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River held my hand and chattered at my side while we waited for Theo to answer the door, but I didn’t hear the words he said. My mind over the past three weeks had been focused on one thing:

Goldie.

Was she alive? Was she okay? What was happening to her? Could she survive it? Where was she? How could I find her?

Detective Ransom called every day with his updates, but there wasn't anything substantial. No evidence had been found in her car, and there was no security footage at the high school where she was last seen. For all intents and purposes, Goldie simply vanished. None of us had given up. Fibonacci Files was on pause, none of us willing to spend any of our time on work when it could be focused on finding Goldie.

We had missing-person posters plastered all over the state. We were pushing her photo in the news, following up with every contact we had made in our line of work to help us with her story. We followed up with the Eugene Police Department, Cherrytree Hills Sheriff’s Department, and Detective Ransom himself multiple times a day. Over two thousand people went missing every day in the United States, and I refused to let Goldie get lost in the crowd.

Our days were spent in the office, in Cherrytree Hills, or at police departments. It was monotonous, boring even, but I wouldn’t stop turning over every stone, even if none revealed anything.

Theo opened the door, a weary smile on her face. She was feeling the brunt of Goldie’s disappearance, too. When she wasn’t with the kids, she was taking Oliver’s place at the office looking for Goldie.

In fact, not one of us was doing well. Fai had practically moved into the office, never stopping his search, his wife always by his side. Jackie was either in the office, hounding the police officers here, or hounding the police officers in Cherrytree Hills. Oliver… well, Oliver was almost always by my side. He was at the office with me, at my house every morning with breakfast for River and me, or driving with me to meet with Detective Ransom every couple of days.

I hoped Goldie knew, wherever she was, that we were looking, and we wouldn’t stop until we found her.

Theo reached out, taking River’s backpack as he bounded into her house with a quick “Hi, Auntie Theo!” thrown over his shoulder as he ran to find August.

Theo chuckled softly as he passed her by and looked back to me. She had dark circles under her blue eyes and the same tired look we all held. “How’s he doing?”

I shrugged, and felt like a fucking shitty dad because I didn’t know. I would pick him up from Theo’s a few times a week to spend the rest of the day with me. I was sleeping on his floor or having him sleep in my bed with me. I hated being apart from him, and every time he went out of my view, my heart stopped for a minute and the panic started.

“He’s okay,” I mumbled and ran a hand over my head.

Theo sighed and closed the door behind her, pulling me by the arm to the porch swing that hung on the front of their house. I sat by her side silently, not sure what she needed, but far too tired to fight her.

“How are you?” she asked.

“Shouldn’t the two four-year-olds have some supervision?” I asked, ignoring the question.

“Violet’s watching them right now,” she explained. “I asked her to keep an eye on them for a minute so we could talk.”

“Doesn’t she have school?”

Theo sighed and sank into the swing, using one leg to push us slowly. “They give them two weeks off at Thanksgiving,” she explained, “which is next week.”

“Shit,” I grumbled and rubbed my eyes with the heels of my palms until I saw stars.

“Lex,” she spoke softly, “how are you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I muttered.

“Yes, it does,” she insisted. “You matter, no matter what’s happening around you. You matter, and you have us all worried.”

“You don’t need to worry about me,” I muttered and looked out across Theo’s property. It was raining today. It was always raining, but it had lost its wonder since Goldie left. I used to think of rain as a cleansing of the world around us, giving the earth a second chance. Now… well, now the rain was the tears that I fought back every day when I thought about her being gone. I didn’t feel like I could feel bad. We weren’t friends before she went missing. I wasn’t sure what we were, but it didn’t feel right to grieve. Jackie and Oliver had lost one of their closest friends; Fai had lost a family member. I lost… I wasn’t even sure. My future? The only woman who could put me in my place? The person who haunted every one of my dreams and nightmares? “I don’t matter, not while she’s gone.”

Theo groaned and grabbed my arm, urging me to look her in the eyes. I slowly met her gaze.

“Lexington, you’re not eating unless someone makes you. You don’t sleep, you don’t clean. Your mom let me know she’s been stocking your fridge and cleaning up a couple of times a week,” Theo explained.

I wanted to scream. Not at Theo—at myself. Because she was right; I had shut down, and I couldn’t. I had a son to take care of, but I didn’t know how to with the weight of Goldie’s disappearance sitting heavy on my heart. “I can be better. I will be, for River. It’s… it’s just hard.”

Theo sighed and scooted closer, looping her arm through the crook of mine. “No one is asking you to be okay. No one expects you to be. I just wanted to check in. This is affecting you more than I would have expected.”

I turned to her in surprise. “What does that mean?” I asked with more bite than intended.

Theo didn’t back down; she held her ground and raised a challenging brow. “The two of you got along like oil and water before—” She clamped her mouth shut, not saying the truth out loud. Before Goldie was taken.