Page 104 of Exposing Colorado

The sound of the monitor flatlining attempts to pull me even further into the darkness. There’s no bright light, no waiting relatives or lost pets. Only a cold finality wrapping around me, cutting off my oxygen. It’s not peaceful, it’s fucking terrifying and I’m not ready to go.

I swim harder than I’ve ever swam in my life against the current of pain, guilt—fear. I reach for the surface with everything I have, every ounce of strength scraped from the corners of my broken soul.

I’m not finished yet. I still have things to do.

I’m here, I’m here, somebody grab me, please, don’t let me drown⁠—

And then… a sound cuts through the white noise.

Beep.

Beep.

My heart jumps to life again.

I slam back into myself so hard that someone yelps when I tighten my grip on a warm hand. Pain shoots up my legs, prickling like needles, muscles twitching against the foreign feeling.

Air fills my lungs, and I inhale greedily with a gasp, afraid to be pulled back down into that suffocating black hole.

The heart monitor increases, beeping wildly when my lids fly open. Shadows swirl above my head. Slowly, they move closer, coming into focus, and a pair of whiskey-colored eyes gaze down at me in shock.

His hand is the one in mine.

“Holy shit,” Devon whispers, face still bruised. “He’s alive.”

I’m alive. God help me, I’m fucking alive.

“Salem,” I choke out, my bleary gaze searching the room for the one soul mine needs. “Where is she? Where is my wife?”

Taylor steps into view, his expression filled with so much hurt that I physically feel it. “I’m so sorry, Logan… She left. She’s gone. And none of us can find her.”

Chapter

Forty-Two

Salem

From the driver’s seat, I take my camera and zoom in on the woman sitting on her front porch.

The house is old and small, some rotting blue rambler she inherited from her precious father who died before I was even born. She’s got a cigarette in one hand, a glass of wine in the other, and a look on her face that could curdle milk.

Some things never change.

Click.

She doesn't know I’m here. Or maybe she does. Maybe she felt the shift in the air when I pulled up across the street, a shattered version of who I used to be.

My finger presses on the shutter button, not because I need another picture—Lord knows I have more of those than I should—but because this is easier than talking to her. Easier than breathing.

Click.

There’s a new wrinkle near her mouth. A new streak of silver in her red hair that reminds me so much of my own. She looks older than I remember, but still naive, if that’s even possible. My hands start to shake, blurring the focus in the lens. I drop the camera into my lap and sigh as Beautiful by 10 Years plays from my speakers.

I don’t even know what the hell I’m doing here. My bags are packed, and the back of the Jeep is filled with everything I care enough to bring with me. There's an hour until my flight. Symbiotic's tour manager is waiting for me in Los Angeles. If I don't leave soon, I'll miss the plane.

But maybe it’s the grief. Maybe it’s the hole Logan left in me the shape of all the things I'll never get the chance to become. Maybe I just wanted to see the original blueprint of my damage, to remind myself that I wasn’t born broken. I was raised that way.

This woman has an entire flash drive dedicated to her, and yet I don’t have a single photo of my husband. I fought so hard not to become her that I lost him in the process, and I'll spend the rest of my life hating myself for it.