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They were gone long enough that people had stopped referring to them as “missing,” which implied a temporary state of being, and now simply called them “lost.” You looked for missing children. You mourned lost ones.
One wrong word, and he might bolt like a deer, take flight like an eagle, vanish like a ghost.
He didn’t argue. He seemed relieved to get away from this moment that asked more of him than he had to give.
Then the EMTs arrived and pushed Maggie out of the story.
They didn’t have fairy tales in West Virginia. They were lucky to have a Target.
It wasn’t her story, and neither is this one, but she never forgot the moment when the universe allowed her to brush her fingertips along the spider-lace edges of a true-blue fairy tale.
And his dad had called him “son” in the same way people said “Mr. President,” because the office mattered more than the person holding it.
“Jesus, Rafe, you were anything but a coward. You won’t believe me, so I don’t know why I should bother saying this, but listen to me, Rafe…You were the opposite of a coward. When we were gone, you were…heroic, courageous to a fault, nobler than any prince of this world dead, alive, or still to come. God, if anyone tried calling you a coward, that would be the last word I ever let them speak.”
Emilie was starting to think the only thing sadder than a lost boy was a lost man.
“I have always been in love with you, Rafe.”
He took her face in his hands and kissed her tenderly, as tenderly as he loved her.
I wasn’t lost because I wasn’t here. I was lost because I’m lost without you. All this time, I’ve been lost without you, and you were the only one who could ever find me. And if you die, I will be lost forever.” Brothers. Lovers. Best friends. Partners in crime. Cellmates. Soul mates. There was no bond that bound hearts that did not bind theirs.
“You,” Rafe whispered in his ear, “are my kingdom. Where you are is where I belong. And I did remember that I loved you all this time. I just forgot I remembered. I’ll never forget it again.
