Title: Gone
Pairing: D/J
Summary: A drunken night changes Drake and Josh's relationship forever.
Disclaimer: This is an unauthorized work of fiction. Drake & Josh is owned by Nickelodeon.
Chapter 14: The Sighting
And finally, after hours of smelling cow feed, or cow shit, or maybe it is just the methane gas coming from the cows being sliced, diced and pureed into ground meat, I leave the stink of Hwy 5 and enter the Altamont Pass. Here the land divides irregularly into hills and valleys dotted with thousands of windmills. I feel like I've entered a twilight zone--in front of a gorgeous tangerine sunset are miles and miles of over-sized fans swinging their arms to their own beat like dancers standing in place. If Josh were here he'd be all giddy and make me stop to take a picture. He always saw beauty in things I would ignore otherwise.
Traffic is solid, every so often a car might budge forward a few inches, so it is nighttime when I get to Berkeley. Although Josh phone is off and I bet he is already asleep somewhere, I head straight to the campus's center plaza just to have a look. The area is wreathed in a thin fog from an ocean I can't see. A moist breeze curls and wraps the fog around the street lamps. I sit at the edge of a water fountain so lazily splashing. I look down at my map and read Sproul Plaza. I should have known he would come to this campus. He is here somewhere looking for a ghost, I know it. And my heart swells in anticipation of what lies ahead.
By now he has probably figured out this place isn't his mom. I remember seeing Josh's mother alive only once, I think we were in the fifth grade and she came to pick him up early. I barely knew Josh or cared of his existence but we all remember his mom. She stood tall, thin and poised, somehow stiller and more regal that ordinary women, like a true matriarch. And she was absolutely beautiful. Josh has not inherited his mother's unspoken authority, but in appearance he has grown to wear his mother like a signature. Mother and son share the same soft features, those handsome smooth planes and straight lines. I wonder what Walter feels when he looks at Josh now.
I get up, quietly fold the cellphone and drop it in my pocket and head downtown to find a nice hotel for us. I find a fancy downtown hotel with a crowded bar at street level. I ask for a Heineken but the bartender hands me a soft drink instead. Eating some "baked not fried" french fries and sipping my drink I stare people around me, all of them versions of people I already know. There is a Eric/Craig-like couple next to me, some too-smart/too-skinny Mindy-types to my left, far too many slacker Trevor lookalikes, and a blur of all the girls I've dated. Not one person who is like Josh, no one in the world is like him. I go to my room, pop a few of the painkillers the docs gave me, and pull the disinfected sheets over me. When I shut my eyes, I squeeze them tight and I try to dream of Josh and warmth, Josh and the sweet floral smell coming through his skin. I want to dream of comfortable and wonderful Josh, and his soft mouth.
--
The next morning I shower, put on a clean shirt and a pair of jeans without a blood stain, and walk out with cellphone in hand into the sidewalk. I send several pigeons wheeling, the flutter of their wings sounding like the clapping hands of an audience. Then, for the rest of the morning, our boy sends me on a wild goose chase. First he could be within any 5 buildings on campus, later in any fifteen stores that show up around his GPS location. The whole morning becomes a blur of coffee shops serving mocha, frappucinos, Vietnamese noodle shops with whirring ventilation and so many people. So many people! There are young and homeless, old and homeless, rich co-eds, hip students, and men in all fashions of turbans or baseball hats or skateboard wear, the women in everything from sleek saris or leather and studs, jeans or tight, tight vinyl. Not one of them Josh.
Around lunchtime I stop and regroup, who knows Josh better than I do? I close the phone and look at the options in front of me. Not the tattoo parlor. Not the copy shop. There are a few dingy looking restaurants, books and clothes stores, two jewelry stands where sales are taking place out in the street and a cafe with bright blue and white stripped awnings and plastic chairs and mismatched tables. Josh would either be in the used bookshop or maybe eating lunch. My stomach makes the decision for me and a slip into a restaurant. My waitress is nose ringed with a dark knitted cap and has tattoos running up her arms, a long necklace of keys hang of her neck. She can't be more than 20 years old. I look down at the menu as she asking me something but a cappuchino machine drowns her voice out. I have to look up at her and the window behind her. That is when I see him.
There his is, Josh, walking out of a used bookstore across the street from where I sit. He walks to the curb to wait for a light and squints up at the hazy, afternoon sun. I swallow my breath and stare at him, transfixed. My mouth goes dry. The voices of the waitress, other diners and clinking of their dinnerware grow faint while my breathing and heartbeat grow louder in my ears as if I were suddenly listening to them under water. The sight of him pulls at me like an instinct.
He is wearing a checkered flannel shirt I don't recognize but is better suited for this weather, the sleeves are rolled up to the forearms revealing thinner sharp-boned wrists. His usual jerky moments are slow and easy. I can tell he is tired, like he just walked the whole 600 miles to this point. Someone who didn't know him well might well have supposed he is just being cool teenager leaning himself against a lamppost. But Josh isn't cool, and even less so when he is trying to be--he is using the post to hold himself up. When the light changes he has to push himself off to get himself to walk across the street. He crosses the corner and for a moment is only two yards away from me as he passes the restaurant, we are only separated by a tall pane of glass.
He doesn't see me, but we are so close I can see his jaw bristling with a few days' worth of beard stopping at his smooth neckline visible from the button open at his collar. His hair, which he had lately been so careful to keep ordered and straighter, has turned back into scattered dark curls around his head. What concerns me is how the shadows around his eyes accentuate how his peculiarly clear eyes have gone blank, like shallow tins of water. He looks utterly and painfully exhausted yet at the same time freakishly lovely, just so beautiful.
What I am feeling is something I cannot put into words. I am happy, overwhelmed, numbed and relieved. The chaos in the air and in my heart align themselves; the innate pain and heartache surrounding everything seems, suddenly, less. I have to really hold myself back from giggling stupidly or jumping up and down on my seat like a little kid. I found him!