—Black Elk

Harsh gusts of wind whipped our faces as soon as we walked out of the Regal Inn, leaving with it every trace of hope that Julian had to connect with the woman who gave birth to him. It was a bitter reminder that the outside world had little mercy for the kindhearted, and as such, delighted in breaking the spirits of anyone foolish enough to feel hope.

I knew the man next to me, yet I didn't know him at all. We couldn't have been inside that rancid hotel room for more than half an hour, but somehow his face carried the strain and indignant defeat of a betrayed man many years his senior. Julian said nothing as we quickly walked down the cold, dark streets, and I lacked the courage to mutter a single word to mollify him.

Three blocks before arriving back at his apartment, it began to rain down on us. Tiny, soft, intermittent droplets quickly turned into rapidly falling pellets, welting our faces with determination. It was as if the world was mocking us, mocking him, and leaving the surfaces of our skin as cold as the blood that ran beneath them.

I took it, though, and even felt a sense of relief as the freezing, wet particles masked my silent, salty tears that streamed down my cheeks onto the pavement below.

He should not have been the one to solace me, so I refused to alert him to my distress by making any noise. It was not my loss, and I would've never claimed it as my own; I cried only for him. He moved quickly, not noticing me falling far behind, with the immensity of my remorse weighing down my limbs like bags of bricks.

The apartment was freezing when we got inside, and Julian made a beeline straight to the thermostat. He pressed some buttons, then slammed them, and finally hit the meter on the wall with his fist.

"Piece of shit!" He kicked the leg of a chair in the kitchen, then hurried over to the fireplace, setting it aflame.

Julian walked away again, pulling his phone out of his pocket while stalking toward the bedroom. Once he reached it, he shut the door behind him, and I gingerly sat on his couch, unsure of what to do or say. Wet strands of unruly hair clung to my clenched jaw, but I felt there was no use in moving them. I was already a wreck, and might as well have looked the part.

"Yes, my name is Julian. I am a resident at your property. I need to be connected to the maintenance department immediately." I heard his muffled voice behind the bedroom door. "I'm well aware of what day it is, I have an emergency. My heat is out and it's—"

Moments of silence passed before his voice shook me again.

"Now listen to me, and listen to me very fucking well. I pay dearly for this flat and it is freezing outside. My boiler needs to be serviced immediately."

More silence.

"That's not my problem. You need to find somebody and send him to my flat."

My favorite voice in the world was nearly unrecognizable with stress and angst.

"Nobody at all?" A heavy sigh. "And when do you suppose they'll return to duty?"

After several seconds, I heard Julian's phone smash on the ground, then indiscernible cursing and grumbling. Motionless, I sat on his couch, watching the flicker of the fireplace, and its ashes elevating momentarily, only to fall back down to their blazing deaths. With red eyes and a hoarse voice, my Julian finally appeared in the doorway.

"We'll be without heat tonight and tomorrow." The tranquility of his tone didn't match the angry red lines in his beautiful eyes.

"That's okay," I croaked. The lump in my throat was impossible to swallow.

"I'll try to get on the line with another contractor in the city, but I don't know who will be available now." I glanced at my phone, showing nearly eleven o'clock, on the cushion next to me.

"It's okay, Julian," I said as softly as I could. "I'm warm now."

"You're sure?" He took a few hesitant steps toward the couch.

"Yes," I said hoarsely, and suddenly felt too ashamed to meet his eyes.

Julian walked back into the bedroom and, for a moment, I felt the throbbing pain of rejection, until he emerged again carrying thick blankets towards the couch. He placed a heavy wool throw over my lap and sat beside me, leaving too much space. Minutes passed with only the sounds of crackling flames before us and rain pelting the massive windows around us.

Finally, he turned to speak to me.

"I'm so sorry you're having to see me like this." His face was in his hands. "I am such a lousy, terrible person. I'm ruining the last of your time here."

I scooted over soundlessly, sharing the blanket with him. "No, Julian. You're everything that's right in my world. You don't have any reason to apologize. I should be the one saying sorry."

My arms wrapped around him, and though he didn't hug me back, Julian nuzzled into my shoulder, with his arms limp at his sides.

"Why did we have to find her?" His breath was hot on my skin. "Why couldn't we have just found my dad instead?"

"Maybe we still can." My fingers smoothed his damp hair.

"I don't know how much more heartache I can stand, Brooke." He wiped a sleeve across his raw, wet nose and sighed. "But maybe if I get it all over with at once, it will be easier."

"He could be good," I speculated. "He has to be. Anyone in the world would be better than her. You've already been through the worst. It can only get better from here, right?"

"I don't know. Maybe." I caught a glimpse of his resiliency in that moment and felt awe at his strength.

I could make this up to Julian, I thought. After what happened with his mother, I had to.

If Eileen had told Riley about Julian, it was quite possible that Riley had been looking for his son for years at that point. Nothing would have come from his searches, though, with Julian working under the table at a pawn shop, and living dismally in a storage unit.

Perhaps Riley had seen or heard of Julian's recent catapult into worldwide fame with Ascend the Stars, though. From the way Eileen described it, Riley had been rightfully enraged at her for keeping Julian a secret from him. That could only have meant that Julian's dad would've been open and willing to meet his son, I concluded. And possibly bandage the wounds of many years of neglect.

"Can you bring me your laptop?" I kissed the top of his head. Though we were long removed from the villa, I could have sworn the scent of sea salt still lingered in his locks.

"What do you need it for?" He moved from the warmth of the couch to retrieve it, then gently placed it on my lap.

"I'm going to find your dad," I promised. Somehow, I would. This time, I thought, I wouldn't involve Laina or Wes. Not unless we absolutely needed to, and not without Julian's explicit permission.

"I don't know if we even should." He shook his head next to me in doubt and defeat.

"What's the harm in just looking?" I asked before firing up the machine.

"Alright." He lay his head on my shoulder. "Let's just look."

Two different search engines were bringing up tons of pages with the keywords , but none of it was relevant information.

"Could your dad have a more generic last name?" I teased my Julian in an attempt to lighten his mood. I wasn't sure if anything could, but I at least tried.

I felt the muscles of his cheek move on my shoulder, forming a quiet smile that I couldn't see, but knew was there. Anyone else would have been knee deep in self pity at that point, but he was smiling somehow.

A small smile, yes, but smiling nonetheless.

I could not describe in words how much I loved him.

Another twenty minutes of fruitless searching passed before I had an epiphany. I couldn't figure out how I didn't think of it before. Quickly, I navigated over to the websites of several newspapers in and around London, searching for Riley Moore. Had Julian's dad ever been in a local paper for anything, we should have been able to find him that way.

The first two results were not what we needed. One was about a Riley Moore in his early twenties—a soldier returning home from combat. The other was about a seventy-four year old Riley Moore—some well-known, small storefront owner, who was closing his shop after many years of serving east London. The third result I almost skipped, but Julian asked me to click it.

Riley Moore, 52, of Camden, passed away 19 December at St. Thomas Hospital in London after a valiant battle with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

Intently, I stared at the photo of the man. He was dressed in a deep navy blue suit, crossing his arms with a squinted smile, and leaning against a heavy looking desk.

Moore's funeral will be held on 23 December at 10:00 a.m. at St. James's Church, where his life will be celebrated by family, friends, and colleagues.

I was barely skimming the text. I could not seem to pry my eyes away from the photograph of the man. He looked so bizarrely familiar, and it was making me incredibly uneasy.

Moore is predeceased by his wife, Charlotte, originally of New York City, to whom he had been married twelve years before her passing. Together, they owned Blank Slate Publishing House, whose ownership has since been inherited by their daughter, Elizabeth Moore, 19, by whom they are both survived.

In an instant, the wind was knocked from me—with such force that the feeling would not have been much different had an eighteen-wheeler barreled into me at full speed, with lights flashing and horns blaring.

Except, this feeling came with no warning.

No lights.

No noises.

Just crushing impact.

I took the unexpected blow in stride, however, without so much as a gasp from my lips. If, in that moment, I disintegrated into a volatile mess like my emotions willed me to, Julian would have followed suit, and I could not have had that.

I could be strong like he needed me to be, or at least fake it, for his sake.

How had I not seen it before? Julian had his mother's hair and eye color, but the rest of his features were that of his father. Everything—from Riley's angular jawline and wider forehead, to the tone of his skin and the fullness of his lips—became glaringly obvious as traits that Julian had inherited. He was a spitting image, really. When I pictured Julian much older, Riley was not far off from what I had imagined.

We had seen him just days earlier.

He had spoken to us.

Why hadn't Riley introduced himself?

Julian's only opportunity to know his father evaporated, as the man from the London Eye Ferris wheel—warmly dressed in a long trench coat, freshly pressed slacks, and shiny shoes—exited into an excited crowd after the ride was over.

Riley said he wanted to see the city covered in snow, just as everyone else had, for the first time in recent memory. It would prove to be the last time he ever saw the white dusting over his beloved London. If I had my days sorted correctly in my mind, Riley died the day after we saw him. By the day of his funeral, Julian and I were already on our way to the Maldives.

I hoped, so foolishly, that Julian would not remember the man, and therefore could not recognize Riley as his recently deceased father. But one glance at Julian's face confirmed what I already knew to be true—no matter how much I wished for the alternative, any alternative.

A single, heavy tear sluggishly trailed down Julian's reddened cheek, carrying with it the yearning for peace that he so deserved, but would never feel.

Not after that night.

Rain swallowed the dark apartment, flames swallowed the ashy firewood before us, and despair swallowed the man next to me.

I exited the browser window and shut the computer screen, then immediately wrapped my arms around Julian's shaking shoulders.

"I'm so sorry, Jules," I whispered into his ear, as if the volume of my voice would've made the reality any easier for him to take. The reality being that, within a matter of a handful of hours, Julian had found both of his parents, only to lose them again.

I could see Julian as a child, sitting on his disgusting bed at the orphanage and looking up to the stars, wondering. Years of imagining what meeting his parents might've been like had finally culminated in the biggest disappointment, and the heaviest burden, of all. Because of my asinine need to pretend to be his heroine, I had caused the only man I'd ever truly loved more pain than any person should've been able to take.

The sole light at the end of the rapidly closing and darkening tunnel was that Julian had a half sister—named Elizabeth, according to the newspaper's online article. At last, though, I had learned my lesson and would make suggestions no longer. No promises could be made for her character, or if she would even know about, or want to meet, Julian. Although it came to me the hard way—the hardest way—I had learned that terribly unfortunate reality, firsthand. If, how, and when Julian decided to contact his sister would've been up to him, and I would not intervene whatsoever.

Finally, I comprehended that it was not my place.

As awful as it was that Julian was without his genetic family, I couldn't help but to think that he would've been better off not knowing anything about them at all. What he found out that night did nothing to pacify the wistful dreams of the terrified young boy within him—dreams of a family that might have been able to begin the arduous journey of mending his broken pieces into some semblance of normalcy. Quite the contrary, the small collection of dust particles that had represented what remained of his hopefulness was swept up and discarded out the open window, and it was nobody's fault but my own.

In the deepest depths of my abdomen, a harrowing, churning sensation overcame me as Julian stood from the couch and wordlessly went to the bedroom, alone. As the door quietly shut behind him, leaving me out of his arms and locking me out of his heart, the weight of what I had caused came crashing down on me. It was none of my business, and Julian had tried to amicably go along with it all, even though he was not ready.

How could I have been so naive to think that he was?

Or to think that I knew what was best for him, in that way?

I was a stupid, stupid girl, and I hated myself passionately for it.

In front of the fireplace, I dissolved into the soft fabric of the sofa and sobbed soundlessly. I wanted to tell Julian that we weren't so different... that my real dad had died, too.

I wanted Julian to know that nightmares had plagued me some nights like they did him—nightmares of a thick, black haze and my mom screaming.

It would've never been exactly the same, but we shared a similar loss between us. In the moment, that seemed so selfish to bring up, and the last thing I wanted was for him to think I was trying to take any attention away from his own pain. His pain that I surely added to with my own idiocy. Had I never gone to London, none of this would have happened, I thought.

Selfishly, I walked over to his door and noiselessly placed my ear against the wooden frame. From within, I could hear no signs of distress. At once, I longed to hear him yelling or swearing.

Anything would have been better than the silence.

It was quite obvious to me that he wanted to be alone, but my hand still trailed the doorknob, hovering over the grooves, with my need to be by him nearly outweighing my respect for his desire to be alone.

If I were good enough for him, I thought, he would want to be with me now more than ever.

If I were good enough for him, I believed, I would have followed his lead, instead of making him follow mine, in a situation so personal.

If I were good enough for him, I knew, I would have been able to hold him together after all was said and done.

Instead, he was the constantly streaming water from a faucet that I couldn't turn off. I cupped my hands together, desperately trying to hold him, to contain him and keep him whole, but I couldn't stop him from slipping through the cracks of my fingers and spiraling into the black nothingness of the drain below.

Without knocking or trying to enter Julian's bedroom, I went back to the couch and lay down under the wool blanket. Though I kept it over my aching body, I felt I didn't deserve its comfort or warmth.

I stayed alone, lost within the heaviness of my own mind. With every awful image replaying itself until I thought I might scream.

But no sound came from my lips, and no more tears fell from my eyes.

The alleviation of tension that came from allowing myself to cry had not been earned.

I wouldn't sleep a single wink that night, but at one point, I was still curious to see the time. Thirty minutes past midnight, the screen of my phone read. A new year.

Happy new year, indeed.

1. "Strange" by Charlotte OC

2. "Worlds Apart" by Seven Lions feat. Kerli

3. "Again" by The Eden Project

4. "Death of a Dream" by The Eden Project

5. "Sleepless" by Cazzette (Prinston Acoustic Edit)

6. "Hey Jude" (cover) by Tyler Ward & Kurt Schneider