The Search For Dakota Thompson

Chapter 12:

I was stuck. Torn. Between two worlds. Theirs and my own. My world, a seamless-almost perfectly shaped bubble, in which I was always sure of myself, I guess there were times I was a little out of my comfort zone but that was nothing. Nothing compared-Compared to their world. A world that was slowly climbing into my future, etched into my past and overtaking my present.

I was stuck. And with adrenaline pulsing through my veins and feeling of cold metal pressed to my waist, it was everything used to describe my thoughts right now. Blurred. Unclear. Stuck.

For once in a long time, I wasn't thinking, and that scared me. What scared me most though, wasn't how I was going to become more and more involved in this mess, or how my breath was on the line constantly, but the fact that I enjoyed the feeling of my thoughts being, well, irrelevant. Which wasn't the smartest thing, but I was allowed to be a little reckless at times, wasn't I?

Alright, maybe not this reckless but looking at James as he white-knuckled the drive, I saw the 16 year old boy I once loved, and that brought me back to such a corrupted reality. Maybe it was the questions just minutes ago, or the pictures bringing back my past, but I know what I saw.

I saw the golden brown hair and bright green eyes. The boy I loved with all my heart at the age of 15 was sat in front of me, unfazed by this harsh future he led.

But looking at him in real light, I finally realized the extent of how much he had changed, and how much of that I had missed.

I realized I never got to watch the small freckles that once lined his small, boyish cheeks, slowly morph into scars, or his golden brown curls darken and straighten over time. Even his cheeky teenage smirk pull into a tight line, shifting his grin lines into stretch marks.

I never got to see that, to see him mature, like I thought I would. I didn't even notice myself mature all too much, though I know I had, emotionally. Mentally.

8 years almost, it was a long time. We had been through a lot, saw different things, and experienced life differently, due to the opposing ways in which we grew up. It effected us both in diverse ways, that time apart.

We'd both changed, but James more so than I had. I had nothing prominent from my 15 year old self that remained so many years later. Not a thing. Yet James' childhood self was reflected entirely through his bright green eyes. Glistening, even now. A shine that I imagined would never disappear, and it still hadn't.

Seeing him like this, made me question my childhood self; blonde hair, brown eyes, wide careless smile. But I wasn't careless, the exact opposite. I had hated it, but it was who I was. Typically careful.

I'd witnessed it before, the loss of life. Life thrown away by choice, the will of a person that wanted to give up stronger than anything I had ever known, and I never wanted that. I never wanted to feel like that. Like I wanted to give up, restart my entire life, maybe not even restart. Vanish completely, let the shadows swallow me. I never wanted to feel the way my mom did in her last few hours.

I didn't ever want to feel that way, so I never wasted a moment, but I was steady in everything I did. Safe. Careful.

But that was before. This is now. I'd lost that sense of true safety when I lost James, and again when I lost Kody and now, they both linked to this. It had to mean something. Everything meant at least something. Didn't it?

"It's, quiet." I almost whispered, running a finger along my furrowed eyebrows, trying to clear my head. This wasn't something I was going to tackle with a numb mind. Handle this like I had told Westbrooke at HQ before we left, 'I can handle it James. You know I'll be fine.' It wasn't a total lie, but I knew this would be harder than I thought it to be. Everything about this world was. Deceiving your expectations by a mile.