Lost and Found

*Author's Note: I haven't watched Netflix for quite a few years, but recently signed up for a 30-day free trial. I found a show I had no idea I'd enjoy, but it's been quite good.

It's called 13 Reasons Why and tells the story of a 17-year old girl who took her own life via flashbacks as her former classmates struggle to make sense of it all.

That show is the basis for this story, but beyond the basic storyline, there's very little similarity. It dovetails with a recent story I wrote called PTSD and the Good Samaritan, in that it provides a glimpse into the mind of a woman torn apart by her child's suicide.

I don't intentionally write dark stories. I just write whatever comes to mind, and after the death of another fellow brother-in-arms last December, this theme has to come to mind quite often as of late. That said, it is, above all else, a story of love and hope.

******

January, 2017

"Don't touch me!" she told her husband.

"Honey, listen," he tried saying.

"Oh, no. Do NOT call me that. Don't you dare," she warned him.

"Look...Alanis," he said, using her given name, hoping to be able to finish this time. "I told you I'm sorry. I told you it's over. I told you it didn't mean..."

"Don't you DARE say it didn't mean anything again, or I swear to God I'll..."

She lowered her voice knowing their daughter would be able to hear them in the unlikely event her music was off in her bedroom. Aria Price was 17, and like most teenagers, music was a huge part of her world. It was rare that she'd didn't have earbuds plugged in and her iPod blaring something neither parent recognized.

With all she'd been through lately, the last thing they needed was for her to learn her father had had an affair, let alone that it was with a teacher at her school. The only good thing Alanis could think of was that this younger woman had never been one of their daughter's teachers.

"Just go...sleep on the couch," she said, her voice much quieter.

"This isn't helping. You know that, right?" her husband told her.

"Well, I can't stand to look at you right now, so you can either go downstairs or I can get our daughter and..."

"Okay. Fine. I'll sleep on the couch. Tonight."

"No. You'll stay there until I tell you otherwise," his wife of nearly 18 years told him.

Both of them were literally just out of high school themselves—as in just hours out—when she finally gave in and said 'yes' to Jeremy Price, the handsome boy she'd dated her entire senior year. He'd offered to marry her, and although it was anything but romantic, Alanis loved him and said 'yes' to his proposal, as well.

Now, at 35, they were just one year away from being empty nesters and a fresh start for both of them. She and her husband worked full-time, and although they still had no idea how, they were both committed to sending their daughter to college, but even a state school was insanely expensive when one included room and board.

As angry as Alanis was, it was Aria that kept her from telling her husband to get the hell out and never come back. The first half of her junior year had been horrible with one girl and then another turning their back on Aria, who'd been friends with both of them for the last five years. On top of that, there was a boy she wouldn't name who'd done something she wouldn't share, and her mother stopped asking after Aria lashed out and her and told her to 'mind her fucking business'.

The end result had been watching their daughter go from happy-go-lucky to moody and withdrawn in the space of five months. So Alanis Price wasn't about to walk into her daughter's room and say, "Your father is a disgusting pig who's been 'rooting in the mud' with a teacher from your school."

And what only added insult to injury was that Alanis had been doing Cross Fit for an entire year by then, and in that time had gone from a size 12 to a 6. She'd even recently taken some selfies in a new bra and panty set and sent them to her husband who was supposedly at work late one evening. Little did she know he was admiring another, very different hardbody that belonged to a 27-year old art teacher named Elena Something-or-other.

As Jeremy grabbed his pillow and slammed the door on his way out of the bedroom, all Alanis wanted to do was get lost in a quart of chocolate ice cream and Oreo cookies. Instead, she laid down on the bed, rolled over on her side, and cried silently until she fell asleep a little after 2am.

February, 2019

"Look, I know you're still hurting. I lost my daughter, too, remember? But I can't live like this. I'm not a monk, for Christ's sake!"

"I know," his wife replied quietly.

"You keep saying 'I know' but you never talk to me, Alanis. For God's sake, say something. Yell at me. Scream. Call me names. Just don't lay there in silence. Please!"

She finally looked at him, her eyes glassy and lifeless, then said, "I don't feel like making love with you."

"Tonight or ever?" he asked. "I know how angry you were when you found out about the affair. Then a week later we lost Aria, but I stood with you the entire time. I...I felt dead inside the entire first year. Last year wasn't much better, but at some point, I need my wife back."

"I'm still...hollow, Jeremy. I can barely function even now. I can't work. I can't even feel. I know you have needs, but I can't meet them. I'm sorry. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to."

"Do you even still love me?" he asked, afraid to hear her answer.

It took her quite awhile to answer him, and when she did, her words were nearly monotone in nature.

"Yes, I still love you. But it's not romantic. It's the kind of love you feel for a friend. So yes, I love you, but I'm...I'm not...in love with you anymore. Even if I could still care, I couldn't be in love with you after what you did. I'm sorry, but I just can't."

"Well, at least that's progress," her husband said, the bitterness in his voice returning with a vengeance.

As he stared at her, she just stared into space then said, "Jeremy? Every time I see you, I see her. I see you with her. I've just been too numb to care, and now that you're forcing me to care, I won't lie to you. The affair..."

She stopped talking and also stopped looking at him.

"I was going to say the affair broke me. But I had no idea what broken was until I found our daughter..."

There was no need to say anything else. He knew every detail by heart. And while it still sickened him, he wasn't ready to live a celibate life. Aria was gone. He'd been faithful since his wife found out he'd cheated on her numerous times while lying about where he'd been. But two years later, he'd had enough. If she didn't want him—in every way—he had no intention of dying a little more each day with her.

Alanis hadn't worn makeup since the funeral. In fact, she rarely wore anything but sweats or, on a really good day, a baggy sweater and jeans. It was even more rare that she left the house. Jeremy continued working after taking a week off after they found their lifeless daughter in her room, an empty bottle of pills on the nightstand with a note addressed to them underneath it.

So while his wife wouldn't be able to survive on her own very long without going to work, and knowing how hard it would be for her to get a job, Jeremy felt he had no other choice but to move out.

"I get it," he said tersely. "I'll stay on the couch tonight and be out of here tomorrow."

She never even turned around when he walked out, and didn't say goodbye when he left early the next morning. She just lay in bed unable to care even as she realized she'd have to care if she didn't want to lose the house and end up on the street. Her parents were both gone and she was an only child, so there wasn't anyplace else to go. But for now she just needed to lay there and wallow in self pity for a little while longer as the visions of finding her daughter that fateful day played out again and then again and kept playing as they had for the last two years.

A 'little while' turned out to be another three days in which Alanis got up only when nature demanded it or to eat or drink what little she had to in order to survive.

It was the afternoon of that third day when things began to turn around. She had no idea the knock on her door would even be important, let alone life-changing, and she almost didn't bother getting up to answer it.

But when the knock persisted she got out of bed, threw on a robe, then went downstairs. She knew how bad she looked in the mornings when she didn't even brush out her hair, and makeup was a thing of the past. Then again, she no longer cared how she looked, and truth be told, even whether or not she lived.

She peeked through the glass in the center of the door and saw someone who looked to be in his earlier 20s. She couldn't see a face, but she knew it was a man and that he was fairly tall. He looked harmless, so she opened the door and asked what he wanted.

"Mrs. Price?" he young man asked with a warm, pleasant smile.

"Yes?"

"Hi. I was...I am...a friend of Aria's," he told her.

Just the mention of her daughter's name created a wave of nausea.

"You...knew my daughter?"

"I did. She and I were friends."

"What did you say your name was?" Alanis asked even though he hadn't yet told her.

"I'm Tyler. Vincent."

He almost said, "But not Vincent Tyler," something he'd been asked or kidded about for much of his life.

"Wait. You're...Tyler?" she said, not sure she heard him correctly.

"Yes, ma'am. You probably don't remember me. We only met one time, but..."

"I remember you," she replied. "I just couldn't put your name and face together. You...you've changed."

"Yes, ma'am. I've lost a lot of weight and started eating right," he said, not wanting to tell her he'd done a complete 180 since the day they met.

He looked down then back up at her before saying, "I can't even imagine what you've been through."

"No. No, you can't, and I wouldn't wish this on anyone," she told him.

It took her foggy brain a few seconds to remember what to do, but eventually she said, "Oh, would you care to come in?"

"Yes. I'd like that," he said very politely.

"I'm sorry for the mess," she said, not really caring how the house looked, either. "I'm pretty much a mess myself, but losing a child does that to you."

"You look fine, Mrs. Price," Tyler told her even though she looked...awful.

What he didn't tell her was that he'd had a huge crush on her from that one meeting a little more than two years ago when he was a good 50 pounds heavier and getting high or drunk most days, and struggling in his second year of college.

"Please. Have a seat. Can I get you anything? Some coffee maybe?"

"Oh, it's a little late in the day for me to be drinking coffee," he said with a smile.

"What time is it?" Alanis asked, having no idea.

"It's a little after three o'clock, Mrs. Price."

"It's Alanis," she told him as she did her best to smile.

"All right," he said quietly before reaching into his coat pocket as she offered him a seat while she took one across from him.

"What's that?" Alanis asked when he sat something down in front of him on the coffee table next to a dirty cup and saucer surrounded by crumbs from potato chips and God only knew what else.

"This is a letter Aria wrote to me. I forgot all about it until I got ready to move into my first apartment last week. I found this in a shoe box in the back of my closet, and I sat down and reread it. I was so moved by it, I felt like I should bring it over to you, but then I started thinking it might be more painful than pleasant. Anyway, as you can see, I decided to bring it here, and if you'd like to see it..."

"Yes. I'd like to see it," Alanis said, as another kind of chemical reaction took place in her brain causing some other feeling to course through her body; her body that had lost a lot of its muscle tone and was now thin and frail-looking.

She was so hungry her hands were trembling, but a part of that was due to a different kind of hunger; one that came from wanting to share any kind of connection with her daughter. And here she was about to hold something Aria had once touched. Adding to the hunger and the pain was knowing that her daughter's thoughts were recorded in her own handwriting and now laying right in front of her.

As she sat there staring at it, Tyler told her, "Because of texting and emails, I don't think I've ever received a letter from anyone but my great-grandmother, and that was ten years ago. But as you know, Aria loved to write. So..."

He picked up the three-page letter and held it out to Aria's mother then nodded when she looked at it. She took it then sat quietly as she began reading its words, slowly and carefully, savoring each one as a kind of gift from God. Alanis's hand covered her mouth soon after reading the salutation of, "Hey, Butthead!"

Tyler thought he saw something resembling a smile but couldn't be sure. What he was sure of was that tears were running down her cheeks, but what he didn't know was that these tears were different than the thousands she'd shed since finding her daughter cold and lifeless on the bedroom floor that cold January morning.

As he watched her read, he could also tell that in spite of the last two years and the toll it had taken on her, she was still a very beautiful woman. All it would take to bring that beauty out was a shower and a touch of makeup. It wouldn't matter much what she wore, as he thought she'd look amazing in anything.

He had to admit it wouldn't hurt for her to gain a few pounds, but the underlying beauty was still quite evident to him as he stared at her while she stared at the pages, turning them slowly and reverently as she devoured every word.

Continuing to nurture his private fantasy, Tyler thought to himself that were she to put on a dress of any kind, she would be almost as attractive as he remembered her from that one brief meeting; one in which she'd asked him to leave and never see her daughter again.

What he and then Aria had both tried to explain that evening was that there was nothing between them. Not romantically anyway. She'd been just 17 while he was 20 and a sophomore in college. But they were friends, and truth be told, she'd been more like the little sister he'd never had than anything else. She'd even called him her big brother more than once, but mostly she just called him 'Butthead'—affectionately.

They met at a party where someone from Tyler's fraternity had invited some high school kids. At the time, Tyler was all about parties—especially the booze and the weed. Once 'lit', the normally shy, introverted college student loved talking to people. So he'd attended more than his fair share of them, and that particular night, he'd noticed a girl sitting by herself who looked both lonely and out of place. She wasn't particularly attractive, and, like himself, she was more than a few pounds overweight. Only later would he learn just how self-conscious she was about her appearance.

He smiled at her, and when she looked away, he waited then smiled again. That time she sort of smiled back, so he walked over and introduced himself. The first thing Aria said was, "You're...cute."

Tyler laughed, knowing that, like Alanis, there was a good-looking person underneath the the extra weight and the messy hair, so he thanked her then said, "Actually my name is Tyler."

When she didn't get it, he told her his name wasn't 'Cute' but Tyler. When she finally got it, she laughed, and he realized she was prettier then he'd first assumed. And after they talked for a few minutes, he also realized she was intelligent, funny, and a pleasure to spend time with. Unlike most girls who were all about hooking up, Aria only wanted to talk, and unlike most guys, Tyler enjoyed that as much, if not more, than the mindless sex that only occasionally came his way with average-looking girls too drunk or high to care how he looked.

Aria was full of life and ideas, and before they knew it, it was midnight and she told him she needed to get home. They agreed to meet later that week, and from then on, they became the most unusual of best friends in what was to be a very intense but short-lived friendship.

So when she insisted on introducing him to her parents after assuring him everything would be fine, he'd reluctantly agreed to meet them. However, they weren't happy at all to meet him.

Aria's father shook his hand, but before Tyler could plead his case, he stood almost nose-to-nose with the heavyset college kid and told him his daughter was 17 and off limits. He then asked if the young man understood, and when he quietly said that he did, her father said, "Good. There's the door. And if you so much as ever talk to my little girl again, I'll have you arrested."

Alanis had looked on and watched her daughter's horrified reaction, and felt confident this older boy was indeed just a friend. But she knew her husband well enough to understand that she needed to support him or there'd be hell to pay.

"Tyler? I'm sure you're a fine young man, but my husband's right. You're much too old to be...hanging out with our daughter. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you leave and not come back."

She couldn't recall Tyler's reaction, but to this day, she could see the tears streaming down her daughter's face and the desperation in her eyes. But she too, knew her father, and there was no way on earth she would ever change his mind.

The only words Aria spoke still cut as though she'd just said them.

"I hate you!" she told her mother; words that were really directed at her father. But because he was too intimidating to say them to him directly, it was easier for their daughter to take her frustrations out on her mother.

Her heart had broken back then, and as she read this letter, it was breaking anew as her daughter's words seared themselves deeply into her brain.

The letter itself was kind and sweet. It was an apology to Tyler for the way her parents had treated him. It also clearly spelled out what he'd tried to convey that night about being nothing but a friend. And as it turned out, he might just have been the best friend their daughter had ever had.

Alanis had known her daughter was still hurting badly from have been abandoned by the girls she'd loved and trusted for so long. She never did find out what happened with the boy Aria once mentioned, but it was obvious it had been something that had also hurt her daughter very deeply. So little did she know that she and her husband had just destroyed the only real friendship their daughter had when they threw Tyler out of their home that night.

Aria had, at best, been in the slightly-above-average category in terms of looks, but after being so badly hurt, she'd turned to food as a source of comfort. And with it came the extra weight that only caused a further decline in the way she felt about herself even as those same girls began teasing her mercilessly about being a 'fat ass slut' or worse.

As she read the final lines in which her daughter thanked Tyler for being the one bright light in her life, she began crying uncontrollably again, as she had so many times before.

Moved to action by a sense of compassion, Tyler got up, and sat down next to her then hesitantly put an arm around her. Alanis fell into him and buried her head in his chest as she wept.

"I'm sorry I let you read that," Tyler said, feeling horrible for causing her so much pain.

"No!" she sobbed. "It was beautiful. I'm not angry, Tyler. I'm just so...sad."

Her words were ragged and choked, but they were very sincere. Not sure what to else say, he just sat there and held her until she was able to stop crying. When she did, she slowly sat up then thanked him again for letting her read the letter.