Tiny Little Fractures

Chapter Twelve

I had to be rational. I couldn’t just jump to conclusions and say that Jon was alive. I couldn’t get my hopes up. I knew I would end up crumbling and breaking if it turned out the card was a hoax. Sure, it was full of things I thought only Jon knew of, but that didn’t really mean anything. We had a lot of family and friends. Someone could have found out about the tiny little fractures and Kissimmee if they tried hard enough. I just couldn’t think of a single person who would be cruel enough to do it. And why would they wait two whole years to do it? Was it meant to hurt me? Or was it a message?

I was leaning toward the latter, despite all logical reasoning. I didn’t have a lot to lose if it turned out to be a hoax, and he actually had died two years ago. So I might lose my sanity and fall apart, but at least it would be over. I didn’t believe in the afterlife anymore, but at least there’s no pain in not existing.

If it really were a message from Jon—if he really were alive—then I couldn’t just sit back and wait for him to contact me again. He would have to know that I would try to look for him. But I couldn’t go to the police either. I couldn’t contact the media or even my lawyer. His face had been on the news and the internet. There were still pictures of him floating around on flyers and missing person’s websites. He would be recognized eventually, right? And if he were alive and hadn’t been found yet—then that would mean he didn’t want to be found.

Then I had to tell myself to slow down and take a break. I had to think about this for a second. Let’s say, hypothetically speaking, that he was alive and had been all this time. He chose what would have been our third anniversary to tell me. If he really wanted me to know he would have come sooner. Let’s say he was kidnaped and they had him captive all this time. Then the moment he got free he would be at my door.

Unless he was hiding from someone. Or from me.

That was it. He had to be hiding. That would explain the use of inside jokes that only the two of us would understand. That would explain the lack of return address and the Kissimmee postmark. That would explain the one simple sentence meant only for me. Tiny little fractures. That was ours. No one else would get it. That was his way of telling me he was alive. He had to know I would search for him, but maybe he was also telling me to keep this to myself.

Maybe someone was after him. Maybe he’d escaped from somewhere. His life was in danger just because he reached out to me. But then again. Maybe my mind was just getting ahead of me. There was still a colossal possibility that this was all just some asshole playing a cruel joke. Either way, I did the only logical thing I could think of in the off chance that this was real.

I burned the card.

It would probably be useful if the case started again, but if Jon wanted it to be started again, he would have gone to the police. Not to me. I knew how Jon was. He thought about things. He would do whatever he could to keep the people he loved safe, and he could be sneaky when he put his mind to it. He was too easy to recognize. He was too tall. Too blond. I was smaller, yes, and easier to hide. But putting him next to me would make me a walking target.

Or maybe I just watched too much TV. Maybe he just didn’t want to be with me anymore and didn’t know how else to tell me. So he faked his own kidnapping so he could be free to be with someone else. Maybe he told this new woman all about our tiny little fractures and our Kissimmee postmark. And maybe she thought it would be funny to rub it in my face. Maybe he wanted to rub it in my face.

But that didn’t sound like Jon at all, and that was definitely the result of watching too much TV. No one knew him better than I did. Even though he was older, this was the same boy who cried when a stranger’s dog died. This was the man who let himself get busted for underage possession of alcohol just so his friends didn’t get busted for drinking. If he didn’t want to be with me, he would have just said so. That was the promise we made. And judging from the last time I saw him, the last night we spent together, he loved me. A whole lot. I would have noticed if he stopped loving me. I would have seen it.

So either someone was playing a very serious prank on me, or Jon was alive and in very serious trouble.