Edge of the Ravine

20

Chapter Twenty

About a mile east of town, a different set of tracks ran over a wide river. Used only three times all day, the bridge was a safe place for many teenagers to just hang out. On days when Amelia knew me to be hanging out with Alec, we used to come here and just sit on the edge. All around us, life went on. But this stretch of track, here, was our one-way ticket out of this place. It was the same stretch that had brought me here to begin with.

The day that Alec left, I retreated to this place. It felt like a vain attempt. As if I was trying to steal some last vestige of him from familiar surroundings. Yet, not have my heart crumbling by the sight of his lifeless room and empty house. No matter how long I sat there, however, it did not help.

Despite trying to think of happy times and his wondrous laugh, I thought only of this morning. Like an aged film playing over and over in my head, I could not escape it. And each lingering moment hurt more than the last.

That memory would stick with me forever. Sitting on the couch with a blanket wrapped around me like I had just survived a flood or some other traumatic event, shaking so violently that everyone thought I would go into shock. Beside me sat Mr. Baldwin with his head cradled in his hands while all around us cops watched us like hawks. And the silence of the house weighing down on my shoulders, reminding me all too easily of the last time I'd been here.

They were displeased with my revelation, that much was certain. All morning, from the time Mr. Baldwin had frantically called 911 about his missing son, they had been operating under the assumption that Alec had been kidnapped. Even a cursory search team had been deployed, the dog immediately taking the officers down the trail Alec and I had worn into the woods. It didn't surprise me when it then led them towards the ravine before the animal lost the scent on the tracks.

The last thing they were expecting was for my outburst. When Mr. Baldwin tried to pull my fists from the sides of my face, I had screeched about the unfairness. About his callousness in leaving me. And when they tried to tell me that he didn't mean to, I screamed at all of them that of course he did. Nothing had happened to him. He had simply up and walked away. Just like he always meant to.

It took them hours to believe me.  Only when I had repeated over a dozen conversations Alec and I had had over the years about his desire to just leave everything behind did they start to appear understanding. Yet, it wasn't until after I'd explained the ring that they truly began to believe.

The white silver band held a small diamond with even two smaller diamonds on either side of it. This was the same band my father had given to my mother the day he asked her to marry him. It was the same one the officers gave me when they released my mother's personal items after her accident. And it was the very same one I'd given to Alec when we had been together for a year.

It was the last little piece of the family I'd lost. I'd given it to him because he was the family I was forging. That was how much I loved him.

Then he left me, too.