(1 day after Nolan's crossing)

Nolan rubs a sweaty palm onto his jeans, his glossy new passport gripped between his other hand and the steering wheel. The Peace Arch's stoic chalk-white outline peeks up above the queue of cars ahead of him at the Blaine border crossing. The monument's Canadian and American flags wave to each other like old friends.

He can't believe he's finally here, on the cusp of fulfilling an aching desire carried with him since he was a little boy. This direction, this sense of purpose, almost negates the hollow disappointment of being ripped from Clara's world.

Almost.

Still, he's made his decision. It wasn't the wrong one. Not for him.

The queue crawls slowly northward. In one of its many lulls, a woman wearing a border patrol jacket and oversized sunglasses appears next to his car. She flashes a gold badge at him as she taps on his window. "I'm going to have to ask you to pull over, sir."

Her voice is nearly inaudible through the closed window. He understands by reading her lips, rather than by hearing her words. Again, he thinks of Clara.

Trying not to panic, he edges himself out of line and parks where the woman directs him to. This is just his luck. Not even over the border and he's already been waylaid.

The woman again taps on his window, this time on the passenger's side. She lowers her sunglasses. "Let me in, Nolan."

Nolan. Who does this woman think...

He examines her quizzically. His hands slide off of the wheel as recognition slowly sinks in. A floral dress, thick black hair bouncing as she walked, an arm tucked around him.

How is this possible? He was supposed to search the wilds of Canada for her, comb through old newspaper articles for any trace of where she might be, maybe hire a private detective with his nonexistent funds. How is it that instead, she's tracked him down before he'd even crossed the border?

He stretches across the torn-up seat of his truck and unlocks the door. She hops in, giving Nolan's disheveled appearance a once over. "You look like hell."

Nolan raises an eyebrow. "Seriously? It's been over fourteen years since you've seen me and that's what you're going to open with?"

"Sorry for the charade." She ignores his accusatory tone and instead gestures towards her official-looking outfit. "I knew approximately where you'd be, but I still had to check a lot of cars. Plus, I wasn't sure if you'd recognize me. You did, though, didn't you?" The corner of her mouth turns up slightly.

How can she be so casual about this? "How... how did you find me? Where have you been?" His eyes narrow, his voice lowers. "An apology for leaving would be nice."

"You're entitled to that." She bobs her head. Her hair is still as dark and thick as the day she left. "But first... don't you want me to tell you why there's two of you now?"

He cups his hands over his mouth. "How did you... how could you know that?"

The whole two Nolans thing has been impossible to wrap his head around. He knows it happened, he was there when it did, after all. But the details elude him. He remembers being pulled in two different directions one moment, and a sensation of blissful relief the next. In his head is a shaky image in which a shadow of himself slips through a crack of light. And now his newfound mother is claiming to know something about it. How can that be?

Nolan shakes these thoughts off. His hand travels from his mouth to his hair where it sticks in his short tangles. This is all playing out like a disjointed dream.

"It's okay, son." His mother takes his hand and guides it back to the wheel. "You know more than you're prepared to know but not nearly enough to make sense of it all. I have a lot of explaining to do, so let me do it. Turn the car around and let's go talk."

Nolan's hand doesn't move towards the ignition. She sighs and pats his knee. "It will be better if we get away from all of this traffic, go someplace quiet. Trust me."

He scowls. "Why should I?" Has she any idea the damage she's done to him, to Marcus... to his father, even?

She ignores him... again. "Go on, Nolan. Drive."

He wants to refuse to do what she's asking, at least until she's begged and pleaded with him to forgive her for leaving him. Instead, feeling defeated, he starts the car and follows her wordless gestures as she guides him away from the highway, away from the border, away from the all-encompassing mission of having to search the northern wilderness for her.

On a long stretch of bumpy road lined with towering firs, his mother finally answers the question he'd forgotten he'd asked.

"In order to tell you everything, I'm going to have to show you something."

Nolan can't help but laugh. Could she be anymore cryptic? "Show me something like what... like how you managed to do your disappearing act when I was a kid?"

Her eyes grow wide. Instead of appearing shamed, she seems almost... pleased. "Yes, that's exactly right! I'm going to show you how to disappear from here."

Nolan glares at the road. Great. Just when he's settled on being present-really truly present, his mother is going to give him the ultimate crash course on avoidance.

He grips the wheel and fumes. This reunion isn't going the way he's always planned it in his head. Finding his mother had been his sole driving force since leaving the hotel. With one knock on the window, everything he'd been focused on has been negated. Instead, she'd decided to reintroduce herself to him like a punch in the gut.

"Just what is it you're dragging me out into the middle of nowhere to show me, Maria?"

She wrinkles her nose. "I'd prefer if you called me Vira. That's my Vitalist name."

"Your what now?"

She sighs a long and exasperated sigh. Nolan racks his mind, trying to remember if she was this easily annoyed by him when he was a child. "I was born Maria Viraneath Alexandra Romero and when I married Josef, I tacked on Reyes as well. Your father knew me as Maria, but I go by Vira now."

Well, that figures. All his life he's only known two fifths of his mother's name. This is strangely unsurprising considering he doesn't seem to know even one fifth of who she is. "Back to my question. Why are we in the middle of nowhere?"

"The middle of nowhere seemed like a good place to ditch this pile of rust you're driving. As for what I'm going to show you, pull over. You're about to find out."

A/N: One of the big questions hanging over us from UNSEEN was whether or not we were going to hear from Nolan A (aka Canadian Nolan) ever again. Well, now you know! The Nolan who leaves Clara to find his mother will play a big role in UNSPOKEN, in fact.

At long last, Nolan is with his mother again. What do you think of their reunion? And surprise...Nolan's mother seems to know things about him that we would not have expected. Any guesses as to what's going on here? Maria/Vira uses a word in passing: Vitalist. Expect to see that word crop up again...

In UNSEEN's Q&A, I did say that Nolan A couldn't see his other self, but I've amended that. I think He got a glimpse, a short confusing glimpse, but a glimpse, none-the-less.

There are a lot of great reasons to enter contests here on Wattpad. They can be a good writing exercise, for one. I have found that the most rewarding part of entering contests, however, has been the new people I meet. I'll be highlighting several of these fellow contestants in the chapters of UNSPOKEN.

The first of these is the lovely and talented @BettinaMelher. Bettina was a runner-up in the November UNSEEN Flash Fiction Contest (Yay!). I've also competed in two contests with her (Fill in the Fear and ScienceFiction's Challenge 8) and believe me, she's a formidable opponent! Not only were her entries to those contests wonderful, but her stellar entry to another contest, BELLOW THE ICE, won her an honorable mention, and her short horror story, MAZE is an absolute must for your reading list. She's also just published her story DIVIDE. You can read the 1st several chapters on her profile page.