Parker
Isaac shook his head, still in shock.
Hesitantly, Zac and I came closer. Zac put his hand on Isaac’s shoulder.
“Ike?” he said, waving his hand in front of his brother’s face. “Are you there, Ike?”
Isaac shook his head, ridding himself of his own shock.
“I should follow him,” he said.
“I’m coming with you,” Zac said.
“Me too,” I said, knowing that this situation was serious, whatever it was and that three pairs of eyes were going to be better than one. We hadn’t even seen which direction Taylor had gone in.
“Just let me go get my shoes,” Zac said.
“I’ll go find my keys,” Isaac said.
“We’re taking your truck?” Zac asked, bewildered.
“Did you see how fast Taylor was going?” I said. It was true. He had nearly knocked both of us over in his haste to get out of the room. Out of the house.
He nodded, understanding.
So, we split up, Isaac to go find his keys, Zac to get his shoes, and me back into the guestroom to close up my notebook and put it back in its hiding place lest someone should find it. Five minutes later, I was walking by the bedroom Isaac, Taylor and Zac shared to see both Isaac and Zac in the room, obviously searching for something.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“We can’t find Isaac’s keys,” Zac said, rolling his eyes slightly.
“Oh,” I said, joining the search. Hadn’t he just gotten home from driving around? You’d think a person would remember where they put their keys after only five minutes.
Oh wait. I live with Gina. Never mind.
I went over the desk and began to look around and under the papers and things that were on that when something caught my eye. I reached down and moved the papers that were laying on top of it and what I saw...Well, what I saw was a picture of a green eyed man with short, dark blonde hair and glasses.
It was a different picture, but it was undoubtedly the same man.
Once again, I was struck by just how much we looked like him, Taylor and I. Like a child resembled their parent...
I pocketed the picture without really thinking about what I was doing just as Zac was shouting from downstairs that he had found the missing keys.
Isaac and I both joined him and we quickly piled into the truck and drove off, picking the direction we took and the corners were turned at random. I regretted then that Taylor and I didn’t have that sixth sense that twins have. Of course, the only way that would do me much good was if he got hit by a bus on his way to wherever he was going.
“How far could he have gone?” Isaac said out loud, slowing his speed down despite the fact that the guy in the car behind us was already tailgating. Zac watched out his window, Isaac watched out his and I had windshield duty. But so far none of us had seen anything but random citizens of Tulsa out for a walk on the pleasant, sunny day.
“Should we go back? Mom and Dad will be back from the movies,” Zac said after a while.
“No, I want to keep looking,’ Isaac said.
“He couldn’t have gotten this far on foot,” Zac pointed out.
“I don’t know, he was going pretty fast. He had a good headstart on us,” I said.
“Let’s just keep going for a little while,” Isaac said.
We all fell silent once more as Isaac pulled the truck into a park almost ten miles away from the house. By that time, we had been out for quite some time, scouring the neighborhood and beyond in both directions. All three of us watched the people in the park very carefully, looking for a blonde-haired, blue-eyed brother of ours. That or a mob of screaming girls surrounding him. But we found neither.
“We should turn back,” Zac suggested again as we came to the other end of the park, readying to turn around and look again.
“No,” Isaac said again. “I want to find him.”
“You just don’t want to tell Mom and Dad what happened,” Zac said, more like he was Sherlock Holmes making an observation than a twelve year old making a frustrated assumption.
“No I don’t,” Isaac said in agreement.
“What did happen?” I asked curiously only because I felt left out. It was obvious both of them knew something and weren’t telling anyone anything about it. I didn’t think it had anything to do with the things I was trying to figure out, especially since the way they were talking, they truly were the only ones who knew. But if I was expected to help find my brother, I wanted to know what it was.
Isaac sighed. “I found a steak knife in the bathroom the other day after Taylor was in there,” he said.
My eyes widened.
“In light of things that were said while we were at the hospital in Rochester, we think Taylor’s...well, suicidal,” he added.
“Wow,” I said. “Are you sure?”
“No,” he replied. “That’s why I had to ask.”
“And he freaked out when you asked him about it,” I said.
“Yeah.”
I nodded. That made sense.
“What a drama queen,” I said.
They both chuckled a little bit, but after that silence once again ensued. It was a beautiful day, so of course, the park was filled with people. We all knew we had to watch carefully if we planned on finding him there.
After about ten minutes, Zac spoke up.
“Is that him?” he said quietly, as though he were hunting rabbits, pointing toward a lone figure on a bench, hunched over, face in hands.
“Could be,” Isaac said.
“Yeah, that’s him,” I said, squinting in order to see better. He was pretty far away and a man with a camera kept blocking my sight but I could tell even from that distance that it was Taylor.
Isaac drove up the path a little way before pulling over. He looked at me once the truck was in park.
“You go talk to him,” he said.
“Me?” I said.
“You’re the only one here he’s not mad at,” he pointed out.
“What about Zac?” I said.
“No, I’m pretty sure he’s mad at Zac, too,” he said. “For saying something to me Taylor thinks he shouldn’t have.”
I looked over at Zac, who looked confused for a minute and then only nodded, understanding what Isaac was talking about. I opened my mouth to ask, but he interrupted me.
“It’s not important,” he said. “But I really do think you should be the one to go.”
“Yeah, Parker,” Zac agreed. “It should be you.”
“What am I supposed to say?” I said.
Isaac shrugged. “Did you hear enough of what I said?”
I nodded.
“Well, don’t say any of it,” he said, beginning to smile a little bit. “Because apparently it’s just completely the wrong thing to say.”
I laughed a little.
“All right, if you’re that insistent, let me out.”
Zac opened his door and slid out of the truck, making room for me to get out as well. Once I was standing on the grassy ground, he got back in and quickly closed the door. He saluted me and, smiling, I saluted back to him.
“Good luck and God speed,” he said jokingly.
“Yessir,” I said back, turning and walking back down the path toward where we had seen Taylor on the bench.
Think it over and e-mail me in the morning.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty-One