Page 45 of Lost
They had found his sister.
His heart soared. The world came back to him in a rush of sound and colour, everything both louder and brighter than before. His legs got their strength back; his mind laser focused. When he looked up at long last, it was to find Brendan right in front of him.
“Are you still with me?” he asked, holding Lysander’s phone back out to him. The boy nodded, taking the thing and shoving it back into his pocket. “Good. Think you can walk? My car isn’t too far away.”
“Are you kidding?” Lysander asked, unable to stop the grin that spread across his face. “They found my sister. I could run a damn marathon!”
Brendan laughed.
“Come on, then,” he said. “We’ve gotta get you home, kid. You’ve got a plane to catch!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It was times like these Zack was glad for his connections. Instead of waiting around for the next flight scheduled to go to Wisconsin, he was able to schedule his own, and less than two hours after he had called his son they were in the air.
They had the small plane entirely to themselves. Brendan had driven them to John Wayne Airport with the promise that he would let the rest of the guys know what was going on, and Zack hadn’t had enough words to thank him. His phone had been switched off after that, so there were no interruptions to his new plan. His reaction upon finding out had been much the same as Lysander’s — he’d been speechless for a long while, unable to comprehend what Maria was telling him, but then he’d come to his senses and immediately set to work.
Georgia had declined his invitation to come at first, but he had insisted. He wanted her there with him when he finally met his daughter. After all, she was Dakota’s step-mother. Lysander seemed glad to have her along too, which Zack took as a sign of having done the right thing. It had felt like it at the time. Why shouldn’t all four of them be together at the first chance they got? They were a family.
Maria had offered to come too, to drop everything she was working on and be there on standby in case Zack decided he needed her help, but he’d declined. He didn’t want either of his kids feeling overcrowded while they had their reunion, and he didn’t need an extra audience when he stepped into that hospital room either. Meeting Lysander had been a bit of a mess. He was more prepared this time, and he wanted to do it right.
They had been in the air for an hour, but it felt like so much longer. Zack was restless, eager to reach Madison. From there it wouldn’t be too far to Columbus Community Hospital, which was where he’d been informed Dakota was. Maria hadn’t known the details when she had called him, only that the girl had been found in the early hours of the morning, unconscious in a gutter. There was a police officer with her who’d been informed of Zack’s impending arrival, but Maria couldn’t tell him more than that. Didn’tknowmore than that. It was frustrating, but…it was better than nothing.
Lysander stared out the window for the most part. There was a smile on his face that Zack knew wouldn’t be leaving in a hurry, and he couldn’t keep his hands still through his excitement. It was as though the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. He was finally free of having to worry about his sister.
While Lysander had found his comfort zone, Zack had been given a whole new reason to be nervous. He wasn’t worried about having another teenager in the house. Things with Lysander had been great, so why would adding Dakota to the mix drastically change anything? But he found he was nervous about meeting her in general. In some ways, he felt like he knew her already. Lysander had told him so many things, like how Dakota had always been more like Zack than her mother, how she would appreciate hearing the early songs more than he ever could...
But she didn’t knowhim. Not really. She only knew him the way the media portrayed him — as a rockstar, and probably one who drank and smoked a lot. But that wasn’t him. Not anymore. He wondered whether she would like therealhim. What if she was expecting more? What if she felt that his media persona, the person that she knew from the Internet and the interviews, was better?
Georgia slipped her hand into his, squeezing tightly.
“Stop freaking out,” she said softly, as if she’d heard every word of his panicked inner monologue. “What’s the matter?”
He felt stupid for even thinking it. It was a strange feeling, worrying over whether somebody was going to like him, when he had spent more than a decade of his life conditioning himself not to care what people thought.
“What if she doesn’t like me?” he blurted out before he could stop himself.
He sounded like a whining school girl. Georgia’s lips parted in surprise. Lysander turned away from the window, the look on his face incredulous. Zack looked between the pair of them.
“You’re kidding right?” Lysander said. “She already does.”
“She doesn’t even know me.”
“Maybe not,” Lysander agreed, “butIdo. And I know her. She used to tell me what she thought you would be like, and she was dead on. You’re everything that she ever wanted you to be, and even if you weren’t she would like the you that I’ve come to know. So stop worrying.” As an afterthought he added, “I’ll bet she’s just as nervous as you are.”
Zack doubted that.
“She’s always been excited to meet you, too,” Lysander added, looking to Georgia. “I know you there’s a lot of fans who don’t like you, but Dakota was one of those people who used to defend you. She used to spend hours arguing with people online, telling them they shouldn’t be hating you just because you’re married to Zack. And then she’d spend the rest of the night complaining to me about how these people were idiots.”
When it came to the wives of the band and their fans, it was anybody’s guess what was going to happen. Some of them loved them; others were indifferent. But then there were the people who outright hated them, who weren’t afraid to tell them to their faces, and they made Georgia nervous. They were the sole reason that she always chose to keep her distance after the shows, waiting inside or on the bus until Zack was done meeting and greeting.
So Zack knew how much it would thrill her to hear this. And indeed, a small smile crossed her lips at Lysander’s words.
“What’s she like?” she asked suddenly, taking Zack by surprise. “Your sister.”
It was the first time she’d shown any interest in Dakota. Lysander answered her question without delay, always willing to tell people about his twin. If there was sibling rivalry between them, Zack was yet to hear of it. As far as he knew, there was nothing but love there.
He settled back into his seat, content to leave his wife and his son to their bonding. They were easy around each other now, laughing and smiling the way he’d wished they would from the start. It warmed his heart to know that they were growing closer. He didn’t know how he would have dealt with things if they hadn’t.
