I Know What Love Is by Whitney Bianca Page A

there, and sure enough, I finally found her. In a picture taped to the bottom right corner of the mirror, my girl smiled back at me, her bright eyes flashing and her hair dark around her face. She had her arm around the blonde and she wore red devil horns on her head. At the bottom of the picture 'Jo and Chels, Halloween' was scrawled in black.
    She'd lied to me.
    Her name was Joan.
    It was like the clouds opened up and the rain poured right on my fucking head. I hopped the bar and grabbed the picture off the mirror without another thought.
    “ Hey!” the bartender yelled behind me. “What are you doing?”
    “ Taking a souvenir,” I murmured, tucking the picture in my back pocket.

Chapter Nine
     
     
    T wo years.
    Two long years.
    I hadn't seen Elliot, in the flesh, for two years, although I'd seen flashes of him everywhere I went. He was lingering at the end of the block when I drove to the grocery store. He was sitting in the corner at the coffee shop. He was in the shadows beneath my window at night. He was always there, always at the edge of my subconscious.
    I left Austin the day I escaped, packed my clothes and left everything else. I threw my bags in my car and was gone within the hour. I retreated to the safety of my parents house in Dallas and I didn't speak about Austin.
    Ever.
    When I showed up on my parents' doorstep, looking like hell, there had been questions, of course. I told them that I'd been in a bike accident and then went upstairs to my childhood bedroom and slept for a week. When I finally emerged from my hibernation, my body was healed and I went on with life like I'd never met Elliot. I got reacquainted with a boy I went to high school with and we began date. It got serious quickly and, before I knew it, we were engaged. For awhile, it was like I was completely normal again. And yet, I wasn't. I never would be again.
    A year passed, uneventfully, and I let myself relax a bit. I told myself that the more time that passed, the less likely it was that he would find me. Unfortunately, a nagging need to find him had started pounding in my brain. In the middle of the night, I would get this crazy urge to know exactly where he was and what he was doing.  In my mind, I went over the road map of Austin, trying to remember exactly where his house was. For some reason, I lost all sense of direction the second I got on the city bus. Then I transferred to another bus and my wrecked brain couldn't keep up.
    At the time, I didn't care if I knew where he lived. I just wanted to get away.
    So I began taking trips to Austin, every few months so it wouldn't seem too suspicious. I would drive around, trying to find his subdivision. I would drive around for hours, looking, but I never found it. It was for the best, I told myself one night after a failed attempt. I knew I was becoming obsessed with finding Elliot. I knew it was unhealthy.
    But I couldn't stop.
    The next time I drove to Austin, I started looking for construction sites. When I found one, I would park across the street and study at every face. I would memorize every burly man in a dusty hard hat, looking for him. I knew he worked construction, or at least he had when he'd kidnapped me. The day he left me hanging in his garage, he'd had a hard hat in his hand as he left for work. That's really the only thing I knew about him for sure, other than his first name.
    What was I going to do when I found him? I had no idea. The plan was not well thought out. It was just my way of doing something . No one knew what happened to me. No one knew that Elliot had gotten away with everything he'd done to me. I didn't want him to get away it. I wanted him to suffer.
    It was crazy, and I knew it. But I couldn't stop myself.
    This was when I made my second mistake.
    On a bright and sunny April day, I finally found him. After years of seeing him everywhere, he was suddenly right in front of me. Well, across the street, but it was still too close for comfort. My body