I sat at the breakfast table feeling like a soulless corpse. It had been week since the trial and I hadn't gotten a wink of decent sleep. If I wasn't jolting awake from a nightmare, I was waking up freezing. I knew if was a result of Cliff's absence and it turned my stomach. What turned my stomach even more, though, was the fact that Kevin definitely knew something was wrong.

Kevin's mom had insisted I look into fall classes at the university. She said it would do me some good to get out of the house and back to my studies, keep my mind off of things. The semester was going to start in a few weeks, so I would need to get a jump on things. However, as I sat in front of Kevin's laptop, the one he had lent to me until I was able to get ahold of my own, I found that school was the last thing on my mind.

"You doing okay?"

I looked up from the laptop to see Kevin standing in the doorway. He looked worried, so I put on a smile and shrugged. "Just tired," I fibbed. "But I'm fine. Thanks for checking up on me."

That was always what I said. I was fine, I was tired, I just hadn't slept well. I was fine...

It was a lie.

I didn't feel fine in the slightest, and I certainly wasn't happy, not in the way my smile portrayed. In fact, if anyone had been able to read my smile for what it was, and confront me about it, I probably would have broken. I would have admitted everything. I'd probably be feel more relief getting it all out, then the relief I should have felt at being home; and that was just the problem, I finally realized. I wasn't actually relieved to be home.

*******

I sighed, flopping face first onto my bed after a long day of shopping for new clothes. Kevin's mother had been very generous in providing me with some spending money for clothes when Kevin and I had said we wanted to go to the mall for a bit. As a result, we had spent our entire Saturday afternoon and some of the evening walking about the shops.

Kevin chuckled at my display of weariness. "That tired, huh?"

I made a small noise into the bed as my reply and he laughed. Rolling over, I stared up at the ceiling. I had been thinking all day about something important, but I wasn't sure if I would go through with it. I wanted Kevin's advice. He seemed in a good enough mood after our adventures, so I decided this would be as good a time as any to bring it up.

"Can I ask you something?" I started, twisting my head at an odd angle to see Kevin's face properly.

"Sure," he said, plopping down beside me. "What's on your mind?"

"It kinda depends on if you'll say yes or not," I admitted, sitting up. "If you say no then... I guess I won't do it."

He raised an eyebrow, intrigued by my evasive line of inquiry. "I can't say yes or no if I don't know what the question is," he said.

He had a point and a very good one, so without further ado, I blurted it all out in a rush. "I want to go back to Cliff's house," I said. I waited for the sentence to sink in before I went on. "I think I missed something. I don't know how to describe it, but it's bothering me."

Kevin's expression was grave and I began to wish I hadn't brought it up. He shifted in his seat. "Is it really something at his house, or is it about Cliff?" he asked. "That man did a lot to you. It's understandable that you'd be feeling confused, but you can't let it get to you."

"It's not that," I insisted. "It's something else. I'm sure of it, I just can't seem to figure out what."

There was still apprehension on Kevin's face when he spoke, but he appeared willing to listen. "I don't understand, But if you need this, I won't stop you," he said. "You're not going alone, though. I'm coming too."

To be honest, I didn't want to go alone. I was grateful for his concern. "Thanks," I said.

He advised we keep it a secret from his parents, so we decided to sneak out when it was dark and after his parents had gone to bed. I grabbed a bike light so we would be able to see where we were going, and we slipped out the kitchen window into the dead of night.

Kevin had suggested we take a taxi, but I warned against it. What would it look like if two young people ordered a taxi out of town at midnight, not to mention at least one of us looked under age. No, after some deliberation, we opted for bikes instead. It would take us longer, but it would definitely be safer.

"Is this it?" Kevin asked as we approached the long drive that lead into the woods towards Cliff's cottage. I gave a silent nod and we pressed on. Finally, we came to the house. "I didn't expaect it to look so... normal," Kevin admitted quietly.

When the familiar building was in sight, we stopped our bikes in front of the porch. I noticed Kevin watching me, and his eyes were worried. "I'm okay," I said without giving him the chance to ask. "I'm not going to have a breakdown or anything."

"I know," he said, pretending like he hadn't been staring. "I just didn't know how bad things were here. You never talk about it."

I looked up at the house. "They weren't bad," I said. "It was actually nice living here after a while..."

"Nice?"

I looked at Kevin, realizing what I had said probably sounded weird, and flushed. "I mean, not nice, but he never did anything too bad to me," I said. 

"But what about the..." Kevin trailed off and looked at his toes before he spoke, "the scars?"

My expression soured. "Cliff didn't do that to me," I said sharper than I meant. "He never did anything like that."

Kevin paused. "But I thought-... Didn't you tell the court that he did that to you?" he asked, pointing at one of the scars poking out from under the collar of my shirt.

I tugged my collar higher on my neck, turning away. "It's a long story," I said. Then I headed for the front door before he could ask anymore questions.

Tearing down the yellow tape that blocked our way, I grabbed the knob and turned it. Nothing. The door was locked. I almost slapped myself. How did I think I was going to get in? I didn't have a key and I should have known the police wouldn't have just left it unlocked.

Kevin peered over my shoulder. "What's the hold up?" he asked.

"It's locked," I said.

Kevin looked around for a moment before he went over to a window that lead into the living room. "Do you still have that pocket knife?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said, pulling out the gift I had received from Cliff on one of our last days spent together. "But it's not sharp. You won't be able to cut anything."

"I don't need to cut anything. These windows are pretty old. If I can catch the latch with the blade, I might be able to unlock it," he said. I watched him fiddle with the lock for a few minutes until we both heard a click. He smiled triumphantly and pushed the window up.

Ignoring the fact the we were about to spy-craft our way into the house, we climbed in through the window and looked around the living room. I flipped the light on and we blinked at the sudden protrusion of light. My book still sat on the coffee table, a small layer of dust coating it. Nothing had changed in the time that I'd been gone. Everything was exactly as it had been since that night.

Trying to not become sentimental, I walked across the living room and pushed open the door to the bedroom. I almost wished I would see Cliff leaning over his desk, working on hospital papers late into the night or just sitting up because he couldn't sleep. But he wasn't at his desk and my heart sank to see it empty.

Turning my attention elsewhere, I walked over to the bed and touched one of the pillows affectionately. "It's almost feels like I never left..." I said quietly.

Kevin came and put a hand on my shoulder. "We should hurry. We need to get home before my parents wake up," he warned.

He was right, so I nodded and we started looking around. I didn't exactly know what we were looking for, but there had to be something that would give me a clue to what was happening in my head. I hoped I just needed closure, but the more we looked the more frustrated I became. We looked in the bedroom, the kitchen, the closets, and even in the hidden basement. There was nothing here, nothing satisfying, at least, and I started to think my closure might not be here either.

After an hour we were both on the edge of giving up. "I don't know what to say," I said. "I don't know where else to look."

Kevin frowned. "Did he have a certain place he kept things?" he asked. "You lived with him for months, you must have seen his habits."

While Kevin spoke, my eyes landed on Cliff's desk. We had looked all through it and had found nothing except work papers and trinkets. But I remembered the letter Cliff had been writing the day he was arrested. I had completely forgotten about it until that point, but I remembered then that he had hidden it in his desk.

I walked over and shuffled through the papers with hope, but after finding nothing  more than what we had found before, I plopped down in the desk chair. "There's nothing here," I said, defeated. I kicked the drawer closed in anger. "Nothing!"

As the drawer closed with a slam, there was a crinkle. Kevin and I both stopped our grumbling and looked at each other. The I pulled the drawer all the way out and peered into the space behind it. There was a crumpled sheet of white paper laying at the bottom of the drawer space. It must have been pushed out through the back when we opened it earlier.

I pulled the letter out and began smoothing it out. "This is that letter," I said more to myself than Kevin.

My friend frowned. "What letter?" he asked.

"The day the FBI came I saw Cliff writing a letter. He freaked out when I asked what it was and told me to forget about it," I said.

I started reading the words on the wrinkled page and soon my eyes widened. I stood up to walk a few feet away.

'Zane,

I'm so sorry for all you've gone through, and if I was braver, I would admit that I wish I had never done what I did to you and your family. But I don't think either of us would believe me. I have done terrible things, and I deserve no forgiveness or redemption, least of all from you. But I cannot deny that something has changed, and I have never wanted too apologize to anyone more than I want to apologize to you. Your family was supposed to be like any other, but then I saw you and I couldn't think, I couldn't react. I couldn't go through with it. So, I took you away. At first, it was just a fascination, but as time passed, I saw your strength and your passion for life. You never gave up, even when you failed time and again. You are the strongest person I have ever had the pleasure to know, and you have changed me in ways I am still trying to understand. I don't think I'll ever be the same.

Please know that everything I have said is true. Don't doubt a word of it, and don't doubt me when I tell you this: I love you with all my heart, and someday, I hope to have the strength to let you go.

Cliff'

I was shaking. I let the letter slip from my hands and it fluttered to the ground at my feet. Kevin picked it up, but I didn't wait for him to read it. As I hurried from the room, he stuffed the letter in his pocket and raced after me. "Zane, wait," he called as I left the house. "Where are you going?"

I picked up my bike and swung a leg over. "I'm going to find him," I said.

*******

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