K. Robinson: Twisted Ties

“He didn’t cheat on me?” I whispered.

“He didn’t.”

“He tried to tell me, and I wouldn’t listen. Oh my god, I destroyed everything.” I was glad that I was already sitting down, or I would have fallen to the couch.

“Anyone in your place would have assumed the same thing.”

I put my head on my knees and started sobbing. I’d destroyed everything.

“Hey, don’t cry. This isn’t your fault,” Andy said as he rubbed my back.

“It is my fault. I should have listened to him. I have to find him!”

I tried to stand up, but Andy held me down.

“How do you plan to do that? He’s thousands of miles away, Emma. The chances of you finding him are slim to none.”

“I have to try. I can’t let him think that I hate him. He has to know that I know the truth. Maybe if he does, he’ll come back.”

“Emma, it’s been months. The chances of him coming back are even less than you finding him. You have to let him go.”

“I can’t. Please tell me that you’ll help me.”

He sighed. “We’ll try. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up.”

Over the next month, we’d tried. Neither of us knew the last name of Trish’s boyfriend, but we knew her last name and Jesse’s. We also knew they were in West Virginia. We’d tried everything that we could think of, starting with social networks. I had gone through pages and pages of Facebook profiles, and I’d ended up with nothing. I’d looked onTwitter next and then MySpace. I’d known it was a long shot, and I had been right. Absolutely nothing had come up.

We’d searched the Web for his mom’s name, but we couldn’t find a thing. It was like neither of them existed online. Andy had checked with the post office and his landlord to see if either had left a forwarding address. Of course, they hadn’t. It was like neither of them had ever existed, period. I’d cried when Andy told me that it was time to let it go. I had known he was right, but I hadn’t wanted to accept the fact that Jesse was really gone.

When it had come time to begin submitting applications for universities, I’d started looking at a few in West Virginia. It was obvious that West Virginia University was the biggest. I knew that Trish’s boyfriend had money and that Trish had expected Jesse to go to college. I was grasping at straws, but it was all I had.

My mom had been pressuring me to pick from one of the colleges she wanted me to go to, but I’d refused to give her an answer. I’d hidden my acceptance letter from my mom, not wanting her to find out that I was leaving until the last minute. I’d never even told her about Jesse, and I hadn’t planned to. I’d started to leave her house when I turned eighteen, but then I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’d already felt so alone, and I hadn’t been ready to go home to an empty apartment every day. My mom might not have been home much, but our staff had been. I’d been around most of them my entire life, and they were the closest thing I had to a family.

My dad had known about my relationship with Jesse, and I’d finally broken down and told him what had happened between us right before I graduated. He’d thought I was nuts to leave everything I knew in hopes of finding Jesse, but my dad had tried to understand. He’d helped me get everything ready without my mom knowing a thing.

When I’d finally told my mom where I was going, she’d flipped out on me. She’d screamed that she would cut me off and take my car. I’d calmly handed her my keys, and I’d told her that I was leaving, and she couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

When she’d called my dad, he’d explained that he would take care of me financially, so she’d kicked me out. It hadn’t seemed to bother her that I was her only daughter, and I hadn’t been surprised by her reaction. She had never cared for me like a mom should, so why should she start now?

My dad had arranged for someone to pick me up, and I’d spent the rest of the summer in his apartment in L.A. Andy had become one of my best friends by this point, so he’d spent most of his summer at my house when he wasn’t working.

He’d refused to let me go all the way to West Virginia on my own, so we’d looked at apartments close to campus where he could stay. He’d claimed that he had nothing to stick around for in California, but I wasn’t so sure. He couldn’t afford the plane ticket to go with me, so I’d used that knowledge to blackmail him into letting me pay for his rent for the first few months until he could find a job. He hadn’t been happy about it, but he’d finally agreed. He hadn’t had any other options.

Ally had disappeared the day after she graduated. She hadn’t been around much anyway, but Andy was worried. He would get a text message here and there from her, but that was it. It was enough to let him know she was alive, but it wasn’t enough to make him stop worrying. I knew I was being a cruel bitch, but I didn’t care if she dropped off the face of the earth. She’d destroyed my life, and I hadn’t been able to do a thing about it. I had wanted to go after her when Andy told me what she had done, but he wouldn’t let me. I knew that she would kick my ass in a fight, but I hadn’t cared. As long as I could make her hurt a little bit, I would be happy.

I’d fought with Andy over it, but he’d finally convinced me not to hunt her down. I’d understood where he was coming from, but it hadn’t made me feel any better. She was his sister, but she’d hurt me. I just wanted to make her hurt, too.

“I think that’s our exit,” Andy said, pulling me from my memories.

I glanced up to see that he was right. I was nervous as I followed the signs pointing me to the university campus. The roads were clogged with students moving in for the school year, so it took a while to get through.

After what seemed like years, we finally arrived. This was it. I was finally here. I pulled into a parking lot directly across the road from a large brick building with my dorm name displayed on the front of it. Tons of students and their parents were unloading cars in the parking lot and along the street.

I felt a pang of jealousy as I watched a mom and dad hug their daughter a few cars in front of mine. I wondered what that would feel like—to have a dad around and a mother who actually cared. I tried to ignore my hurt feelings, but they wouldn’t leave. Kids were supposed to have their parents around to take care of them. Instead, I’d snagged a dad who cared from thousands of miles away and a mom who didn’t give a damn about me.

“Come on, let’s get you checked in,” Andy said before stepping out of my car.

My dad had known that my mom had taken away the car she’d bought for me, so he’d had a brand new SUV waiting for me at the Pittsburgh airport. I knew it made me a spoiled brat to accept it, but I didn’t care. I needed a car, and my dad had helped me out. I honestly thought the only reason he was helping me with all of this was because he felt guilty for leaving me alone with my mom for so long.

Andy kept his arm around my shoulders as we walked to the dorm. He’d become protective of me after Jesse left, and I was secretly glad. It was nice to have someone there for me just because he wanted to be. In this world, there were too few genuinely kind people to let one disappear from my life.

A line of students was waiting to be checked in when we walked into the lobby. I tapped my foot impatiently as the line slowly moved. I hated to wait.

When it was finally my turn, I gave the girl behind the counter my name and showed her my I.D. Once everything was checked off, she gave me a map of the campus and my key. I was instructed to go up to the third floor and turn left. She eyed Andy warily as she informed me that this was not a coed dorm, and no men were allowed after nine at night. I rolled my eyes, but I said nothing before we turned and walked away. I noticed several girls eyeing Andy, like they wouldn’t mind having him in their dorm room after hours. He smiled back at a few of them, but he didn’t stop to talk.