I tried to fix my mistake by calling every hospital in the metropolitan area, but no luck there - Sanders vanished into the ether that day. And you know what’s crazy? Despite realizing that I didn’t know the kind of person he truly was, I still miss him. Despite his secrets, I still believe there was goodness in him. I just wish that, at the very least, I’d allow him to explain. Instead, I ran like a frightened little girl, and now I don?
?t even know if he’s alive anymore.
That’s why I’m in Chuck’s office right now. He’s the head of security at the Saturday Night Laughs, and if there’s someone that can help him, it’s him.
“I can try,” Chuck says, and I find myself once again in his office, the memories fading away around me. It seems that every time I remember the incident that I forget about my surroundings. This is no way to live. “Who do you want me to look for?” He continues, trying to jolt me out of my silence.
“I, uh… I met a man,” I start, and I find that the words flow out of me more easily than I expected. I guess it’s truth - it helps to put it all out there. I tell Chuck the story right from the beginning, telling him all about how I met Sanders and how our relationship progressed (and don’t worry, I omitted all the sordid details, of course). He lets me speak uninterruptedly, nodding at key points in the story, and then he leans back against his chair and lets out a heavy sigh as I tell him about the accident, the last time I ever saw Sanders.
“That’s quite a story, Stacy,” he whistles in a preoccupied tone, looking right into my eyes.
“Please, I just need to know if he’s okay,” I manage to say after taking two deep breaths to calm myself. Relieving everything has me on the verge of tears, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to start crying.
“I guess we can see about that, yeah,” Chuck replies, rubbing his chin and looking down at his desk, deep in thought.
“I… I just wish I could go back in time and stay. I shouldn’t have run. I shouldn’t have left him there,” I continue to speak, the words now coming out of my mouth before I can even stop them.
“I know, Stacy.” He gets up from his desk, and he’s about to say something when I cut him short.
“Just promise me one thing, Chuck… If you find him, I don’t want him to get into trouble. I don’t know why he was stalking me, but… I don’t want to hurt him, Chuck, okay? I just want to make sure he’s okay.”
“Okay, Stacy, that’s a promise,” Chuck nods, and then he offers me his hand and a smile. I look at him, slightly confused, but then accept his hand and he pulls me up to my feet.
“Come with me, there’s something I have to show you.” My reply is a simple nod, and then I follow him through the studio all the way to the lobby.
“Where are we going?” I ask him, curiosity starting to get the best of me.
“Why don’t you see for yourself?” He says, stopping right in front of the door to my dressing room. I look at him, completely confused, but he just smiles and waves at the closed door. Hesitant, I reach for the handle and push the door open.
“It’s been a while,” Sanders says, and I almost pass out as I see him standing there.
47
Sanders
“Sanders? You’re… You’re alive!” Stacy cries out, and I see her eyes brimming with tears.
“A bit bruised and battered, but alive, yeah,” I smile, happy to be close to her again. It might not seem like it, but two days are too long to be without her.
“Chuck, how did you--?” She starts to ask him, but the man just shrugs noncommittally.
“I guess that’s for him to explain,” he merely says, and then slips out back out to the studio, leaving me and Stacy all by ourselves.
“So?” She turns to face me, and then closes the door to her dressing room behind her. “I think you owe me an explanation,” she whispers, a harsh and demanding tone replacing the happy one with which she greeted me.
“I do, but do you think it’s wise to lock yourself in your dressing room with your biggest stalker?” I offer a smile - I’m getting better at it - as I speak, so as to not frighten her; still, I see a bit of concern flickering on her eyes.
“Is that what you are? A stalker?”
“No, I’m not a stalker, Stacy,” I reply, finally free to tell her all the truth. I spent the last two days dreaming of this moment.
“What are you then, Sanders? A reporter? A fan?” She insists, dying to hear an answer coming out from my mouth, and already expecting it to be a bad one.
“I’m a soldier, Stacy.”
“I know, you’ve told me you were an ex-SEAL and --”
“I lied. I’ve fought in the Afghanistan and Iraq, that much is true, but I never left the service. A few years ago I was invited to join a taskforce that specialized on counter-terrorism in the States, an effort spearheaded by both the CIA and the NSA.”