Tremors rock through my body so hard my teeth are gnashing against each other. Fury and heartache rages inside me like a tsunami, and I want to scream and tear the shed apart, to somehow destroy this scene around me and bring it all back to how it was yesterday. But I’m unable to move or cry or blink or even breathe because the man who meant everything in the world to me has just shattered every little piece of my heart and soul.

Why? How could he do this to me?

He just walked away. From me, and his dog, and our little life, and our love. I stare at his uniquely perfect writing, wishing it to morph into words I want to read like the notes he’s left in the past. Words like I miss you and come back. Big wet, hot tears fall from my eyes like the beginnings of a rainstorm. At the thought of the rain, my fragile heart cracks and disintegrates, and I wail and shriek like a wild animal caught in a trap, mentally unhinged from the pain with no way to escape and on the verge of chewing out my own heart to get away from it all.

Falling to the dirty floor, I sob uncontrollably, digging my nails into my palms until the soft flesh breaks open and bleeds.

It hurts. Everything hurts more than I ever thought possible. The stabbing pain is so deep, burning in my heart and in my soul, searing into every part of my physical and emotional being. I’m sure it will kill me. Nobody can live through a pain like this.

Acorn whimpers and lies next to me with his head on my leg, always the caretaker, and I bow down and hug him to me like he’s a lifeline. I cry into his fur until it’s soaked and curly, until I have no more tears left.

Hours must pass, and it’s brutally clear Blue isn’t going to come back, no matter how long I sit here and picture him walking through that door, it’s not happening. I don’t have special manifestation powers at all. What I have is a terribly broken heart and lost faith in love and trust. When I can’t sit there for a moment longer, I fold the note up and put it into my back pocket, and Acorn and I close the door of the shed behind us for the last time.

In a daze I walk past the house, and I almost don’t even notice that the door of the four-season porch is ajar. I honestly can’t remember if it’s always been that way, but curiosity draws me like a magnet to pull the door open and cautiously step inside and take a look around. The air inside is stale and musty, penetrating through my stuffy nose. Whoever lived here at one time obviously loved birds, because several old bird cages hang from the ceiling, and quite a few rest on the floor. At the other end of the porch are two huge cages, the kind a big parrot would live in. Even though they all appear to have been cleaned, there are still random feathers of different sizes and colors scattered on the floor. Stepping farther inside, my eyes are drawn to three piles of sketchbooks, each pile approximately three feet high. I grab one of the books and flip through it, but its pages are empty. My brow creases as I pull one from the bottom of the pile, letting the rest tumble to the floor. This one is also empty. I check another from a different pile—and it’s also void of any writing.

A shiver sprinkles up my spine as I realize these are the same notebooks Blue was always scribbling in when he was having a bad day. There must be two hundred of them here.

Why?

Putting the notebooks back on the disheveled stack, I slowly walk over to the corner, where a sheet is thrown over a pile of…something. My heart races as I lift the sheet, and I’m not at all prepared to uncover all the objects that were in the shed. Everything—the air mattress, the candles, the curtain, the throw rug, Acorn’s bed. Next to this pile are two large garbage bins filled with empty bottles of assorted alcohol, matchbooks, and empty cigarette boxes.

Confusion mixed with nausea waves over me. Did he break in here to hide all this stuff? Or was he able to get in here all along? There’s no way he had all those notebooks in the tiny shed, so they must have been hidden in here. But why? And for God’s sake, why so many?

With careful, quiet steps, I walk over to the door that leads to the main house and attempt to turn the brass knob, but it doesn’t turn. Peering through the dirty pane window of the door, there are no signs of life in the large kitchen; nothing left on the table or counter tops.