Jaysin's disappearance very soon stretched well into the month of July, past the fourth, on into the middle, and hottest part, of the month, and I had moved well on and forgotten that he'd even been around. Or tried to tell myself I had, anyway. The times I was on campus with my friends went well enough, I saw a lot of people who were emerging freshmen I remembered from high school and even helped out some of them with finding places to stay. The nights, however, when I didn't have anyone to talk to or anything to do, all I did was think of him, I'd lay in bed and stare at the ceiling and try to imagine him looking down at me, tried to recover some of that feeling he always gave me. Depression began to eat at me, though I kept it well hidden from anyone, even Shayna and Wendy, I knew Shay would just criticize me, tell me to let him go that he was a bad man. But I didn't want to believe he was as bad as everyone said he was, even though Amanda had killed herself over him. I just considered her a stupid girl, even though I was fast headed the same way if I didn't do something soon.
He turned up late one night, just buzzed the door when I was expecting Wendy, who I was sure he'd intimidated into leaving as soon as I'd released the downstairs lock. I opened the door and gasped, my hand flying to my mouth. His hair had gotten a lot longer, and he had it pulled back, which made him that much more attractive, though I tried not to notice. He stood looking down at me and I saw the extreme exhaustion in his face. His skin was tanned darker than ever, and his hair was nearly completely blonde, so clearly he'd been working in the sun quite a bit more. "You've been gone for months!"
"Yeah...don't I know it." He went past me into my room and grabbed one of my duffle bags from the closet and started packing it full of my clothes. "I need you to come with me, I need to show you something."
"You can't just walk back in and expect me to trust you..." I said, my heart was racing and my mind confused by his sudden appearance. "I don't even know you, you're always disappearing." I said, beginning to regain my composure.
"Can you trust me enough to believe all of that is going to stop tonight?" He asked and, slinging the bag over his shoulder he turned off all of the lights, grabbed my hand and without waiting for me to answer said, "Come with me."
I obeyed him but dragged my feet, hoping one of the neighbors would hear me so that when Shay came looking and found me gone someone would remember something. He took me out of the back entrance to where a rather worn car awaited us, unlocked the doors and threw my bag in the back and then leaned the seat back for me and stepped back. I got in, wondering if Shay was anywhere to see me leaving with him, but she so rarely came in the back way I knew that was hopeless. We travelled for what seemed like hours, leaving the city limits and going out into the country for further than I could ever remember having gone, especially since we were going in the direction opposite my own hometown. Suddenly, in the middle of nowhere the car slowed to nearly a stop and he turned easily into an almost completley hidden narrow gravel road. It might have been a driveway, I guessed, we stopped once at a gate and he got out and unlocked it pulled the car through and stepped out to lock it back. We moved on slowly for what seemed to me like hours until lights came into view, a large house that looked to have been either newly built or renovated. Two large wolf-like dogs greeted the car with wagging tails but did not bark, clearly they knew the vehicle and they waited expectantly at the driver's side for Jaysin to get out. "Where are we?" I asked him quietly.
"This is my house." He said, simply, getting out he said, "Stay put, they don't know you yet, I'll have to introduce you to them." I guessed he meant the dogs and had no intention of making them angry. He came around promptly and let me out and then showed my hand to both of the dogs, who sniffed me with great disinterest and then trotted off into the darkness as a pair, disdainfully.
Jaysin took my bag and led me up a long flight of stairs into the house and I stared around me in disbelief at the simple beauty of it. This was a man's house, none of the decorations a woman's touch would bring to it, but it was something wonderful to look at even in it's simplicity. The living room was large, what appeared to be the skins of real animals lay here and there, one before an enormous but empty fireplace, another in front of a large sectional couch that was covered in tan micro-suede. Above the living room I saw a loft where a soft light was also flickering and knew that this must be the bedroom, seeing me looking up he motioned for me to follow him. We ascended a hand built and concealed spiral staircase that was behind, of all things, the fireplace and through a narrow door into what I would soon find out was his room. The bed was covered, not in blankets, but also in animal skins, and here I found the first electronic device other than the lights, an enormous plasma screen television that hung on the wall directly adjacent the bed. I looked around still in complete silence and realized when I looked at him that he was smiling. "You like it, then?"
"Yeah, this place is awesome." I said faintly, wondering why he'd brought me here. "It's yours?" I asked, unable to stop myself, I should have, of course, known this.
