Golden Bonds

When Scars Reopen

So many questions. Hopefully this will answer a few for everyone.

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Love
NJ Kuhr
xoxo

I googled myself on the drive while I was using Bash's laptop and replayed the news footage until his battery died. They'd searched for me for months. The search was still open, an ongoing investigation though speculation was that they were now looking for a body. It had reached national news. There were questions of drug use given my history; abandoned at a church only a few hours old and raised as a foster child, statistically speaking drugs were suggested but my coaches denied it. They'd known me since I was a child. My records in competitions and drug screenings had squished those rumors easily enough.

Without evidence the news and the investigation turned towards other more pressing matters. There was nothing else on the investigation. Videos of me practicing at the gym after everyone had left and me walking out the door alone played over and over in each news segment. They were the last images of me before I disappeared off the face of the earth. There was another popular clip of me when I was ten at a jr. competition standing to the side of a high school gym talking to the camera about my first out of town trip. I was jerking around the way children do when they dance with an over abundance of energy.

I replayed the surveillance footage at least a hundred times. What if I had done something different? What if I had left with Sarah to go out with the girls instead of staying? I wouldn't have been walking down that road so late on my own. I'd gone over this in my head so many times lying in that kennel. I'd fantasized about having a girl's night out. I could have been singing along to loud music instead of screaming as werewolves tore my body apart. Imagining my life if I hadn't walked to the bus stop that night was my way of escaping reality and passing the time before Bash came.

The news focused on Jason for a while. The video showed him waving goodnight to me before leaving. He was the last person to see me alive. That would torture him, he'd replay it over and over again too, guilt eating at him. The cops had arrested him but he had an alibi. Witnesses and photos from his night out with his girlfriend and classmates proved he was downtown when I left the gym. He would have given me a ride home. He hated that I took the bus.

'The streets are dangerous this time of night; let me give you a ride.' He would say. I should have listened. I knew he would punish himself, wishing he had tried harder to convince me to leave early. So many scenarios had crossed my mind as I lied inside my prison. Things I could have done instead of walking into that alley. Garrett would have found a way to take me no matter how I changed the circumstances.

An interview with the gym owner, Marsha, had over a million hits, her and her husband were the closest thing I had to parents. She was adamant I wouldn't have ran away. She was a strong woman and looked polished but demanding. 'Parker is the most driven well rounded athlete we've ever trained. One of the top gymnasts in the world and one of the main contenders for a position on the US women's team. I know Parker as if she were my own child. She would never run away or disappear of her own will this close to accomplishing what she has worked towards since she was eight. She's a bright and loving young woman, she wouldn't do this.'

Only those who knew her well would see that her eyes were red and swollen. The tightness in her lips keeping her tone even hid the sadness. It had made me cry silent tears in the back seat. I missed her so much. She grieved and I couldn't do anything to let her know I was alright now.

Bash heard what I was watching. He didn't say anything but I could feel consoling warmth push against the connection between us. His elbow edged back on the center console as if he wanted to reach into the back seat to hold my hand or give my knee a reassuring squeeze.