After I’d put the letter in the mail, I’d felt calmer. A lot calmer. Enough to read a book. Attempt, anyway. My mind kept drifting back to the words I wrote her. I kept getting more and more embarrassed.
I mean, for some unknown reason, I had the urge to pick up a romance novel. I’d read a little and then a situation would pop up for the characters, and then I’d wonder what Lynn and I would do in the situation if we were in the story, and then my mind went to the letter and how she was going to respond to that… embarrassment and then I went right back into reading.
And then it repeated.
“Honey!”
“What is it?”
Kain and Karen had gotten a call earlier and rushed out without saying anything other than that they’d likely be back later.
So basically, ‘hold down the fort because we need to go somewhere’ is what they said, in different words, but still.
It left just me and my parents in the house this morning. Jane wasn’t visiting this weekend, and Kat was out with Noah, presumably on a date. I was sitting in the hallway next to the living room, right at the entrance, my back to the wall and my legs stretched to the other side. Mom was now sitting at the counter that separated the living room from the kitchen while Dad was over in the other room, working on the laundry situation. She’d just come back inside after getting a call on her phone.
“Come here! Jane just called.”
I only gave a short glance up as Dad peeked out of the room, only moving when he saw the look on her face, one that I couldn’t see from this angle of the room. I shrugged and went back to reading.
If only fantasy could be reality, I thought to myself as I let the words on my page fill my mind. Of all the random books to pick up, this one had childhood friends meeting again when they’re adults. Falling in love and whatnot.
It was so hard not to imagine it as Lynn and I.
“What news is there?”
“It’s worrying. Karen and Kain already know, but we’ll have to spread the news.”
The book in my hands was instantly forgotten. I didn’t know what page I was on or even the last sentence I read. I held it open anyway, pretending that I was still reading, my gaze on the words that I wasn’t seeing anymore. All of my attention was now on this ‘worrying news’ that Jane had called to tell them about.
It was connected to Kain and Karen leaving, rushing out.
My mind went straight to all kinds of bad scenarios.
And why wouldn’t it?
Jane lived in the Nealon Pack. If Kain and Karen were called somewhere, and they already knew about whatever this was, that meant they’d gone there. They rushed off to the Nealon Pack…
And Lynn… Lynn lived there.
If they were in trouble?
If something bad happened?
Just what was going on?
“What is it? What happened?”
I felt Mom’s gaze land on me. I leisurely flipped the page on my book, flicking my eyes back and forth over the less interesting words. When she looked away again, my gaze snapped up. She put a hand on Dad’s arm, and with a low worried voice she uttered the words.
“Lynn’s gone missing.”
I froze. My eyesight drifted back down to the book in my hands. To the page two of my fingers were still holding.
“Lynn Blakeley?”
“Mhm. Nobody knows where she could’ve gone.”
It wasn’t a matter of my blood running cold, or overheating. Everything just seemed to stop. The world was tilting on its axis, thrown off kilter, falling apart, piece by piece. Chunk by chunk. Crumbling before my eyes.
Lynn was what?
Lynn was…
Lynn…
Tears rose in my eyes, blurring my vision as I gripped the book in my hands tighter and tighter until my fingers were throbbing and pale.
Lynn.
“When?”
“Sometime in the night or early morning. Blakeley is all out of sorts about it. Apparently, she felt someone leave through the barrier as it sometimes happens with patrol groups in the night, but didn’t think anything of it until they couldn’t find Lynn.”
She… left?
“Do they think she was taken? Or coerced?”
“They don’t know. Some of her stuff is gone, but she didn’t say anything to anyone.”
I had just sent… I was going to go…
I was going to go see her. The page ripped under my thumb slowly. But as much as my appreciation of books wanted to slap me for harming one, I couldn’t bring my hand to relax.
Damn it all! Why did I wait so long?!
My chest ached.
If I’d have gone there sooner, if I wasn’t such a coward…
What if something happened to her and I never got to see her again?
The silence in the room made the ripping of the page louder. It was then I realized that they’d stopped talking. They were looking over at me, I noticed, when I calmed down enough to sense their gazes.
“…Will?”
I rose to my feet and brushed off my shorts, closing the book gently, sounding and looking a lot calmer than I felt inside.
“Is it alright if I head over there? Maybe I can help look around? Find something they didn’t see?”
Mom looked at me for a moment and then nodded once.
“Alright. Be careful.”
“I will.”
The one thing… no matter what became of our relationship in the future, no matter if my happiness was intrinsically tied to hers, no matter if I remained lonely and heartbroken forever…
This was the one thing that I never wanted to happen.
Lynn.
Disappearing.
I walked into my room and grabbed my phone and a bag I normally carried between packs. It had a few changes of clothes and a first aid kit among other things. It was basically a ‘just in case’ bag.
Dad came in to have a short chat and then I was out the door.
Though I ached to run right over there, I hopped into the driver’s seat of one of the pack SUVs. If anything, Kain and Karen could drive it back while I stayed there.
I pulled out onto the road and tried to control myself as I made my way there, to the Nealon Pack. I hadn’t been there… since I was twelve, but I knew the path. In fact, it was one I couldn’t ever forget.
My hands gripped the steering wheel as my mind raced.
Lynn… where did you go?
If you ran, then why wouldn’t you take me with you?
Comments (0)
See all