Someone out There Loves You

[APPROXIMATELY ONE AND HALF HOURS EARLIER]
Clayah disappeared around the corner, even away from streetlights. My chest seized and my ankles collapsed under the weight of guilt. I fell hard on my knees. Bruises would set in. I fucking deserved them.
I couldn’t even cry anymore. I was dead and dry and the worst brother in the world.
Gerard was still running. He grabbed my upper arms and pulled me up.
“What the hell, Mikey?!” he yelled. “Stand up, we have to get her!”
“You know it’s no use, Gerard. She knows Chicago better than we do.”
“I don’t… I don’t care! We can’t just… let her..” He gasped for air. If there was one thing I knew about my brother it was that he tried to drown tears with anger. I knew he’d hated that he’d lost so much time with Clayah. He was jealous that he wasn’t there. And I knew that. And I called him on it, saying, “Don’t be mad that you weren’t there. It just made it harder.”
Gerard gave up and collapsed on the ground and onto me. For the first time since this started I was the one holding him up. It was an odd change of scene to me. But I reflexively knew what to do.
I threw Gerard’s arm around my shoulder and lifted him up. His muscles were limp. I knew the feeling. We walked back to the stage door as quick as possible.
I dragged him into the dressing room and dumped him on the couch. He didn’t react. He was there, hyperventilating, swallowing tears.
“Boys!” Claire dashed into the room. “Where’s Clayah?”
“Gone,” I said. “She ran off somewhere and she’s gone.”
“She’ll come back,” Todd said. “She needs air—“
“I know that face…” Gerard shook his head. “She might not come back.”
Todd glared at Gerard. “I have been Clayah’s father for fourteen years. I know her better than you do.”
“That may be so,” Gerard said calmly, “But at the moment you are in complete and total denial.”
Todd flinched, and fell back into a chair. Claire knelt by his side and they held each other. They knew Clayah was mad, they knew she wasn’t their biological daughter. But they were her parents nonetheless. They loved that girl more than life itself.
Gerard and I would, too, if we hadn’t lost our chance.
“Mikey,” Gerard gasped. “Are you okay?”
“Not really,” I said. “But that doesn’t matter.” I grabbed my brother by the shoulders and looked him hard in the face. “I have been the one falling on you for three months, Gerard. And now I only need you to do one thing for me.”
“What?”
“I need you to cry.”
He didn’t fight it. He leaned forward on my shoulder and I hugged him while he let it out. Two grown men dying inside over a girl we loved and hardly knew. I knew Gerard wasn’t saying what he’d wished out loud. He envied my bond with Clayah. His was different, but it was there.

“You seriously told her?”
“Yeah, we seriously told her.”
“And she just ran off.”
“Yepp.”
Jeph shrugged. “Frankly, I don’t blame her.”
The show was over and everyone was gathered in the dressing room while we explained everything. The only person who wasn’t there was Molly.
I thought this too soon.
Mollers burst through the door, beaming. “Where’s my Peanutbutter Lips?”( I never got their pet name thing.) Then she looked at all of our stone faces.
I tuned out for a minute, bracing myself for her anger. I knew it had to come soon. But It didn’t.
“Good!”
Now I was angry. “No, not good, Molly!”
We stood there and fought. I got kicked so hard that I momentarily had doubts that Alicia and I would ever reproduce.

We ran around Chicago, looking everywhere. Everyone split up. Gerard stayed quiet, I stayed supportive and as calm as possible, Mollers stayed stubborn.
We went to coffee shops. She wasn’t there. When we were done looking there I figured as much; she was smarter than that. She knew we’d come looking for her. I was out of ideas now.
Mollers was the one who thought of Jayce. She ran back to the bus and found one of Clayah’s tshirts for him to sniff her out. I’m not really religious but I prayed to the higher-powers-that-be that that little dog knew her well enough to find her.
The idea sort of worked. He sniffed her out through the alley she vanished down, all the way to the street beyond. That was at least a start, since we’d been going in pretty much the opposite direction. He smelled that she’d turned left, but then sat and whimpered.
Molly’s face fell but she patted him on the head. “Good boy, Jayce,” she said mournfully. He licked her hand.
I got an idea. “Wait—record stores. She’d absolutely go there to get away.”
“Are you sure?”
“Mollers, I know my sister… Oh don’t you look at me like that, I already got your anger.” She gave a small grunt that I knew meant she’d do it again in a heartbeat, but she nonetheless started dashing down the street in search of record stores. Gerard and I went in the other direction.
Gerard was still silent and bottling it all up again. “Come on,” I said. As we went past a Starbuck’s I went inside. There was no line.”
“We already checked here,” Gerard said.
“Yeah, but you need coffee. So do I.” That brought the smallest grin out of him. I knew Mollers would be upset if she found out we’d lost five minutes of search time for this. But we would never get anything done if we weren’t thinking properly.
When we got our orders, the smell hit me too strong when I took a sip. This was Clayah’s favorite Starbuck’s order; caramel macchiato. I’d subconsciously ordered it. This is what she always smelled like. And her smell-good spray stuff, and dirty laundry…
I held my order out to Gerard, who was busy chuggin his Pike’s Peak and lighting a cigarette. “Do you want this?”
He looked down at it and took a long drag from his cancer stick. “Not particularly.”
The son of a bitch had cost me $4.25. I threw it in the nearest garbage can.