Waters Edge

Chapter Twenty: Finding You, Slipping Through My Fingers

When I open the door and go inside I look around and realize all the crab tanks have been transferred into aquariums and tables and chairs fill up the once nearly empty market. A bored looking girl at a podium sighs, probably wondering why the hell a guy would come in here thirty minutes before close.

"Hello sir, how many in your party?" She asks with mock politeness.

"I am not here to eat I am here to see Joe." She loses the attitude and curiosity fills her gaze as she looks me up and down.

"Well, I can tell him you're here if you want."

"No just tell me where he is and I can tell him myself." I huff in annoyance and perhaps it is just her small down don't-really-give-a -horses-ass mentality that makes her just point to the back of the store... restaurant to a door that used to have beads hanging over it and nothing but old fishing rods stored inside. I walk over and knock.

"Enter." A male voice yells and I open the door, I peek inside and now sits a desk with a laptop and Joe looks up at me, his hair now short on the sides with only a long curly flop on top. His jaw almost hits the floor when he sees me and he stands up making his way around the desk and pulling me into a bone-crushing hug.

"Pete! Is it really you? How have you been man?" He pulls away and smiles at me "More importantly how are you and Patrick? Here to invite me to your guy's wedding? We thought you died, did Brendon tell you that before he called me. God, I didn't believe him when he-"

"Wait, wait hold on you know Patrick?" I ask holding my breath as Joe crinkles his eyebrows in confusion and pulls away slightly looking at me with an unreadable expression.

"Pete what do you mean, you told me all about him when you were in the hospital. Are you okay? Did something happen when you were gone? Did he do something to you, Pete? I never got to meet him but Brendon told me he saw you with him once, short blondish dude super pale, way back when you had that necklace, the one you sold to Biersack. We both figured that you two ran away together." He pauses and looks at me "Didn't you?"

"No, I don't know who Patrick is. Joe, I have to go ask Brendon what his face looks like. I will be back I swear."

Joe begins to protest but I am already running out of the building and over to Brendon's shop. I just hope for the love of god he is still there, a slim chance due to the fact his dad came into town but as I round the corner and see the lights still on hope blooms in my chest. I burst into Brendon's crappy pirate store and he screams loudly and falls off of his stool.

"You god damn tourists need to treat me with some respect you fuc..." His sentence cuts short when he sees that it is just me. "Pete! Back to see me so soon, I was just about to close up, all those mermaid hunters flooded the place man better tell Patrick to tell his people to look out." He laughs but stops when he sees me panting and confused.

"Brendon, I need you to tell me all you know about Patrick," I say in between heavy breaths.

"Pete I only know what you told me, and I only ever saw him once when we had that deal with Titan-like forever ago."

"But he was real? He was a real person who I knew? Brendon how is that possible I have no memory of him. Did I ever tell you where he lived? Anything Brendon I am desperate here."

"I thought that you two left together?" I shake my head 'no' and he frowns, he stands and walks over locking the door behind me. "Follow me, Pete." He says quietly and I gulp and follow him into the back room, which I had always assumed just had a mini fridge stocked with Capri sun and a couch to nap on but it has a giant cork board attached to the wall with multiple articles pinned to it. I scan my eyes up and down it, and the red string connecting a few of the articles together and only catch fragments of each.

'Pelican island secret?'

'Biesack fails to deliver'

'False Accusations as Tourist ploy"

'Mermaids?'

A sharp pain stabs through my temple and I cry out pressing a hand to my forehead and doubling over in pain.

"No, no please god no," I scream as I try again heaving with all my might to no avail desperately trying to pick up Patrick's unconscious body but I collapse under the added weight. I fall to the ground and drag Patrick into my lap cradling him in my arms. It is then that the tears come, they burn my skin as they fall I cry into Patrick's shoulder his body rapidly cooling under my hands as his heartbeat gets even fainter I can hear the footsteps running towards us. I know this has to be it. I can't pull away from him to see his face. Suddenly the scene shifts and I am standing in the open-air face to face with a dark-haired man pointing a gun to my face. Before I can piece it together I am falling and a shot rings out before searing pain racks my body.

I gasp as I open my eyes again and my leg burns like hell. I scramble to pull up my sweatpants and see a circular scar there. How have I never noticed this before? I trace over it gently with my fingertips trying to remember how it got there and I come up blank. I look up to Brendon who stares at me in shock.

"Pete, what just happened to you?" He holds onto my upper arms and tries to steady me as I hyperventilate.

"Brendon, why does nothing make sense anymore?" I feel tears streak down my face, "What happened to me? I- I- can't remember who Patrick was, I left everyone, everything for three years and I thought I knew why but everything seems like a lie and I feel like my own mind is turning against me. Brendon nothing seems real anymore."

I sob into Brendon's shoulder as he runs a hand over my hair and makes soothing noises. I look back at the wall over his shoulder and the itching feeling is there in the back of my mind and it is growing stronger, and it feels like there is a wall or some sort of box trapped in my mind that I can't break into, I don't know how to open it.

"Pete it's late let me get you home, you can rest and I will tell you everything I remember in the morning. I promise." He takes me out of the side door of the building and holds me close as we walk back to my house. He unlocks the door and tucks me into bed.

"Do you want me to stay?" He asks softly filling a glass with water and putting it on the bedside table.

"No, go see your dad I will be okay." I sniffle and he frowns probably not fully believing me. I don't blame him I don't believe me either.

"Okay Pete here is my new number if you need anything at all I am only ten minutes away. I mean it call me and I will be here. I will come by in the morning okay? I can get Sarah to watch the store and we can have a boy's day just us."

"Thanks Bren." I whisper and he smiles before seeing himself out.

"Goodnight." He says right before he closes the door.