Chapter 33 – One Light Left in Heaven

By next morning, father and son were on their way to Colorado, Opie following Piney's bike on his own. The hope of finding Nelly was so real, Opie could taste it in the cold wind blowing down the desert highway. The house they were looking for in Cheyenne was in a poor, but tidy neighbourhood, where the lawns were neatly clipped and the small houses well-kept. It took a while before they finally found the one they were looking for. It was one among many nearly identical houses, all standing like soldiers at attention in long rows. They parked hastily and Opie rushed up the creaky wooden steps and onto a mosquito net porch. He banged his fist on the front door, barely stopping short from breaking it down. It seemed like forever before it was opened by an old man, who despite his age was tall and muscular. His hair was mostly gray, but for a few streaks of fiery copper.

"I'm looking for Nelly Hathaway, Troy's daughter." Opie said breathlessly, his throat tight and dry, "Is she here?"

The man squinted at him, "And you are?"

"I'm Piney Winston, this is my son Opie." His dad was right behind him and Opie felt a calming hand on his shoulder.

"Nelly is... my friend." Harry explained, "She's disappeared without a trace from our hometown and we are trying to find her. We mean her no harm."

"I don't care what you want with her," The old man shrugged carelessly, and Opie instantly wanted to punch his lights out. "'Cause she ain't here. Haven't seen her in a long while."

"So they haven't been around the last month or so?" Piney prompted smoothly.

The old man shook his head, "It's been more than five years since that bastard I'm ashamed to call my son came to visit with his little girl. I told him then not to show his face here again. And I'm mighty glad he listened. I don't shit gold bricks, you know."

There was no way Harry was going to take that for an answer. He craned his neck around the man's shoulder into a quiet house, "Are you sure? Can I have a look?"

"Are you deaf or hare-brained, boy?" The man's eyes glinted angrily, "I don't know where either one is, but sure as hell they ain't here."

The breath was knocked clean out of Opie. He didn't know what to feel, whether to accept or fight what he found. This place, this man was the last chance to find Nel. Opie's last hope was yanked from under him so swiftly, he felt like he was free falling without a parachute. The old man must have recognized the shock and despair in his face, because he added more kindly, "Why won't you have a seat on the porch, have a rest... I've got beer cooling in the fridge, if you'll have it."

Harry couldn't find words to reply. The world around him became a fog that he found difficult to navigate.

"Thanks, but we'll be going now." Piney grumbled, as he took his son by the elbow and pulled him to the stairs, "Sorry for the trouble."
"No trouble." said old Hathaway as his gaze lingered on Opie. "Hope you'll find her."

Harry staggered down the porch stairs, grief and despair nearly blinding him. He sat heavily on the bottom step, his shoulders slumping under an invisible weight, his head falling into his hands. He heard the step creak as Piney sat down next to him.

"I'm sorry, son," he whispered and put a comforting arm around Harry's shoulder, but said no more.

Harry felt his eyes burning, tears clouding his vision. He blinked and let them fall like heavy raindrops. "I've lost her, dad."

"We'll keep looking. Maybe we'll get a word from the Nomads." Piney tried to sound optimistic, but it was obvious he was not confident in his own words. "We followed every lead, left no stone unturned. There's nothing more we can do, Opie."

Harry watched his tears make little puddles on the cracked pavement under his boots. "I love Nelly more than anything, and now she's gone."

He half expected to be told that another girl would come along, that life would move on, but it seemed that Piney knew better and remained silent. They sat like that for a little while, then Opie wiped his face and took a deep breath, but it was still too hard to get up and move.

Finally, Piney pulled him up, "Come on, son, we've got a long ride home."

Opie had no choice but to accept what they found here - nothing. His heart ached as he walked away and the last ember of hope to bring Nel home was extinguished. He didn't know what to do next. His entire being lived and breathed this search for Nelly. Now that the search was over, he felt like he had lost his reason for living. Maybe life would go and he would find a way to live without her, but the truth was that without Nelly, there was only one thing he had left.

When they returned, Harry quit school. His head wasn't in it, and truth be told, he never cared much about it anyway. With Nelly gone, Jax became his rock and the club became their heaven. He was Opie again, Piney's son, a prospect and a car mechanic. He spent every day at the Teller-Morrow garage and every night looking for Nelly on the streets of Charming and as far as his bike would take him. In the darkest of nights, when sleep wouldn't come, Opie was afraid that some sick fuck took his Nelly to do cruel and unimaginable things to her. Those nights filled him with futile anger and heartbreaking misery. On better days, against all odds, he half hoped and half dreaded she had left him, overwhelmed by this new life they were supposed to start together. He hoped that maybe she was safe, even if away from him. But most of all, he grieved as if Nelly were dead. He didn't have a comfort of knowing what happened, or even having a marker to visit where he could pretend she rested, where he could talk to her. The only thing he had left of Nelly was the tattoo on his shoulder. The thing that was meant to be a declaration of his undying love, became instead a constant reminder of what he'd lost.

The time without her stretched like molasses, one day melting into another, each same as the one that came before it. He raged and raved, and drunk way too much, bitter with life and angry with whatever took Nel. Six weeks after she disappeared, on his seventeenth birthday, he went out to his thinking rock on Folsom Lake. It was something he did all the time, this torment he found in their special places, a perfect way to remember her and make more of those tiny razor cuts on his soul. He sat there until sun went down and moon grew fat over the lake, with a quart of whiskey and a joint for company. It was pitch black when he heard the disturbance on the beach, the sound of pebbles being crunched under someone's feet, and for a brief moment he thought it was Nelly coming to see him. And then Jax's blonde head popped up over the edge of the rock, and then the rest of his body followed as he pulled himself up to sit next to Opie.

"Come on, brother, if you're going to get high and drunk on your birthday, at least have the decency to invite me," said Jax, looking out over the lake.

"I want to be alone."

"Well, I'm here now." Jax's voice had an edge to it. He pulled the liquor bottle out of Opie's hand and took a deep swallow, then said, "Stop punishing yourself, Ope. You've done everything you could to find her. I know you loved her..."
"I still love her." he corrected his best friend harshly, then realized he had no reason to be pissed off with Jax, so he added quietly, "She was the one for me."

"I know, Ope... What you've had with Nelly was... something else." Jax's lips curled up in a small, sad smile. "God knows Tara and I will never be like that. Sometimes it made me feel fucking jealous..."

Opie glanced at this best friend and brother. Their eyes met for a moment and he could see that Jax wasn't just saying it to make him feel better. Just another razor nick on his scar tissue.

"I'd be glad to have a few beers with you or some JD any day, but you've been drinking steadily since you came back from Cheyenne." Jax sighed and continued. "You can't go on wasting away like this, brother."
"You've been there, Jax. Your dad's accident, then Cliff... You know what it feels like to lose someone..."

"All I can tell you is don't let it eat you up. You're not alone. You've got your dad, you've got me. You've got the club. We'll be patched in less than a year. Your brothers will keep you whole, Ope."

He studied Jax, thinking of whether he could be whole again, and deep down knew the answer. "Maybe, but that's not how it feels right now."

"I know, believe me." Jax stopped and swallowed hard. When he spoke again, his voice was heavy with tears. "When my dad died, Nelly told me that even if it hurts like hell now, time will make it heal. And in some ways it did. So give yourself time, man, and while you wait, don't be killing yourself. What would I do without my bro, my best bud, my partner in crime?"

Everyone had their pain. Everyone had cracks they were trying to patch up or hide. Even golden Jax, with his dead baby brother and father gone before his time. But if Jax could put himself together, so could he.

Opie couldn't help but feel a little lighter, "Guilt trip? Reall? Jerk." He gave him a little shove.

Jax shoved him back, "Asshole."

+0+

When the pain of finding nothing in Colorado dulled, Opie went to see Donna. He knocked on the Parkers' door, which was answered by a squat man with dark hair and a suspicious look in his eye. "Do I know you?" he asked.

"I'm Opie Winston, Nelly's friend. Donna asked me to let her know if I found anything..."

"You can tell me and I'll pass it on," The man was not going to let him in. Thankfully, at that moment, Donna showed up at the door and said, "It's okay, dad. I got this."

She waited for her father to leave, and he did reluctantly with last hostile glance at Opie.

"Don't mind him. He's been a little overprotective since Nelly disappeared." Donna half smiled as she led him down the front steps and to the front gate of their small yard. When they were far enough from the house and its open windows, her face transformed into an anxious frown as she asked, "So, what's the news?"

"We didn't find her. Nelly wasn't at her grandparents' house in Colorado. The old man said he hasn't seen her in years. It was a dead end, Donna."

"What now?" She whispered, her eyes tearing up.

"I just don't know where else to look... And it's driving me insane." He run his fingers through his short hair in frustrations, feeling his own tears threatening to spill over. Donna laid a comforting hand on his arm. It loosened his tongue and the words tumbled out before he could stop them, "Sometimes I hope that maybe this was her choice. Maybe Nelly left because she wanted to and she's getting on with her life somewhere."

Donna was shaking her head before he finished speaking, then said slowly, measuring her words, "I don't know if it makes better or worse, but I'm sure that's not what happened. The way she talked about you... She loved you. Maybe she would have left everything else, but not you."

Unexpectedly, Opie found solace in Donna's words, although they did nothing to ease his pain. He thought back to the night he spent with Nel, the plans the two of them weaved and the hope they had for the future together. He could never doubt that.

"That makes it worse." he whispered and bit down his lip. He took a deep breath, and decided it was time to go, "I'm sorry I couldn't find her, Donna."

"I know you tried. You did your best."

"Well, it wasn't enough." He said, studying the tips of his steel-toe boots and unable to face her, then turned to go. To his surprise, Donna followed to his bike, as if reluctant to let him go.

"You let me know if you hear anything, okay?" She hugged herself and rubbed her arms nervously.

"Yeah, if..." He got on his bike, wanting to get away.

"And listen, if you ever need someone to talk to... someone to remind you... " Donna wouldn't finish, then shook her head in anger, "Oh, forget it..."

Suddenly he realized that maybe this could be his lifeline. Donna was the one person who cared about Nelly nearly as much as he did, who knew her better than anyone else. She was the last elusive bond to the girl he loved with all of his heart. Maybe this was his only chance to hold on to Nel.

He looked into Donna's anxious eyes for a long moment, then nodded, "I'll see you."

She gave him a tense little smile and stayed rooted by the curb as he sped away.

The END.