so perfectly laid, his wrinkled slacks, the creases at the corners of his eyes.

“Thank god.” Mom’s voice shakes. “Thank god you’re safe.”

“I’m okay, Mom. I’m fine.” I lift my hands and step inside like I’m surrendering.

“Where have you been? The library—you weren’t there when I went back.” Her hand braces around the top of a kitchen chair as fresh tears fall down her face. “Why didn’t you answer any of our calls? Did you lose your phone?”

I slide the phone from my pocket. It’s shut off. “I didn’t lose it.”

“Why, Jade?” Mom sniffs. “Why didn’t you answer?”

“Because I didn’t know what to say.”

“I just wanted to know you were safe. That you were okay.”

I lift a shoulder and stay by the door. “I didn’t know what to say.”

“Torrin said you were at the hospital today, that you two had a difficult talk. Is that what this is about?” Dad’s voice seems like a roar compared to Mom’s and mine.

“This is about everything. What happened. What’s happening. Torrin. You guys. The media. Earl Rae Jackson.” My parents recoil when I speak his name. “This is about everything.”

Dad pops off a little huff. I take it as a contradiction to everything I just said, and it fans the anger I wrestled into submission earlier.

“Oh, and you can stop worrying about Torrin and me, Dad, since I know the idea of us being together has always pissed you off. That’s over. All of it. Should make you happy.”

Dad’s forehead creases. “Happy? Do you think any of this makes me happy?”

I spread my arms and shout, “How do you think it makes me feel?” My vision blurs, but I blink it clear. “I lost everything. And even though I’m back now, I’ve still lost everything. I’m a twenty-seven-year-old with a high school junior education. I’m a woman in a girl’s body.” I pinch the billowing sweater hanging off from me. “I’m an adult living in her parents’ house who has to depend on them for practically everything. I love a man I can’t love. I want a life I can’t have.”

Dad reaches for Mom’s hand because she’s crying harder now.

“None of this makes me happy,” I whisper.

“And you think any of this makes us happy? Seeing you like this?” Dad motions at me, his jaw locking up for a moment. “Do you think it’s easy having you home after ten years and knowing you were so close that whole time? Knowing I’m a damn chief of police and couldn’t find my own daughter in the very same state she was abducted in?” Now it’s Mom reaching for Dad because he’s the one who looks close to tears. “I couldn’t find you, Jade. I should have been able to, and I didn’t. I had the resources and the manpower and the experience . . . I should have been able to find you. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I failed you.”

I want to cross the kitchen and throw my arms around him, but I stay where I am. I’m too close to crying, and I don’t want them to have to watch me shed another single tear. I don’t want them to feel any more pain or guilt or regret than I know they already do.

“Dad, please don’t. You didn’t fail me. Please don’t blame yourself.” I have to look away because I can’t watch my parents like this any longer. “The man who took me’s to blame. Not the people left behind who tried to find me.”

Dad moves a little closer, but he lets me have my space. “The person who got taken isn’t to blame either, Jade,” he says in as gentle a voice as he is capable. “You promise to keep that in mind, and I’ll promise to take what you just said to heart.”

I nod after a minute—not because I’m agreeing but because I’m too exhausted to argue.

“We’re trying here, Jade. We know this is hard on you, but it’s not easy for us.” Dad shifts and opens his mouth like there’s more to say, but nothing else comes.

“I know. You guys are doing such a great job, I swear. It’s me. I feel like every morning I’m climbing a mountain, but when I look behind me at the end of the day, I’m still in the same spot. I try to move on, to get better, but I get nowhere.” I’m staring at my hands the way Torrin was earlier—like I don’t recognize them anymore. “I think it’s because I’m still hanging on to my old life. Trying to get back to that. If I have any chance of getting better, I need to create a new life as the person I am now.” My brain is finally working, managing to get the ideas put together and the words out in a cohesive way.