Fox wears a necklace every day. It’s simple, just a tiny golden cross on a thin golden chain. Despite its insignificant size and appearance, he can feel its immense weight against his skin all the time. It beats insistently against his chest, torturing him, a tiny and heavy reminder of his guilt.
It isn’t his.
It belongs to someone he knew and loved. She always wore it, every day since he met her two years ago. He doesn’t know why she wore it, since she wasn’t especially religious. But that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that it belonged to her and she cherished it and kept it close to her heart, so he will too.
She is gone.
She disappeared without a trace and he doesn’t even know where to begin looking for her. He knows what happened to her, but no one will believe him. No one ever believes him. They call him ‘spooky’, call him a lost cause, call him a waste of potential with no hope of ever being a success. All because he believes.
He loves her.
He loves her more than as a best friend, but he never told her. He loves the way she was always determined to prove him wrong, the way she was reluctant to blindly believe, the way she always turned to hard facts and science while he jumped to the less obvious explanation, the one no one wanted to believe but knew deep in their hearts to be the truth. He loved her and she frustrated him. In a way, he loves the way she frustrated him, the way she challenged him to support his wild theories. They complemented each other perfectly. She was the yin to his yang, the day to his night. Without her he is lost.
She wasn’t the only one.
He lost someone else close to his heart. His younger sister disappeared when he was just a boy. She was pulled from his family and his life forever. There is ample evidence to suggest that she is long dead. But he can’t accept that. Her disappearance created a hole in his heart, but she gave him a purpose, a reason to believe, a passion that drives his life, a determination to find the truth. But now, he doesn’t know if he can forgive himself for the consequences of searching so hard and believing so much.
It’s all his fault.
The one he loves was taken from him the same way his sister was years ago. He pushed her to believe as he did and tried to make her see the world as he did. He dragged her into his quest to find the truth. And now she is gone because of him. He never wanted any of this to happen.
He has a new quest now.
He has to find her. How can he live with himself if he doesn’t? How can he possibly live without her? She was taken because of him. Every day he carries the guilt, the horrible, heavy, deadening guilt that he is responsible for all this. He will never rest until he sets down that weighty burden. He will even set aside his past mission and passion to find her.
Because he has something to tell her. Something he wanted to tell her for so long.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry and I love you Dana.
And so Fox wears a necklace.