I Hate You More

A Life Without Her

Renee

"How long has she been missing," The woman in the police uniform asked firmly as she pulled out a notepad and a pen. I wasn't paying attention to her, I was focused counting the circles on the carpet below us, "Ms.Steven. When did you recognize that Harlen was missing?"

"I'm sorry," I sighed, finally giving her my attention. It was surreal to think that this was happening, "uh. So the last time I saw her was a little over two weeks ago but, I didn't realize that no one knew where she was until yesterday."

"Why didn't you call us yesterday?" The officer questioned shortly.

"I don't uh," I shrugged, "I don't know. I guess I was just waiting for her to call, or for it to not be true."

I sniffled while I watched her take down notes.

"What did she look like?" Another uniform said from beside the one taking notes.

"What," It took me a moment to process what they were saying, "Oh, yeah. Here."

I walked over to my wall and took down a hanging picture of Harlen and I at the opening of 'Ink Assain', and handed it to the man, my hand shaking. He took it and sent me a look of sympathy.

My head turned to the left as Remington came up beside me and placed his arm on my shoulder softly, "Phoebe and Jamie are on the way. Shy just dropped the guys off and is taking Gianna to stay back at the house while all of this is going down."

"That's probably for the best," I said weakly, "she doesn't need to be around for all of this."

"So, have you got anything?" Remington asked, focusing on the fact woman with a notepad.

"No," She said simply, "all we know is that she was supposed to be here, and never came. She called and told you she wasn't coming. There's not really much of a case."

"No, but her dad's the one that called. No one's talked to Harlen herself." Remington defended.

"But they've talked to her dad," The lady shrugged, "she's not in danger. There's nothing we can do."

"She is though?" Remington whispered.

"What?" I said.

"Her dad," He took a deep breath, "her dad hits her."

I could feel my heart in my stomach, and my eyes widen, as I looked at him in disbelief.

"He what?" I snapped.

"Do you have any proof of that?" The woman asked coldly.

"What do you mean do we have any proof," I yelled facing her, "I haven't seen my best friend in weeks, and it seems as though the only person that knows where she is is her father who beats on her. That's not proof? Why can't you do something?"

Remington let me yell in the woman's face before pulling me back, and keeping me behind him.

"Yeah," The woman officer scoffed, "we don't have anything here. Sorry."

"Yeah, you seem like it." Remington rolled his eyes while she closed her notepad, and walked out of the front door.

"I'm sorry about my partner," The male cop said, "she's extremely insensitive at times."

"No kidding." I chuckled dryly.

"I'm sorry," He sighed sadly, "but she's right. Without proof that her dad has harmed her, and no previous charges of any kind on him, there's nothing we can do. Especially since there was a call telling you that she wouldn't be coming here."

I pressed my palm to my forehead, and tried my best to hold my tears in, "So you're really not going to do anything?"

He just looked at us for a moment, his gaze of pity switching from Remington to me to Remington again.

"I'll keep an eye out ok? If you find any new information please let me know. Here's my card," He said handing me a small white rectangle with his name, and number on it, "I can't make it a priory but, I'll do what I can."

I read the name. Darren Stevens.

"Thank you." Remington nodded.

He then led the cop out the front door and closed it behind him.

"They're not gonna do anything." He shrugged looking past me to where I'm assuming Emerson, and Sebastian were standing.

"Really," Sebastian scoffed pulling a nod from Remington and I, "that's fucking bullshit."

"Yeah if she was a white, blonde girl I'm sure they'd be all over this." Emerson growled.

"What are we supposed to do now?" I asked, finally letting my tears go, which warranted Remington to pull me into a hug.

"We'll find her ourselves," Remington sighed, "we don't need them. We know Harlen, and we can find her on our own."

"Rem," Sebastian sighed, "we can't just drop everything, and look for Harlen. As much as we all want to, we have jobs, and lives."

"So what," Remington let his voice raise. He stopped himself from yelling again, and moved his focus on to the ground, "she's everything I have. I don't want a life without her."

"We can't-"

Emerson cut off the eldest brother.

"Two weeks," He said, "we can look for her for two weeks. If we don't find her by then, we have to stand back and let the police take care of it."

"Which they are won't," Remington scoffed, "but, ok. Deal."

——————————————————————————
Remington

"Just a couple more days."

"No," Sebastian said, "I'm sorry. We've looked for a month when you agreed on two weeks. We have to start a pitch for this album so we can take it to the label and start recording it."

"Why do you want to just give up," I scoffed, "you don't even want to try."

"That's not true Rem," Emerson said. He spoke again when I gave him a look of disbelief, "seriously I want more than anything to find Harlen but, we can't go broke looking for her. We have to keep living our lives."

"I don't want to give up on her," I sniffled as my body slumped into my living room chair. Harlen was sitting there just months ago, "she wouldn't give up on any of us. This is so fucked."

"I know," I couldn't see who was on the arm of the chair due to my head being in my hands but, I could tell it was Emerson by his voice, "and I'm so sorry that this happened, and you know we would fix it if we could. Why don't we just take a couple more days to process all of this, and then we can pour everything into the studio?"

He rubbed my back as Sebastian spoke up, "We have two songs. We only need one more to send to the label to know whether or not we're going to keep working on the concept we have now, or if we have to start a whole new one."

"When do we have to have it in?" I asked.

"By the end of the month." Sebastian sighed.

His answer was hesitant because he knew it would just add stress to all of us. I was trying so hard not to give up hope because, deep down I knew she was still out there, and that she needed our help but, I was starting to try to get used to the fact that I would never see her again. She was the first person I genuinely cared about (besides my brothers) in a long time. I missed her when she was gone, and I listened to what she said. Now she was gone, and it felt like she'd be gone for good. I thought it hurt for her to hate me because of my words but, now I knew the only thing worse was not knowing how she felt at all. All I wanted was to see her, and talk to her, and hold her.

But maybe, I would never get to do that again.