where can we go? anywhere from here | RICHPEZ

chapter four: and we'll be there in the nick of time

'So you think this is where he went?'

'What else could it be? It's not like he's in the habit of writing down random town names,' I said, bouncing my leg up and down, 'There's nowhere else he could be.'

Meredith was sat across from me next to Jaime, their heads bent over the note like they thought that if they stared hard enough, the note might gain sentience and lead us straight to him. It stared resolutely back, the scrawled writing unchanging. They peered harder.

When I'd first brought the note out, the hands of the kitchen clock had pointed to ten AM. It was one o'clock now.

The clock, of course, was the same one I'd came to a stop at several weeks earlier. It'd been broken at the time, but after a tearful reunion with Meredith at the hospital I'd felt strangely compelled to fix it. I hadn't liked the way the blank face stared back at me as it lay abandoned on the counter, the way it reminded me of those bleak few weeks spent dormant in my apartment whilst Meredith did likewise in a hospital. Fixing it marked a time of moving on, letting go. The shattered glass - the same glass Joey had picked up - lay in the bottom of a trash can.

In fact, up until the very moment I showed Jaime and Meredith the note, I hadn't thought of Joey once. The overwhelming happiness that took over once I got the news from Brian had been a welcome distraction from the darker, more serious Joey-thoughts in my head, the ones that were too messy and confusing to think about without moral support and some painkillers. And I'd been too busy anyway.

At least, that was what I told myself. Because there had been just one time.

A long, emotional message lay half-repressed in the drafts of my phone, exhausting just to read and impossible to send.

After that, I'd pushed him from my mind, letting Meredith take the forefront of my thoughts. She was there and she was okay and she didn't blame me. That had seemed more important.

'But what's he doing over there?' said Jaime, exasperated, 'Meredith's better now! He should have come home.'

'Maybe it was something else?' suggested Meredith gently, but I shook my head.

'He wouldn't have left me like that - or you like that - unless he was really upset. He cares too much.'

It felt weird to say it out loud like that, so self-assured that Joey cared for me, but I knew it was true. Only the most upsetting of incidents could tear him from anyone that was upset, and the others knew it too. He was just too damn kind for his own good.

'Okay then,' said Jaime, and I could see she was trying desperately to bite back a grin, 'It looks like there's only one thing for it.'

Later I'd insist that I could tell what she was about to say, how she'd change our lives with the unknowing words that came from her head in a rush of adventure. I would be lying.

She looked back and forth between Meredith and I, practically vibrating with excitement.

'We should go and find him!' she burst out, and Meredith's eyes instantly lit up. I frowned.

'No! There is no way we can do that - Meredith just got out of hospital!' I began to protest, a hundred equally horrible situations appearing in my mind.

But they were already dancing round the room in excitement.

~~~

The address on the note stood out to me.

Hope Creek, North Carolina was printed in Joey's scrawled handwriting on the now somewhat dog-eared note, fading into the creases of the paper that had grown whilst it was passed around.