I stay in Los Angeles for almost two weeks, haunting the campus, her apartment, the test prep place where she used to tutor kids after school, looking for any sign of her, but she’s vanished into thin air. I put an ad on Los Angeles Craig’s List asking Sam to call me, then cross-post it to every major city on the west coast. The next night I expand the search to the heartland and the east coast. I keep the ads rotating every forty-eight hours until my inbox is full of weird messages from creepy guys and a few desperate-sounding women and I finally realize it’s pointless.
I’m not going to be able to find Sam unless she wants to be found.
Finally, after two weeks of crashing at a hostel in Hollywood, sleeping in a weird pod bed that makes me feel like I’m waking up in a coffin every morning, Pete calls saying Tevia is quitting at the end of the week and he can’t get another guide trained on such short notice. If I don’t come back to step in, he’s going to have to cancel fifteen tours and the chances of staying in the black this month will be slim to none.
I don’t want to go back or give up on Sam, but deep down I know I’m not accomplishing anything here except driving myself crazy.
* * *
I fly home. I go back to work.
I crash at Caitlin and Gabe’s and spend the summer teaching Emmie how to surf and doing my research on Todd, Jeremy, J.D. and Scott. In the fall, Ray and Sean go back to the American school in the city, Emmie starts home school with Caitlin, and Gabe returns to work doing whatever rich guy thing he does with properties and investments. I spend the mornings with Juliet strapped onto my chest in her sling, walking the picturesque ancient roman streets of Porec while Caitlin and Emmie study, plotting how I’ll make the monsters who hurt Sam pay. In the afternoons, I lead rock climbing expeditions up the face of the cliffs outside town, and at night, I continue my research alone in my room.
Caitlin doesn’t talk to me about hurting people again, but she doesn’t try to draw me into family dinners or evening sails on Gabe’s boat more than once or twice a week. She gives me my space and lets me obsess, almost as if she knows planning how I’m going to get my revenge is the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning.
Without Sam, without being able to love her, without even knowing if she’s okay, it’s like the best part of me has gone missing. Hate helps numb the pain of losing her, keeping me moving around and functioning instead of walking into the ocean across the street and letting the water carry me away.
The holidays come and go and Juliet starts to crawl all over the house, but Sam’s dad still refuses to answer my calls. Spring rains flood the streets of Porec, and Caitlin and Gabe start talking about getting on a list to adopt another baby when Juliet is two.
And then, it’s almost summer again and Ray is graduating from high school and planning a European tour with his crazy girlfriend, Sean is convincing me to hire him as a guide even though he won’t be seventeen for a few more weeks, and the summer trip I’ve been preparing for all year long is suddenly only a few days away.
* * *
They say revenge is a dish best served cold, and of all the platitudes I’ve heard in the year since I lost the girl I love, it’s the only one that makes sense.
I board the plane for Costa Rica in board shorts and a weathered blue tee shirt, looking like I don’t have a care in the world. I’m a laid back surfer on my way to catch some waves, not a cold son of a bitch with a block of ice and hate where my heart used to be.
I haven’t decided whether to kill Todd, Jeremy, J.D., and Scott while they’re living it up in Costa Rica for their senior trip, or just make them wish they were dead, but I know one thing—whatever I decide, no one is going to suspect I’m the one responsible.
Even though I have every detail memorized, I go through the plan again during the flight. It’s become a ritual more comforting than any rosary I was forced to say back when my mom still got around to dragging my ass to church.
Soon, this will be over, and I’m not sure what I’ll cling to for comfort then, but I suppose it won’t really matter. I will have done what was right by Sam. Maybe I’ll be able to move on with my life after, maybe not, but I hope I’ll at least have put some of the regrets that haunt me to rest.