She Got Lost

- 31 -

About a couple hours later, and everyone decided to head home. Peter offered to stay because he was worried. I could tell by the way he would pause a millisecond longer to investigate the look in my eyes to see if I was okay. I told him I was fine, and he should go home and get a good nights rest. We all would need it for tomorrow.

As I turned away, thinking the conversation was over, I felt a hand quickly grab my wrist, and spin me around quickly. And in about a nanosecond, I was engulfed into a large chest. Almost instantly, I could feel my body melting into the touch.

"Everything's gonna be okay." Peter said, muffled by my hair.

I nodded my head, but when? When would everything be okay?

After the list of people at the house was down to two, Brandon and I made our way to our rooms. "You alright?" He asked as we were walking up the stairs.

"I'm gonna be." I said as honestly as I could without worrying anyone else anymore than I already had, and I saw Brandon nod his head at my response.

"What time's your mom going to be home?"

"four."

"Great, so no pancakes in the morning." Brandon said sighing as we got to the last step. I smiled a bit since I know how he's started to love my mom's pancakes in the morning. I found, he also likes to grill and he's pretty good at it. Brandon's a simple kind of guy.

As I reached my door, I said a quick good night to Brandon and opened my door.

I walked into my room and shut it, but I stood in that exact place for at least three minutes just thinking.

Was the text related to Julia?

I remember walking over, sitting on the edge of my bed, plugging my phone in, putting it on my night stand, and laying down. After a grand total of a minute and forty-six seconds, I reached for my phone and looked over everything. Hundreds of posts about Julia passing. One from Lauren. One from Kyle. The words written sinking into my chest more and more.

Julia's really dead.

I kept scrolling through until a found another one. The post was a picture of Julia smiling, holding up an ice cream cone. Under the picture, was no caption, no long heart felt message. Empty. My eyes wandered up a bit to see who had made the post. Dylan. I could feel my heart slowly sink into my chest even more, if that was possible.

It would take an idiot to not notice Dylan's liking in Julia. It was as clear as day. Some times, I would wonder how Dylan and Chris could even be friends, considering the fact that Chris was dating her on and off for about four years. Still, that didn't change the twinkle in Dylan's eyes when he would look or hell, even talk about Julia. Dylan had his weird moments, yes, but he's grown more comfortable to this new town.

Dylan! I thought. Wasn't he going to call me?

I decided I was going to text him since he never called like he said he was going to. I wasn't sure how to approach him, whether it was in person or on the phone. I started simple.

Me - Hey Dylan did you want to call me?

No response. I waited a couple of minutes for him to reply, but there never was one. I decided to try again, but in a way I thought was more fitting.

Me - I'm going to go to bed soon, but I'll leave my phone on in case you need anything.

I quickly send the text, and put my phone back on the nightstand. Staring up at the ceiling, thinking about all of the awful things creeping into this town, made my skin crawl. I thought about the last text I got from the unknown number over and over again. I knew I was going to tell Mark about it the second I wake up tomorrow. The text could mean a lot of things, yes, but one of the biggest ones rushing through my head was that it all could be related to Julia.