Love You Forever (2013 Wattys Finalist)

Chapter 5 - The Ashes of Hope

As desolation overwhelmed him, Robert fought back. He knew if he allowed it to take over, he'd climb in his bed and not get out for another three weeks, or at least until his dad threw him out of the house in disgust. He forced himself to think what he should do next. He'd just showered, so – getting dressed, that was the next step. He pulled clean briefs out of his drawer then went to the closet for jeans and a t-shirt. It was harder than he thought it would be.

As he looked through the hanging t-shirts, each one told a story as he slid it across the rod. The shirt he was wearing when he took her out to eat the first time, the one he wore when they went to the club, the one that was her favorite and she always commented on it when he wore it. He slid the hangers past him with more force as he rejected each one, getting angrier by the second. The one he wore the first time he took her to the movies, the black one he'd been wearing the night he'd been kidnapped. When he got to the one he wore the last day they were in Dover, he couldn't fucking take it anymore and quit.

He saw a pile of clothes at the bottom of his closet, the ones that had littered the floor of his bedroom over the last few weeks, and started pawing through them thinking maybe he'd find something that wasn't a fucking reminder of her.

As he rifled through the pile, he uncovered a pale blue rucksack. What the fuck was this still doing in his house, he wondered angrily, yanking it out. She must have left it in there and it got buried under all the clothes. He knew it would be empty even before he unzipped the compartments and looked through it. She would've taken the contents with her when she went to Chicago. They belonged to her after all, even if he'd been the one to ask the bastard for all of it.

---Then---

As soon as they walked into his bedroom, Robert saw the pale blue rucksack on his bed. He'd been so overwhelmed with everything that'd been happening since the bastard had given it to Georgie, he hadn't even had a chance to wonder what was in it. He sat on the bed and unzipped the main compartment.

Georgie sat down facing him, asking, "What's that?" He looked at her suddenly, pushing his hair out of his eyes. Did she not remember bringing it home? She looked back at him expectantly.

"Uh – ," he said, looking down as he tried to decide if he should ask if she remembered – and then he saw what was inside it.

He stuck his hand in and pulled out a handful of some of the documents he'd last seen on the round table when he was with the bastard. He laid them on the bed and then reached in and grabbed another handful of papers.

He could scarcely believe what he was seeing. It looked like everything he'd seen on that table was in the rucksack. He knew it had been part of the bargain, but it still felt like a miracle he had it. He suddenly became excited. This was Georgie's future, everything she'd need to build a new life. Before he realized it was happening, she had picked up her American passport and started opening it.

"Georgie!" he said suddenly, in an attempt to stop her, afraid what her reaction might be, but it was too late. She saw the small picture of herself and became very still.

"I'm sorry," he said gently. The silence stretched as she ran her finger over the picture.

"It's okay," she quietly, after a minute, then looked up at him. "How did you get my passport?"

"He gave it to me." She looked shocked.

"He wouldn't do that," she said with certainty.

"It was part of the bargain," he said quietly.

"Oh." She didn't say anything else while she looked at her picture again.

"There's a British passport here too," he said, shuffling through the papers and handing it to her. "You have citizenship in the United States and England!" he said excitedly. "D'you know what that means? You can choose where you want to live!"