Bailey!

The train is small, so even if we wouldn’t have been eloped we’d still have to sit together. I offered him the window seat and I did it, not because I was trying to be nice, but mainly just so that no one gets suspicious with the level of hyperventilation coming from him. I really tried my hardest to keep Miles calm because he seemed on the verge of a panic attack, but the fact that he didn’t take anything I said seriously didn’t help. I tell him to face the window and to focus on the view of the coast rather than what we just did. Surprisingly, he listened to me and was visibly calming down by the minute. He fell asleep shortly and I remained all alone with the thoughts of our uncalculated journey. Where are we gonna go? What are we gonna do? How are we gonna earn a living?

As we pulled up to the St. Davids station for our stop, I saw that no one was getting off the train. That’s when I realized, this is our destination. This city’s unattractiveness doesn’t seem to bring in any people, making it a perfect place for us to hide.

“Miles! Get up”

“What’s going on?” He muttered in confusion.

“C’mon, it's time to go!”

“Go where?”

“I don’t know yet” I answered. And I really didn’t know, nothing was certain, but all I knew was that this was a small city where we can safely hide so I quickly added, “But we need to get off, here, right now!”

With a growl he slowly gets up.

“Let’s go! Let’s go! We don’t have time.”

We got our backpacks and boarded off the train. The station was almost completely bear besides Miles and I and an old lady selling hot tea and coffee. This was relieving, if we planned to stay here it was important that no one from our old city ever came near here.

“Hey, so, what are we gonna do now?” Miles asked, “It’s not like we can split up.”

“We can start by getting a room at that inn over there.” I pointed to the small cottage, “Then we should start looking for an apartment right away.”

“Hold up, one room? And wait, you want to stay here?”

“Yes of course”

“What do you expect me to do in a place like this?”

“Don’t forget why we’re here. We aren’t on vacation! We’re wanted! We can’t stay in a big city. As long we stay here and keep quiet until the case is closed, we’ll be able to go back home in no time.”

Miles didn’t say anything after that and we just walked in silence until we reached the door to the Inn. I stopped for a short moment only to tell Miles his new name is Blake Greene. I went through the door quickly, without giving him a chance to reply to this new identity I just presented to him.

The lobby was empty except for the front desk clerk who was quite surprised to see us. “Hello, how can I help you?” He spoke with such exhilaration as though this was the first costumer in years.

Miles started talking first, “Hi, we would like a room.”

“Oh wow, ok, we don’t get much visitors anymore but this is just splendid! What are your names?”

I replied this time with, “Jess and Blake Greene.”

2 years later…

July 1995

Its been two years but I still can’t get Bailey out of my dreams. Every night I see his eyes as he fell out of that balcony. I miss him so much and I miss Kim and Tate. None of this was ever meant to happen. My life these past two years has felt like a complete nightmare but its finally coming to an end soon. With the case being ruled as an accident, and the divorce being finalized, I can finally go back to Wells. Miles moved to London a year ago for work, but he’s supposed to come back to St. Davids tomorrow morning so we can return to Wells together. We’ve only spoken once since he left and that was only regarding the divorce. I wasn’t expecting to hear from him ever again but the note we both got a week ago forced us to get back into contact.

Last week, right after I got the call that the divorce was finalized. A note addressed to my real name, Jane Mckenzie, was slipped under my door. A wave of a feeling I couldn’t even describe swept over me as soon as I opened it. In the note there were 10 names. All 10 names were of those who died in the fire. The only thing that was off about the note was that Baileys name was not on it. I heard my phone ring in the loud silence of my worry and my eyes got even wider when I saw who it was.

“I should’ve listened to you, I never should’ve left, someone knows, I just got a note, it had all of their names—“

“Hey, Hey, Miles, it’s not your fault. I got it too.”

“I don’t understand, why now? The case is closed, we just got divorced.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll be ok, just come back to St. Davids for a little.”

“Ok, I’ll be there Friday morning.”

The second note came a few days later and it was twice as unexpected. “I KNOW IT WASN’T YOU” it read. That day Miles and I spoke again and decided we’d go back to Wells to really figure out what was going on.

I walked home from the bookstore where I work. It was dark and the thought of going back made an anxious notion bubble up somewhere deep inside of me. As soon as I stepped in the door I knew something felt different. I walked to the living room, still feeling haunted by the notes I recently received. I saw a shadow coming from my room so I picked up the first thing I saw, a ceramic sphere, and made my way towards the bedroom. I entered silently and saw him. He was right there. Standing in front of my window.

“Miles!” I squeaked.

He ran up and completely stunned me with a tight hug. “Ah J, I can’t lie, I really missed you.” He felt warm, safe even. I’ve never felt that kind of comfort with him. Although we both ignored it, I could tell he felt the warmth too. “What were you gonna do with that?” He laughed at the sphere in my hand.

“I don’t know; throw it.” I laughed at the useless object I thoughtlessly picked up.

“You’re still as ridiculous as I remember”

“Is that a bad thing?” I ask in uncertainty

“Of course not!” He said as though he was offended, “There’s nothing bad about you. Other than your terrible sense of humor, if you could even call it that.”

“Rude, I’m a really funny person!”

“Yea, yea, keep telling yourself that.”

In that moment all we did was beam at each other. “Do you want tea?” I offered after the moment passed.

“Sure!” But he just kept smiling.

We drank our tea and talked about all of the things that happened this passed year. I told him about the death of the old bookstore owner and how he signed off the store to me. He talked about the writing job he had in London. He told me about everything, the cafe he went to every Sunday morning, and the old lady that lived next door who always brought him food. We talked longer than we’ve ever had, we talked until we were so tired that our eyes were struggling to stay open.

The next morning, I quickly packed some clothes into a small bag and we were off to the station. There were still very few people there but the person that stuck out the most was the lady, sitting a a small stand selling coffee and hot tea. The same lady we saw two years ago. I can’t tell if I was mistaken or not, but for a second there I thought I saw her wink when Miles and I passed her.

After about half of the train ride I finally broke the silence. “Do you think Tate and Kim are married?”

“Yea, they’re probably still together, I don’t know if they’re married but, I know they both went to Harvard. Good for them.” We always knew they would have a bright future, it was just hard to imagine them living this fruitful life while we were wanted in Wells. “What we did was the right thing.”

“You’re right, they had more too lose” I agreed with him, we didn’t get accepted to any colleges neither did we know what we wanted from life. Kim and Tate have wanted to go to law school ever since we were friends and them going proved furthermore that we made the right choice of taking the blame.

We rode in silence the rest of the way to Wells, Miles was listening to The Clash on his Walkman and I was reading Hemingway. When we arrived, I didn’t recognize a single person at the train station. We went straight to a hotel near the station in downtown. There we were checked into separate rooms where we didn’t stay long before we decided to go get dinner together. We had lunch on the train, but by the time we arrived in Wells we were starving. After dinner, we took a stroll around our old neighborhood, walking past our old school, and our old homes.

“I never hated you, by the way”

“What?”

“I just wanted to let you know, that’s all.”

“I honestly don’t understand, you literally sabotaged every relationship I had and ruined my 16th birthday party by, very publicly, declaring what kind of a ‘blind sighted and ignorant b*tch I am’” I did air quotes with my hands.

“Did you ever think I could’ve said that or did that because I was in love with you? Had that never occurred to you?” I usually know exactly what to say in every situation, but in this one, I was especially speechless. “Why do you think I agreed to throw away any chance at a normal life and take the blame for the Tate and Kim?”

“I don’t know, I thought you wanted to help your friends.”

“I couldn’t care less about whether or not they lost Harvard or their perfect lives, I only agreed so that I could be together with you.”

“But why did you leave to London?”

“Because I couldn’t handle it anymore, the fact that we lived together, but you still talked to other guys and didn’t pay attention to me. I had to leave, every moment I spent living with you was breaking my heart into smaller and smaller pieces. And even when I was in London, a day didn’t go by when I didn’t think about you.”

“Miles I—“ He cut me off with his mouth on mine. He kissed me as if it was the first and last kiss of his life. As if we would never see each other again. I slightly pulled away which made him flush and look down he seemed embarrassed, “Miles, look at me, I love you too” I kissed him again and this time it was a different kind of kiss, it was gentle, and comforting. We held hands as we continued to walk through the crooked streets of our childhood. Until we unexpectedly reached the house. That house where everything happened.

June 8th, 1993

“Jane, why do you not like Miles so much, what did he do?” Asks Tate.

“I don’t not like him, we just don’t get along” Miles gave me a unsatisfied look.

“You know, if you guys were to get together we could go on double dates, it’d be fun!” Added Kim.

“Woah, you’re really drunk huh?” Miles said. “Tate, go to the basement with her, there’s a couch there, she should sleep.”

Tate put an arm around Kim and started walking towards the basement door, “Alright, let’s go babe, come here.”

“I didn’t think you could be so considerate” I said to Miles standing next to me. He didn’t reply, he just went into the kitchen, past all the other teenagers celebrating their last day of High School, to get a drink.

Everything that happened after that still feels like a big blur. One moment I was watching miles pouring a drink and the next I hear someone yell fire! Miles and I both looked at each other and while everyone screaming and screeching all we could think about was Kim and Tate down in the basement. We both sprinted down the stares where the fire started from.

Kim was crying, “Im sorry, Im so sorry, it was an accident, I didn’t mean to!”

“Tate what happened??” I asked frantically

“She spilled her water onto the fuse box and we thought it was ok because nothing happened at first but after we sat down it caught on fire.”

“Im sorry! it was an accident!” Kim continued to cry.

“Wait! Where’s Bailey?”

“Last I saw he was upstairs, he was probably reading.”

“No he wasn’t” Miles realized, “I let him borrow my walkman, he probably can’t hear anyone”

“Oh bloody hell!”

“We gotta go get him” I said.

They ran up to the room he was in while Miles and I helped some people out of the house. He told me he got it and for me to go catch up to with Tate and Kim. “J, be careful.”

“You too.”

By the time I reached the room all I saw was Bailey falling out of the balcony. His eyes were full of confusion, worry, but also calm, and confidence. “What the hell did you do!!!” I screamed at the two of them.

“We didn’t do anything! He just fell!” Tate yelled back at me.

The three of us ran out of the house using the back door where Miles was already waiting for us.

“Where’s Bailey?” He asked. I couldn’t find the words to even explain what happened. I could only tacitly cry, choking on the pain that was rapidly flashing over me.

“We can’t go to jail, we have to go to college, I want to have kids and get married.” Kim continued. In that moment, the idea came to me.

“Hey no ones going to jail, you two will run around the house, you will pretend that you had nothing to do with this situation, when the police asks you what happened you tell them I was in the basement with Miles. We’ll get on the next train towards Wales and see where to go from there. We’ll elope before we go to avoid any complications and if we get caught we won’t have to testify against each other.”

“I never agreed to this!” Miles whispered loudly.

“Think about it, you and I don’t have a plan, we don’t know what to do for the next couple of years anyway who cares if we’re on the run for a little, as soon as the case gets closed we can come back here and resume our life.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

July 1995

The house was never torn down, it still stood their half burnt. I suppose no one wanted to buy the property because of much work it would take to restore the house, or to build a new one.

“J?”

“Yea?”

“Lets go inside?”

“What? Are you out of your mind?”

“Cmon” He grabbed my hand and before I knew it we were walking through the house and up the stairs. We walked into the room where Bailey fell out and we saw the most frightening yet astonishing thing ever. I clung to Miles as we both stood there speechless. In the room stood nothing but a desk, on the desk were notes, in the same handwriting as the notes that prompted us to come back to Wells.

“Oh my God,” I finally spoke.

“Well now we definitely know it was someone from the party. Who would be crazy enough to mess with us like this?”

They heard the door slam closed! Miles immediately sprinted to follow whoever that was. I followed after him. We ran for a good 10 minutes until the hooded individual stopped, heaving for air, you could tell he was not a good runner. Miles didn’t stop though, he tackled him onto the lawn and as soon as he saw him, his face went to stone. He looked as though he’s seen a ghost. I didn’t understand who it could be that would trigger that kind of reaction but as soon as I heard the words I was just as stunned, “All right, you caught me, but I was just trying to help you. It wasn’t your fault, Kim and Tate started the fire.” That voice only belonged to one person. But how could it possibly be him? “Kate was so drunk, she talked about it in front of me, they begged me to keep it a secret but I said no, I told them I’d tell everyone, I told them they’ll lose their scholarships, and then Kim just pushed me. They’re back in town, that’s why I sent the notes, to bring you guys back too!”

“Bailey!”

“You have to believe me, I had no choice, I had to pretend I died!”

“Bailey!”

“Im so sorry! I should’ve told you earlier, Ive just been so scared that you would get mad that I was the reason you had to leave Wells!”

“Bailey!”

“Yes?”

“Let's go get them locked up!”