Untitiled

Just the beginning stages of an idea I've been playing around with

PROLOGUE

Music is playing in the distance.   Something slow and soothing that seems vaguely familiar.  I don't dare to give it much thought.  I am here in Reg's arms.  His hand slides gently up the side of my face and slips back to surround my neck.  The warmth of his breath tickles my nose as he kisses his way through his standard five point kiss; left cheek, right cheek, chin, forehead and nose.  I can feel our very souls writhing together.  And as quickly as it came, I can feel myself evaporating, nothing more than a dream.  I bury my hands in his hair and pull him to me as if it will make a difference.  "Find me baby, I know you will...."  And he's taken from me again.

I wake in a cold sweat, the same deprivation and despair of every other night for the past two months and nine days wrapping itself around me.  My mind drifts numbly to the phone call I received that night.  Reg's mother telling me that he never made it home.  The feeling in the pit of my stomach that has not yet left me.  His car was found three blocks from his home.  The car had been left as empty as my heart.  The search went on for three weeks and tapered off when no trace of the man I love could be found.  A six foot tall, two hundred pound man, with shaggy dark blonde hair and eyes as green as the sea, gone without a trace.  I see him everywhere and nowhere.  I know every inch of this man as well as I know my name.  I also know that he would not leave me.  Would not leave me.  After eight years, of this I am sure.

Every night since then I have seen him in my dreams.  Every night he gives me a piece to a puzzle that I have yet to complete.  I don't know if I'm losing my mind but I can't take the chance to ignore it.  A song, a place, a quote from a book or movie we love, all just a wisp of an idea wrapped in my fantasy of holding him close.

CHAPTER 1

I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and feel around for my flip flops.  Sleepily I drag myself over to the desk and grab the black sketch book from behind my computer.  Inside is a collection of all the tidbits that Reg has given me for the past seventy days.

I did not sleep for the first 48 hours.  My mind would not let me.  I wanted nothing more than to curl up and cry and ask myself questions that did not have answers.  But my tears would not come and my heart would not let me putrefy.  I drove up and down every street in Clancy for hours.  I'd driven to every place we frequented and talked to anyone and everyone I could find.  Not a trace of Reg could be found in this town.  And then there was the spot.  The place where Reg's car was found on Old Summer Hollow Road.  I parked in Reg's driveway and wandered along the road to the spot where they found his car.  I scrutinized every blade of grass within thirty feet without success.  I climbed over the guardrail and scooted down the slope to the edge of the ravine that paralleled the road.  The water was no more than inches deep and in the chill november weather barely a trickle was running through.  The surrounding banks are bare this time of year, making it easy to see across and into the wooded seclusion of the Chippewah National Forest.  I sat on the side of that bank looking for anything until I thought I'd frozen to the very spot.  Tired and aching, I rose to my feet and inhaled a lung full of the crisp, sweet, fall air.  And then something happened.  I'd caught just the faintest trace of Reg in my nose.  Something spicy and warm and manly and mine.  As quickly as I had detected it, it was gone.  I looked around in a panicked frenzy half expecting him to come out of nowhere and scoop me up in his arms.  I was alone.  I crumbled to the ground and dissolved into tears.  I sat there sobbing like a child for another half of an hour.  At the time I thought it was sheer exhaustion, but I suddenly felt relieved.  I knew, in my heart of hearts, that Reg was alive.

When I got home that night I soaked in a warm bath to soothe the chill from my bones.  I flipped through photographs of birthdays, anniversaries, vacations, all of the moments I feared I'd never get again.  That night I was out cold within minutes of hitting my pillow.