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JD

C ambridge, Massachusetts – Late November, Freshman Fall

I’m dressed in thirty seconds—compression shorts, worn sweats, hoodie with the sleeves cut off. The corridors reek of stale beer, but I jog them anyway, heading for the basement weight room the crews won’t touch for another hour. It’s the only time the plates are mine alone.

Clang. Thud. Clang.

Iron steals the fog from my brain. Every rep is a memory I refuse to keep—a sunset on the desert ridge, the sound of her laugh, her hair tie wedged under the Chevy’s seat when I scoured it one last time. Forty minutes later my lungs burn clean and empty. The hurt is quieter.

Shower. Protein shake. 7:00 a.m. ECON analysis for the small-business idea that lives in the margins of my textbooks…

Next: Calc II. Computer science lab. Rinse, repeat.

Lunch break is a turkey wrap eaten on the move between Widener’s marble columns.

A couple of sorority girls wave, smiles too shiny, eyes appraising the way I fill out a Henley.

I nod without breaking stride. They can’t help I’m the new curiosity—desert royalty gone East Coast. But curiosity cuts both ways.

They don’t know what it feels like to keep a secret so big it carves a hole in your chest.

Afternoon rain turns the pitch to mud by rugby practice, but Division-1 hopefuls don’t cancel for weather. Club level it may be, yet half the football team shows up for extra hits they can’t get under NCAA rules, which means scrimmage is a war zone—perfect.

Coach Ryder blows the whistle and releases us like dogs.

I’m at flanker, eye on the opposition’s scrum-half: six-three, two-fifteen, all swagger.

He barrels forward; I wrap, lift, dump him hard enough the breath whooshes from his lungs.

The crunch of impact rattles through my forearms—pure, savage therapy.

“Someone piss in your coffee again, Northport?” Ryder hollers.

“Just practicing my manners, Coach.”

He grins, but the other guys keep their distance when the play resets. Fine by me. I’m not here for friends. I’m here to leave pieces of anger in the dirt until the ache behind my ribs goes numb.

By dusk we’re caked in muck, steam rolling off shoulders as we stagger to the lockers. A teammate claps my back. “ Bonfire tonight, man. You’re finally coming, right? Whole squad’s going.”

“Nah.”

“C’mon, JD. You’ve skipped every social. One drink won’t kill you.”

I think of textbooks and empty evenings. Of midnight phone calls to private detectives who tell me the same thing in new ways: no hits, no leads, sorry kid. Maybe a distraction isn’t the worst idea.

“Fine,” I say, surprising us both. “One drink.”

The fall bonfire is a roar of music and sparks on the riverbank, kegs sweating in the November chill. Somebody shoved a couch out here; limbs tangle on its sagging cushions. I nurse a Solo cup of cheap whiskey-cider, counting minutes until I can disappear.

Then the sharks smell blood.

Girls circle, eyes bright, cheeks flushed from firelight and hard cider. They laugh too loud at jokes I never tell, ask about the desert like it’s an exotic vacation spot. One slides onto the log beside me, knees brushing mine. She smells like Chanel and ambition.

“You play?” she asks, eyes on the battered guitar someone just abandoned.

“Not for an audience.”

“I’m Sara.” Fingertips trail a line down my forearm, tracing veins still pumped from the gym. “You’re JD. The rugby god.” She bites her bottom lip as if the title tastes naughty.

Every cell in my body hums with restless energy. Skye’s ghost stands between us, shaking her head, but the whiskey pushes back. One night. One kiss. Forget for sixty seconds.

I pull her onto my lap, sudden and rough enough she squeals—then giggles, delighted. Her mouth finds mine, lips soft, tongue sweet. I close my eyes?—

—and nothing.

No thunderbolt, no fire. Her kiss is lukewarm water against skin still itching for desert sun. For her. The realization slams through the drunken haze and leaves only revulsion. I push Sara off so fast she stumbles, eyes wide. Gasps ripple around the circle.

“Don’t—” My voice breaks. “Just…don’t.”

I toss the drink into the fire. Flames hiss, leap higher. Without another word I shoulder through bodies and vanish into the dark.

Sunday morning, hangover pounding behind my eyes, the phone buzzes. Mother. I almost let it go to voicemail, but she’s relentless. It’s easier to suffer five minutes of venom than twenty texts from her assistant.

“Jaxson.” Her tone curves like chilled steel. “We missed your call last week.”

“Midterms.”

“Yes, yes, your little exams.” She clicks her tongue. “I’m hosting the governor’s Christmas gala December twentieth. Black tie, Northport estate. Your attendance is required.”

“I’ve got finals. And training.”

“Finals end the sixteenth—your flight will be the seventeenth. Don’t be difficult.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Why do you need me there?”

“It’s family.” She pauses, lets meaning sharpen like a knife. “And there’s someone I’d like you to meet. Senator Colton’s daughter. Lovely girl. ”

“Not interested.”

“You haven’t even seen a photo.”

“I said no.”

Silence—a dangerous, coiled thing. Then she changes tactics. “You’re still searching for the girl, aren’t you?”

My pulse pounds. “Do you know something?”

“I may. Information comes to those who prove themselves dutiful.”

Fury surges hot and blinding. “You’re bargaining with my life.”

“Jaxson, be reasonable. Attend the gala, speak to the Colton girl. Nothing more. Show the family you can be…persuaded.”

“Send the details,” I grit out, because there’s no other way. “If you’re lying?—”

She laughs, soft and cruel. “I never lie. I omit.”

The line goes dead. I stare at the phone until my reflection wavers in the black screen—jaw tight, eyes hollow, the Northport heir playing puppet to buy crumbs of hope.

That night I jog the Charles in freezing rain until my lungs tear and my calves threaten to cramp.

Back in the dorm I open the old cigar box under my bed.

Inside: her letter, folded soft at the edges and the hair tie that still smelled of her shampoo.

I run my thumb over few strands caught up in the band, throat raw.

“I still love you, Skye,” I whisper into the dark. “I’ll never stop looking for you.”

But first I have to survive Christmas in Santa Fe—dancing with political princesses under chandeliers, pretending my heart didn’t die in the desert.

So I lift the pen and plot. Money funneled into a private account.

A PI firm in El Paso with ex-border-patrol contacts.

Another year of rugby to keep the anger sharp.

Classes to sharpen my mind. Everything—every breath, every calculated smile—moving me one inch closer to the day I break the chains for good.

Because one day I’m going to find her.

And when I do, nothing—no dynasty, no senator’s daughter, no mother’s threats—will ever tear us apart again.

The bowtie hit the floor first. Then the tuxedo jacket, shrugged off with the kind of disgust most people reserved for hospital gowns or body bags.

I loosened the collar, yanked it down, and slumped into the nearest leather chair in my father’s study. The fire cracked behind its brass grate, but it didn’t warm anything. Not the cavernous room. Not my bones.

Certainly not my heart.

The holiday party was finally over. The governor had shaken my hand with the same false warmth as always.

The senator’s daughter—blonde, sharp, thin as a wine glass—had tried to slip her number into my coat pocket.

And my mother had glided through the halls like a queen dispensing grace in the form of compliments, always just on the edge of a threat.

I hadn’t smiled once.

I sat now with a tumbler full of scotch, neat. No ice. I wanted it to burn going down, to remind me I was still alive. That somewhere under all this wealth and polish, I was a man and not some marionette dressed in Brioni.

The Northport estate sparkled behind me—every room dressed to the nines with garland and glittering trees, twinkle lights and gold ribbon, live pianists and hand-painted ornaments .

But it all felt like a mausoleum. A hollow thing dressed up in sequins and fake cheer.

A cold, calculated Christmas.

The click of heels echoed in the hallway behind me, steady and elegant. My mother appeared in the doorway, still wearing her floor-length Christian Serrano gown, her glass of champagne only half-full. Tipsy, but sharp. Always sharp.

She stopped just inside, cocking her head.

“Well,” she said, “didn’t you look so handsome tonight.”

I didn’t look at her. “I did what you asked.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

I downed half the scotch in one gulp and stood, facing her fully. “I was the dutiful son. I showed up. I danced with your pre-approved date. I wore the tux. I smiled when the governor called me by my father’s name.”

“Ah,” she said, smile pulling like taffy. “So the mask does still fit.”

“What do you know about Skye’s disappearance?”

Her smile didn’t drop. If anything, it widened. “Is that what this is about?”

My voice dropped low. “Don’t play with me, Mother. I did what you wanted. Now tell me what you know.”

She walked over to the bar cart, poured herself another splash of champagne like she had all the time in the world. “I told you before, Jaxson. The girl left. Of her own accord.”

“She didn’t leave without help.”

“Well,” she said breezily, “obviously she had help. A girl like that couldn’t orchestrate a vanishing act on her own. It was…clean. Professional.”

My hands curled into fists. “How do you know that?”

She sipped. Licked her lips. “I have a friend—one of my bridge partners—whose gardener’s wife works part-time at the little library downtown. The one near the old train station.”

My stomach turned.

She went on. “I was told your… *girlfriend*…was seen there quite a bit at the beginning of last summer. Browsing the non-fiction section. Checking out books on all kinds of interesting things. Disappearing into the stacks with her little notebook.”

She tilted her head. “I wonder… was she cheating on you? Meeting someone behind the bookcases? Planning her escape?”

The fire popped behind me. I wanted to throw my glass into it.

“Why are you telling me this?” I growled.

“Because, darling, sometimes the truth is more painful than the lies we like to believe.” She came closer, setting her glass down on the mantle. “Perhaps she didn’t run from me. Perhaps she ran from you.”

I stared at her, jaw locked, heart thundering. She looked back at me like I was a stranger. Like I’d always been one.

“She loved me,” I said, but it came out quieter than I intended. “She wore my ring.”

“She wore it because she was clever. Girls like that don’t fall in love, Jaxson. They scheme. They survive.”

“You’re wrong.”

She shrugged, picked up her champagne. “Maybe.”

And with that, she turned and glided from the room like she hadn’t just gutted me with a smile.

I sank back into the chair, scotch forgotten in my hand.

She was lying. She *had* to be.

But the image she painted—Skye slipping behind bookstacks, meeting a stranger, vanishing with someone else’s help—it crawled under my skin like frostbite.

I had to know the truth.

Even if it destroyed me.