Read Hunt and Pray for Free Online

crazy.
    “What do you want from me, Chance?” He used the man’s name deliberately, trying to establish some kind of connection.
    Chance just sat there, some internal struggle plainly showing on his face but obviously unable to give voice to it.
    “Are you looking for absolution? Do you want forgiveness?” Drew’s voice was raw with emotion. “I can’t give it to you. I might be able to on my own behalf because I have a feeling you’re almost as much a prisoner as I am….” He trailed off and looked down at the picture in his hand again before holding it up. “But I can’t forgive what you’re going to do to them.”
    He curled his knees up and smiled at his family in the picture.
    “When they finally realize I’m missing, my parents are going to blame themselves for not knowing sooner. They’re gonna get on a plane, along with two or three other adult members of my family, and go to Colorado Springs to look for me themselves.”
    Drew could feel the tears pushing at the back of his eyes at the thought of his mom searching through every horrible place in the city looking for him.
    He pointed to the two girls in the picture. “These are my sisters. Anna is the older one. She’s gonna be so mad… mad at being left behind, mad at me for not staying at home in the first place, and mad because she’s at that age that everything just makes her angry.”
    He wiped the tears away and kept speaking. Chance still hadn’t moved a muscle.
    “Meg’s just gonna be scared. I missed two calls in two days from her on my cell once, and I got this call at work from her. I felt like an insensitive jerk. It took me twenty minutes to get her stop crying because she was sure something bad had happened to me. She couldn’t believe her big brother would just ignore her.” Drew shook his head before giving a watery chuckle. “Man, I felt like shit for days afterward, and I never ignored a call from her again.”
    Chance had pulled his knees up and rested his arms on them. His eyes never left Drew’s face.
    Drew didn’t know what it was that made him keep talking. He just needed to make Chance realize this wasn’t just something that was happening to Drew. He wanted him to know about all the people he was going to be hurting.
    “And this is my little man Brady.” He pointed out the smiling boy with messy brown hair and an innocent face that hid his mischievous spirit.
    “He’s so funny and smart, and it makes me real proud when Mom and Dad tell me he’s just like I was at that age.”
    He stroked his finger over Brady’s face as he spoke. “He probably won’t remember me when he’s older. Might be for the best actually, but damn, it hurts to think so.”
    Chance had let his head fall back against the door as he listened, but when Drew stopped speaking, he brought it up to look at him once more.
    There was a question in his eyes Drew didn’t know the answer to, so he kept talking.
    “I have an older brother too.” Drew smiled at the thought of him. “Aaron’s gonna hit town ready to kick ass and take names, but I wish he wouldn’t. His wife’s gonna have her baby in the next month or so, and she needs him there with her, not halfway across the country looking for me.”
    He shook his head. “Maybe Dad will be able to talk some sense into him, but I doubt it. Those two are like oil and water sometimes.”
    Drew pointed to the last two people in the picture. “These are my grandmothers—Sally and Katherine. They’re as different as night and day but get along like crazy. You will never meet two sneakier, more interfering, loving women in your life.”
    He held the picture close to his heart. “Sally’s gonna be looking after the kids at the farm while my folks are away, and Katherine is going to be trying to call out the National Guard to look for me. They were the first two people I told about being gay after my parents. I expected Sally to be upset. She’s a church-going woman, and I know how some of