Take Care, Sara

her clothes even before she was to the darkened truck. The air was crisp with the scent of it. Where was he? Sara swiped a hand across her face and blinked her eyes through the sky’s shower. She peered into the truck. It was empty. Panic grabbed her chest and clenched. Sara whirled around, searching the surroundings for Lincoln, shivering.
    The house glowed with lights, music and conversation floating out to her. Scraggly trees loomed in the yard, cloaking the scene with a layer of foreboding. It was silly to be worried about him, really. Obviously he hadn’t driven off in a rage. Lincoln would never abandon her. You thought the same about him. Sara flinched, refusing to dwell on that too much. He hadn’t meant to leave her; he’d had no choice. That’s what she told herself.
    Sara turned in a slow circle, wondering where he could have gone to. Then she saw him. He stood on the other side of the truck, near the tailgate, facing away from her. Lincoln was hunched over, his back rigid. She slowly walked to him, her boots sinking into the soft ground, each step filling her with something. Relief. And something more, something Sara couldn’t put a name to, not yet. Her hand trembled as it reached up, just barely grazing his hard shoulder.
    Lincoln whirled around, his face cast in shadow, but not enough to hide the way his eyes zeroed in on her face and locked there, as if she had the power to ground him, as if she could heal what wounded him. His eyes were tortured and Sara’s heart hurt seeing that look in them. He hid it better than she, but he was hurting just as much as she was.
    A tick in his jaw pulled her gaze to it. Sara focused on that, her breaths short and hurried. They were changing; she and Lincoln. She felt it, and it scared her. It terrified her. She didn’t know how or why it was happening, and that scared her more.
    “I miss him.”
    Her eyes jerked to Lincoln’s.
    “I want my brother back,” he said in a ragged voice.
    She nodded. “I know.”
    “But he’s not coming back.”
    Sara wanted to deny his words, but logically, how could she? She looked down at her rain-covered boots, saying nothing.
    Lincoln sighed loudly. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”
    The drive was silent and awkward. When the truck pulled up to the house, Sara stared at the dark structure, thinking even in the daytime it was still dark. His light was gone from it, tossed away from one mistake it had taken a second to act out, and a lifetime to relive. She grabbed the door handle and pushed.
    Lincoln’s hand grabbed her arm; his touch like fire on her skin, stopping her. She looked back, his features obscured in the dark. His hand fell away. “Good night, Sara.”
    Her held breath left her in an exhalation. “Good night, Lincoln.”
     
     
     

8
     
     
     
    Guilt was her companion when she awoke. Sara sleepily opened her eyes, a creak in her neck as she sat up in the recliner, flipping the blanket off her. Her head hurt and she winced at the bright sunlight streaming in through a window. She’d laughed and smiled and had fun without him, in spite of the situation. How could she have done that? Sara covered her face with her hands as the night’s events came back in a wave of regret. She had no right to live, to enjoy anything, not when he was where he was and she where she was. It should have been her. Why hadn’t it been her?
    “There’s a reason for everything.”
    Sara went still, dropping her hands from her face, and slowly raised her head. The room was empty. She really was losing her mind. Was that what grief did? Made a person go insane if they couldn’t deal with it?
    “Sometimes you can’t see it and it doesn’t make sense, but eventually, in time, it does. Even when it hurts. Even when it’s bad. Something good happens because of it.”
    She shot to her feet as a sob left her, whirling around in a circle, searching for the face that went along with the voice she heard. Sara grabbed her hair and pulled, the sharp pain bringing tears to her eyes. Or maybe they’d already been there. They always seemed to be. Sara’s eyes were overworking waterfalls of grief.
    Her hands shook and she stumbled into the kitchen, grabbing the phone off the wall and clutching it to her. Don’t call him. She had to call him. You’re becoming too dependent on him. Sara slammed the phone back, her attention drawn to the scrawled handwriting on a Post-It stuck to the fridge.
    The phone rang, making her jump. Sara