The Heartbroken - S01 E220

Story 2 years ago

The Heartbroken - S01 E220

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 220

My heart dropped to my stomach. “Oh.”

“Sorry,” she said. “No sign of him.”

I swallowed, already feeling childish for letting myself

hope. \

I thought I knew him. I thought I knew the real him.

I thought I could figure this problem out. I knew I

could.

Something across the street shimmered, catching

my eye, and I looked over. I squinted in the

darkness, trying to make out what I should be

looking at.

I almost dropped my phone.

It was a bike.

“Alyssa?” I took a deep breath. “I think I know where

he is.”

—

I think I should have been scared. The picnic ground

looked different at night without all the other people

running around. Even the trees looked creepy, like

they might have come out of some story book

about wicked lands and monster trees.

For some reason, I wasn’t afraid.

It was silent, save for the faint sound of crickets in

the trees. I looked around, trying to recall as much as

I could of that morning when Seth took me out on a

picnic.

Mom almost didn’t let me go when I told her that I

knew where he was. She shook her head firmly,

saying I shouldn’t even be out so late, but there must

have been something in the way I looked at her that

changed her mind, so she let me.

Before I left, she also told me something that took

me by surprise.

“I know you’ll find him,” she said.

I didn’t know how much I needed to hear those

words until she said them. I nodded, climbed into

my car and set forth to see if my new guess was

right.

Now that I was here, though, feeling my way

through the dark and uneven path, I was beginning

to doubt myself. I’d been walking aimlessly for

around a few minutes already but I still haven’t found

any signs of Seth. I tried to recall that tree, in that

area where we set our blanket, but my memory was

hazy and there was only so much I could do without

adequate lighting.

If he wasn’t here, then I didn’t know where else he

would go. He’d told me, that morning on our picnic,

that he and his family used to come here, before

everything changed; before his family started to fall

apart.

If his family really did fall apart completely, wouldn’t

he have gone here?

But what if I was wrong? What if he really wasn’t

here at all? What if I’d only led myself to believe in the

possibility that I figured him out because I was so

desperate to prove that I could?

I turned, feeling a different wave of disgust settle

over me, realizing it had been pointless to go all the

way here.

Then suddenly, something caught my eye. I took a

careful step closer.

My breathing quickened.

“Seth,” I called out.

The figure under the tree tensed, shifting slowly.

When he came into view, I was momentarily

paralyzed from everything I was feeling. Relief. Joy.

Anger.

Love.

It was all there.

I threw my hands around him, hugging him as

tightly as I could. I was afraid he’d disappear if I

loosened my grip on him, so I didn’t. I held onto

him, trying to keep myself from bursting at the

seams, and hoped he would never ever, ever slip

from my embrace.