A week before their high school graduation, Ellie's boyfriend walked her to her door and kissed her goodnight, just like any other night. But there was nothing ordinary about what followed. Austin disappeared without a trace, never to be seen again...
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I knew it would be quicker and probably give better results to have my brother run a search on Ellie. Although I was pretty sure he already had, several times, in fact. He had better equipment for it, that was for sure. But I wanted to do one myself. I kept repeating that it was because I needed to make sure she was safe, but I was kidding myself. If that was the only reason, my brother would do that much better than me. I wanted her safe, of course. That wasn't it. The truth was, I wanted to see her.
Those brief moments in St. Louis had stirred up what I'd spent years pushing aside.
It wasn't the first time I hated the situation I was in.
It was early Saturday morning. I sat in the kitchen with a hot cup of coffee and my open laptop, while Bear lay by my feet. We'd already been out for our morning run so he was chilling. The weather had been perfect. Crisp and clear. It was going to be a beautiful day.
My brother was sleeping. He wasn't normally a morning person, but I heard him when he went to bed unusually late last night so I didn't expect him to wake up for a while.
I typed Ellie's name and town into the search bar and pressed the return button. While it loaded I took a sip of the coffee. I liked it strong with just a tiny splash of milk.
Ellie's pictures hadn't changed on her social media accounts from the last time I checked, and the setting was still private. That was okay. The few public pictures were enough. I stared at her smiling face. Her skin was tanned with a smattering of freckles across her nose. Her light brown hair hung over her shoulders and she had a cat in her arms. She looked the same as I remembered but older. Still just as breathtakingly beautiful as she had been back then.
It had been ten years since I held her in my arms. How long would it take before the longing went away?
Seeing her in St. Louis had made everything worse. I'd been functioning just fine till that point, but after, it'd been hard. I realized how much I missed her and what we used to have. And that made me feel like a fool. How could I still miss someone I only knew for a couple of years in high school?
I was a grown man now. A lot had changed since my senior year of high school. I had moved on. I'd have to move on... But the truth was, a part of me would always belong to her, no matter how old I got. She'd been my first in all sorts of ways. We'd discovered what love was together.
My coffee was cold, so I got up to top it off. I'd just put the pot down when my brother stepped into the kitchen with his hair on end, dressed in an old pair of pajama pants and a wrinkly t-shirt.
"What are you doing up this early?" I asked, surprised to see him.
He grunted out something incoherent and shuffled towards the coffee pot. Bear nudged his leg with his big nose, looking for attention, which he got in the form of a couple of sloppy pats on the head.
