Ripped and Stitched

43: Breathe

Max chewed his lip as he thought about that for a while.

"Where do you think they went?" he finally asked.

Julia looked up at him shyly. "I'm not sure, but I do track Brady's phone," she admitted.

Julia pulled out her phone and looked at the app where she tracked his location. She frowned.

"What?" Max asked.

"It says he's at home," Julia said with confusion. "There's no way they already made it there."

Max frowned. Realization seemed to settle on his face.

Julia wrinkled her eyebrows. "What?"

He rolled his eyes. "Hayden tried to talk to me earlier. Something about how he's not into Ali and that I need to get over myself because anyone else would be lucky to be with her. Anyway, at the end he mentioned that he was headed home and had to find Brady because he wasn't picking up his phone."

"He left his phone at home," Julia surmised.

Max looked at her for a moment and then sighed. "Promise you won't say anything to Ali, but I track her phone too."

Julia looked like she was going to judge him but she just shrugged. "I have no room to say anything, go on, track her down," Julia demanded.

***

Brady was headed to the park. When they arrived, Alison realized he already knew about the bench she had only recently discovered.

"I come here sometimes," Brady explained quietly. "It's peaceful."

Alison stepped out of the car, they walked side by side to the bench.

"I didn't know they did this until a month after we came back," Brady murmured quietly.

"I only found out today," Alison replied.

They looked at the bench together. Brady's finger lingered over each word as he passed his hand over the engraving.

Finally, he sat down and Alison did the same.

"I'm not enough for her," Brady whispered.

He said it with such bitterness. As if he was only now realizing what that meant.

"I'm sorry," Alison whispered.

"What did Max do?" Brady asked after a bit. "I thought you were mad at him, but apparently it's the other way around."

Alison frowned. "He's never going to trust me. He's always going to be scared for no reason."

Brady offered a small look of sympathy. "Do you think it's us?" he asked. "I mean, are we the problem?"

Alison looked over at him. She sighed. "I hope not."

Brady half-frowned. "But you think we are?"

"Yeah, I think we all are." Alison took a deep breath. She closed her eyes for a moment. "I don't think we're ever going to work. Not how we're supposed to anyway."

Brady put his arm around her comfortingly. Alison tried not to cry.

"I think..." Brady glanced at her. "I think I'm going to move away from here."

"Where to?" Alison asked curiously.

Brady shrugged. "Anywhere but here. I'm done with this town, I'm done with these people."

"Me too," Alison whispered. She began to smile a bit. It was faint. "You know if we run away from our problems, aren't people going to think something else happened?"

Brady caught on rather fast. "Well, we wouldn't just disappear without a sight this time," he said. "I guess I'd let my parents keep tracking me and-" Brady paused. He smacked his forehand. "Crap, we have to go."

Alison looked confused as Brady pulled her up and back to the car.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I let Julia track my location through my phone," Brady explained as they walked.

"You left your phone at home though," Alison pointed out.

"Max tracks yours," Brady said with a bit of guilt.

"Oh," Alison said quietly as Brady brought the car to life and drove off. She wasn't sure how she felt about that.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

Brady rolled down the window and before Alison could even protest, he grabbed her phone out of her hand and tossed it out the car. Alison's eyes widened.

"What the hell are you doing, Brady?"

"I'm not ready to face them yet, please just trust me right now. There is something we have to talk about."

***

"Stop the car," Max said.

Julia frowned. "In the middle of the road?"

"It says her phone is here," Max said, holding up his own phone to show her.

Julia looked perplexed. She parked her car on the side of the road and looked around.

"Do you think they're hiding in that ditch?" she asked sarcastically.

Max rolled his eyes and got out of the car. It didn't take him long to find Alison's phone. It was smashed and barely worked. He could just make out the screen from the shattered glass and dirt covering it. He picked it up and got back in the car. Julia looked at it and her earlier sarcasm disappeared from her face.

"They don't want to be found," she murmured.

Max didn't say anything. He was staring at Alison's wallpaper on her phone. It was a picture of the four of them. Back when things were simple. Before they started dating. It was a hot summer day and he and Brady had found abandoned water guns at the skatepark. After filling them with water, they sprayed Alison from behind. Julia had snapped a selfie and it caught everyone perfectly. Julia was laughing so carelessly that she didn't mind if her smile lines showed. Brady was grinning so hard you probably wouldn't even know that he had just lost his basketball game the night before. At that moment, Max himself was so in love with Alison. He didn't know it back then, but the adoring look in his eyes told him the truth now. Everything was easier back then. Back when no one was scared to ruin what they had. Back when they were all friends.

"Where would they have gone?" Julia asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.

Max took a deep breath. It was something Alison did these days when she got overwhelmed. He looked around at the street signs and remembered something else from that summer night with the water guns. When they went to dry off, Alison had found a fire pit some older kids had made some time ago. She used to love sitting there and watching the stars.

"I think I know where Ali is," Max finally said. "Although I'm not sure how happy two people who don't want to be found will be when we get to them."