Lost & Found.

When signals cross, I wanna put a little straight on it. If theres no love, I wanna try to love again. I’ll say your prayers, I’ll take your side, I’ll find us a way to make light. I’ll dig your grave, we’ll dance and sing. What’s saved could be one last lifetime. Hey, hey, hey. Yeah...

Over and over and over again. This song had already played at least ten times and just a quick glance to Fox would tell me that he was annoyed with it. Something was wrong with the CD and it just kept skipping.

I didn’t really have a problem with the song, but I pulled it out and threw it into the backseat anyway. Fox sighed next to me, “thanks.”

“No problem. Could you find a new one to put in?” I asked, looking over at him for a second, to see the creases that had been in his forehead moments before had straightened out.

He nodded. “Sure.”

He didn’t move.

“What? Did you expect it to walk over to you? There’s a box in the back,” I smiled, but too late I realized he was frowning at me. “What?”

Fox ran a hand through his long hair, pushing the waves out of his face as he turned his head to face me fully. “Who’s Kenny?” he asked and I nearly flew right off of the road.

I slowed to a near stop before edging back onto the gas. My mind stuttered, trying to think of anything I could say. “What?” It was all I could manage.

“Who is Kenny,” the words were bolded coming from his mouth.

I sighed. “Who do you think?” I asked, knowing that he wouldn’t have a clue, but also knowing that I couldn’t bring myself to explain what kind of a horrible person I was. How could I tell him that I left my little sister to rot at the hands of that monster?

He stayed silent. Curiosity bit at me but I couldn’t form the question in my mouth. It wouldn’t fit. I glanced at him as he shifted awkwardly, staring blankly out the windshield, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water. I supposed that’s what he felt like too.

A fish out of water.

A boy out of his element.

A fox out in the open with no cover.

Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law.

“Honestly?” he asked, turning to look at me as his face fluttered between different emotions. “How the hell am I supposed to know, Rabbit?” He seemed to settle on anger, though his eyes kept shifting.

My stomach lurched for some reason. “Ashlynn,” I whispered. “My name is Ashlynn.”

I didn’t know if I was expecting him to reply with his real name, but that wasn’t what I got. What I got was silence. It was deadly and it ate at me while I anxiously snuck looks at Fox, trying to gage his reaction. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t seem to figure out what he was thinking.

That killed me.

“What am I supposed to say?” he finally whispered. It was a gust of air as he exhaled. It was nothing. “What do I say to fix this?” he asked almost desperately.

‘Out of his element,’ I kept repeating in my head. The awkwardness of the situation made the air tense and I almost couldn’t breathe. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. You don’t have to say anything,” I said it quickly, like ripping off a bandaid. Tears stung at the corner of my eyes and I watched the road ahead of me steadily. My throat closed up then, blocking all air and words that ever wished to escape again.

I escaped when Kenny couldn’t.

And then I just left her.

I pulled over onto the side of the road, resting my head lightly against the steering wheel. I didn’t want to risk crashing after all of the recent improvements. “Ash?” his voice was gentle and cautious, like my father’s always was. Maybe telling him my name wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done.

“My sister. Kenny wa-” I stopped myself and rocked my head against the wheel, trying to stop the steady flow of tears. “Kenny is my sister.” My sobs were silent, even though I’m sure that my body was softly rocking to them as they ripped out my heart, tearing at my lungs along the way.

My throat felt like it was in tatters as I shook my head again. “I just left her,” my words were broken by a soaked cry.

Fox sat in silence beside me. I couldn’t even hear him moving, but maybe that’s because my heart was still breaking so loudly inside of me that it was impossible to hear anything else. I hated myself. I hated him for not having an audible reaction; for not letting me hear how he felt. I wanted to see how disgusted he was with me without having to turn and look at him. I wanted to feel the hate radiate from him like it did from my mind.

“How could I leave her?” I asked myself in a whisper, closing my eyes and trying to recover some peace for myself. We sat in silence until I worked up the courage to turn my head against the wheel so that I was facing him.

I drank in his emotions. It was the way that his eyes sparkled in sadness, the small wrinkles in his forehead to express the small amounts of confusion I left to him. The way his hands rested on the console, half to me and half pulled towards himself. He had situated himself to face me with a firm frown planted on his features. It didn’t belong there, it just didn’t look right.

Fox wasn’t supposed to worry or be sad. He was the carefree that I’d never be able to be again.

Or that’s what he projected anyway.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I murmured, turning myself away from his almost judgmental looking eyes. I had to keep telling myself that he didn’t know.

He doesn’t know. That’d be impossible.

“What do you mean?” he sounded, impossibly, even more confused.

“Like you’re judging me,” I sighed, trying to coax myself into turning around again, but I couldn’t do it. I was on autopilot and I couldn’t take control of myself again. It was like I couldn’t flip the switch in my head back onto normal so that I could steer myself again.

Fox sighed softly, and he almost seemed to soften the air inside the small car. “I wasn’t judging you. I’m just,” he struggled to find a word for a minute as I glanced up at the road where cars passed us, sending questioning looks our way, “I’m just trying to figure out what could have happened to have you feeling this miserable.”

Miserable was a good word. It fell nicely behind the large shadow I felt that my bad decisions seemed to cast. I prayed that the darkness it left wouldn’t consume me.

“I don’t know how,” I stopped lamely, letting him spin me to see him again. His face was inches from mine as he looked into my eyes and made my heart stop. He was looking into my soul. He was figuring it all out.

He was breaking down my barriers, one at a time.

“Tell me everything,” his eyes sparkled in an unexplainable emotion, making the gray in them stick out. “Let me fix this.”