She hesitated. “Yes, I’m Emelia.”

“Uh, I’m Danielle. This is Allison,” I said.

“You are from school,” she said.

“Uh. Yeah.” So, she recognized us. Had we ever talked? For some reason, I felt guilty at the thought. Other than a name, I still had no idea who this girl was. I looked to Allison for help, but she returned to an innocent look. Sure, shove me into a mess and then expect me to clean it up. “Um… Are you all right?” I asked while stepping back out of the closet entrance to give her space.

She took her eyes off of us for the first time while she struggled to find footing on the mess. “Yes. Sorry.” She almost looked embarrassed. Why was she apologizing? We were the ones who committed crimes.

She moved out of the closet, into the light. She was tall and lanky, in the way you would expect from someone who has gone through a large growth spurt in a relatively small period of time. (I’d been there. Well, I was still kind of there now.) She slouched like she was trying her hardest to be as small as possible, though. She was dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and jeans. She had long, waist-length brown hair that was sticking up in several directions. (To be fair, that could have been from the hasty renovations earlier.)

After some thought, I finally placed her as the one who sat in front of me at the beginning of the year, in the seat where I now rest my feet during homeroom. I had never really acknowledged her presence. I don’t remember anything defining about her. She was just there until she wasn't.

I did not see any immediate signs of injury. Was she being locked in a closet? That would’ve explained her jumpy behavior. She pushed at her long sleeves with shaky fingers and glanced around, avoiding looking at us for too long.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. She sounded how I felt—intolerant to the silence. I refocused and hoped it didn’t look like I was staring. “Why are you here?”

Ah, yes. She had every right to ask that. In fact, I was already asking myself that question. The problem was that I was drawing blanks. “Sorry, we shouldn’t have broken in,” I said. Silence followed because, yeah, that much was obvious. Come on, I can push through the awkwardness. “This one senior—”

“We’ve been worried about you,” Allison interrupted with a push to my side. “We want you to come back to school.” So, she regains her voice to spout a lie. She’s not even in the same grade. She knows less than I do.

“I cannot,” she stated.

Cool. Just checking. Can I leave now?

“Will your parents be around soon?” Allison asked.

No, stop. Don’t get more involved.

“My father is not alive,” she spoke slowly, each word a careful choice.

Crap. I was thinking ill of the dead, too.

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Allison said. I may have offered a similar sentiment.

“It is okay. It happened a long time ago.”

Well, that was only half the question. “Your mom, then?” I asked. Her hesitance heightened my suspicions. I felt a little stupid treating her like a child, but it was like we needed to pacify a startled animal.

“Mother is—” she hesitated again. Her eyes darted around before settling on “Gone.”

Gone…? Did she mean dead as well, or—? “Is she working?”

She shook her head. Was that a headache I felt coming on? A lot more alarms were sounding in my head. I was going to warn Allison not to dig any deeper. This girl had an unusual storage of patience, but there had to be a breaking point.

It was too late, though. She picked up the interrogation in my sudden silence until Amelia’s soft voice said, “She said she would be back for me one day.”

A thick, uneasy silence fell between us and no one wanted to speak. How much hurt had we caused her by barging into her life and demanding answers? Emelia’s uncomfortable squirming was starting to feel contagious. Would it have been better to leave now with what dignity we had or to stay and try to repair any damage done?

“She left you.” I didn’t recognize the empathy on Allison’s face.

“She’s coming back,” Emelia insisted, the most animated I had seen her yet. “That’s why I can’t go back to school. I have to be here when she comes back. If they find out what happened, they won’t let me stay here.”

Yes, that was definitely a headache I felt coming on. How does something like this happen? There were a lot of questions going through my mind. I wanted to tell her how unreasonable this was, but I restrained myself. We had already overstepped.

The light coming from the windows was getting dim. Her expression was clouded by a muss of hair and darkness, but I could only guess that she was trying to communicate something like, “Please leave.” What were we supposed to do? I searched my mind for some comfy speech I could give her, but I had not really made it a habit of consoling abandoned classmates, to be honest. (A strike against my character, I admit.) Again, I looked to Allison, but her face was twisted into uncertainty.

“I'm sorry about your mom and about entering your house without permission.” I paused to gauge any reaction, then continued, determined to get through it. “But I think you should come back to school. I don't think it's good for you to stay alone like this.” Never mind what would happen if people found out she was without a guardian.

She didn’t respond. She probably knew what I was saying was right, but wanted to deny it. There was nothing left to say.

“We should go now,” I said.

Amelia gave us a short nod and led us back to the door. Before we left, I turned to look at her one more time. Her lips parted several times before saying, “You are not going to… tell anyone, are you?”

Allison gave me a pointed look. I grimaced. She seemed to understand, judging by the way a sigh deflated her entire body. Allison offered a soft goodbye and we left without another word.

We were quiet most of the way home, until I asked, “Do you think she knows what she’s doing is pointless?”

Somehow, she became the quiet one and I became irrational today. When we crossed back through town and back on the road leading to school, she said, “I guess I dragged you into this for nothing. It looks like we can’t report back to Ethan, after all,” she said. “Are you going to tell someone?”

I shrugged. It wasn’t as if I was putting much stock in that, anyway. “Not around school.” I paused. “An authority figure is a different story, though. Someone is going to find out eventually—better sooner than later. Her naivety kinda pisses me off.”

What had made her so determined to wait like this? How had someone not discovered her situation yet? How was she able to stay in that house? I wondered absently about all of it as we pedaled home. Maybe I would ask her next time.

Wait—next time? If I told someone, she would probably end up in a foster home in another city.

“Would you feel the same as she does?” I asked her.

“If, one day, my parents were suddenly gone? I don’t know, Dani. You tell me. You’re the one who has parents. I can’t miss what I never really had.”

She sounded pissed, but at least we were closer to normal. It wasn’t the same for me, though. Would I even care if my parents left?

We didn’t say anything until we reached Allison’s house. I could tell she was still upset, but I didn’t have anything to say that wouldn’t make it worse. Mostly, I just wanted to go home, sleep, and wake up to the lazy Saturday I was looking forward to before we left school.

Allison’s aunt was waiting for her and glared out the door when she opened it. I smiled back and left for my house on the next street.

By the time I trudged in through the front door of my house after practically throwing my bike in the garage, I was exhausted from everything. I would have just crashed in the entryway, if it were not for my eleven-year-old brother standing there.

“Where were you?” Jay said.

“Out with Alli.”

“Not fair! I wanna hang out, too!”

I patted his head as I walked by. “Mom and Dad home?”

“Yeah, but Dad’s sleeping.”

I checked my phone. Almost seven. By now, my stomach was growling at me, but I ignored it. I would ask if there was supper, but I already knew the answer.

“I’m headed to bed,” I said.

I turned down the hall to the stairs. On my way, I peered into the living room, which was illuminated by a faint glow from the TV. I continued up the stairs to my room.

I dropped my stuff in my room, kicked off my shoes, and hit the bed. I realize that normally this is where people say they could not sleep because they had a lot to think about, but sleep came quickly for me that night.