Spotlight |h.s|

Eighty Three

Harry Styles

Aubrey's been gone for over a week now, and I've never felt more helpless.

I've checked every place I could possibly think for her to be. Every abandoned warehouse within a 60-mile radius is empty. I even thought they were being smart, so I checked the basement of my building and went to Aubrey's house.

Seeing Aubrey's house after everything was hard given the circumstances. I went to her basement to check for her after observing the yellow walls and dead roses decorating the kitchen, being there bringing me too many memories to handle at once. The empty hallway of bookshelves, the green couch, the orange record player, the empty food bowl for Charlie, the tub of Christmas decorations at the bottom of the stairs that stays there most months of the year for storage, everything.

I ended up having a complete fucking breakdown on her couch, all alone with none of the lights in the house turned on as I allowed myself to really wallow in the fact that she's gone. I wasn't alone when I showed up, but Zayn, Louis, and Jade gave me a minute once we were sure the coast was clear.

I filed a missing persons report, making this story spread like wildfire just like I feared. I know it was necessary to do, but that doesn't mean I don't hate it. Her face is in every headline, everyone talking about her disappearance and having the nerve to ask me to make a statement about it.

Even my manager has attempted to urge me to say something for an article. My response to that was to leave her, my acting career now hanging on by nothing but the name I've already made for myself with my past jobs. I have nobody representing or promoting me anymore, and I couldn't care less about it.

We called the hospital and asked them to check the cameras to see if they caught any faces or directions of driving, all of them being coincidentally blank at the supposed time of her disappearance. That leaves us with no confirmation as to who took Aubrey or where exactly they went with her.

I called Aubrey's moms, Ruby, and Niall to tell them everything that's been happening. Calling her moms from her phone since I didn't have either of their numbers saved to my own nearly broke me for the millionth time of this week, Dawn picking up so excited to talk to her daughter making it all the more painful. Instead of getting what she wanted, she had to listen to me explain her daughter's disappearance, then relay the message to Lani in tears.

They now have one daughter who's dead, and another who's nowhere to be found. I can't even imagine how they must feel.

Right now, I'm being forced by Zayn, Louis, and Jade to take a break from running all over the place. I think it's because I gave them a bit of a scare when I passed out from overexerting myself after not finding Aubrey at the suspected warehouse fresh out of the hospital. I've been running around like a madman every day, only getting about 14 hours of sleep in full over the past week.

Zayn and Louis are out looking to ease my stress a bit just like so many other people are at this point while I lay face down on the couch, Jade's talking to Charlie being the only interruption to the silence.

I haven't slept in our bed since Aubrey's been gone.

I can't bring myself to do it. Not with her side empty. I'd rather change my sleeping situation until we get her back than deal with the fact that she isn't on her side with her arms wrapped around me like she always is. It feels wrong on the couch already since I'm usually clung to her when I sleep here, so I can't even imagine how odd being in bed would feel.

My face is in the leather of the couch after forcing myself to sleep for the first time in over a day, the cold feeling of my rose ring hanging from Aubrey's necklace pressing to my chest alongside my usual cross chain from the position I'm laying in.