Missing [ST]

Thirty

Broken. It was the only way to describe him. Steven was a broken man, and not only did Leah hear it, but she saw it too.

She didn't want to believe him; it had never been her intention when she found him in the garden. It was ignorant of her to keep such a tight mindset, but she didn't want to be wrong and for him to be right after everything he had put her through.

She was willing to listen, but that was as far as her gifted chance went.

To have her opinions changed so suddenly the very moment she sat down next to him, every trace of ignorance gone, was not what Leah had bargained for.

Barriers guarding her sole beliefs were disassembled, and the knowledge she had spent restlessly collecting was close to meaningless. Her mind was an empty slate, ready to be etched into, and the words started writing when Steven started retelling.

The memories she shared with him, she remembered in even more vivid colours than before, but they did not fill her with warmth and comfort. They were striking and poignant, and they lapsed her into a juggle of details that she had never quite forgotten about him and the night they met.

Things he didn't know, and things she didn't understand.

And for the ones she wasn't part of, she could imagine with such clarity it felt like she was suffering with him.

It was crazy to listen to, crazier to picture, and even crazier that Leah believed him from start to finish. Everything, from her grandpa and the reference to his ten o' clock cigar, to all of the coincidences that had led her to Steven, right now.

To learn what Steven had lost, and the days of pain that he was left with, and that it was all in an everlasting hope to find his little girl, was enough to break her too.

Leah always knew there was something distant in his eyes from the moment she retrieved her phone after her night out on the eighteenth of September, but she didn't know that it was so much more than that. That the wound was deeper and had merged into a daunting shadow that followed him for every second he lived and breathed. A weight of grief that he couldn't escape because he couldn't forgive himself for what he had done.

Steven had made a lot of mistakes, she knew that, but Leah was beginning to think that she didn't have to be one of them after all. He didn't need forgiveness when he was so desperate for an understanding, and whilst she didn't think she could give either for his worth, she was too involved not to try.

Steven was broken and Leah, after everything, wanted to fix him.

"Hey, you okay now?"

She offered Tom a smile as he joined her at the kitchen island.

"I'm a lot warmer," she replied, huddling into a fresh jumper, and lacing her fingers around a steaming mug of hot chocolate.

Tom gladly returned the smile.

He was a distraction, with his green and black chequered flannel that was unbuttoned over a long sleeve, the murky mix of blue and greys in his eyes and his naturally blonde hair that fell fuzzily around his ears in shorter layers, but had grown out. It just didn't stop her retreating back to Steven with his contrasting dark features and surprisingly, Joe.

Leah brought her mug to her lips, taking a slow sip so she didn't burn her tongue.

"Can I ask you something?" she asked, eyeing him curiously through the cloud of steam.

"Yeah, of course."

"Were they close, Steven and Joe?"

Tom wasn't so enthusiastic with a reply. He was picking at the cuff of his shirt sleeve, a loose thread pinching two fingers together.