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SAYA ──────────── ' in the past tense '
—JAKE HAD TO HAVE FORGOTTEN that he lived in Australia; Summer break in the nation wasn't over the course of July and August like the countries in the northern hemisphere, but rather through December and January. It was barely mid-July— school was still in secession for them— but Jake was nowhere to be seen.
Saya had tried to reach out to Jake numerous times throughout the week and a half that he'd been missing for, but each call she made was sent to voicemail faster than the last. It truly felt like he was on summer vacation and his parents had locked his phone away.
At first, Jake's absence in her life simply seemed to be another side effect of whatever had caused him to be on-and-off with her all throughout June, but slowly other students at Brisbane Arts started to ask questions, and those sediments resting at the bottom of her stomach had cemented into rock.
Something was wrong. She should've acted on that instinct when it first broke off within her.
It wasn't until three days ago, when she'd walked into school on what she anticipated to be an average Tuesday, that Saya truly understood just how intensely Jake disappeared.
A student (one she didn't recognize at all, though she quickly realized that was because he was from the Preforming Arts program) had approached her in the halls before classes started and asked her if she'd seen or heard from Jake lately. She apologized and told the boy the truth— that she hadn't been able to contact him in a week— before asking the kid a question herself.
Apparently, a plethora of Jake's social medias were wiped from each respective platform, and calling him was a lost cause for all his other friends too. It was then, as that unfamiliar boy showed Saya all the missing SNS accounts and call logs on his phone, that she realized how great of a deal this was.
Jake had utterly vanished. And not only that, he'd left a group of people the size of a militia waiting for any sign that he was alive. As they waited for a signal, any enemy could have the perfect opening to come in and wipe the army out in one foul swipe. Jake truly had no idea what he was doing.
"Please, call me when you get this." Saya had left twenty-seven voice mails to Jake's number in the past 11 days alone.
She shoved the phone back into her pocket before returning to her usual lunch table. Lily and Alex were bickering as always, but for the past two weeks, Mateo had joined in as well. It seemed like Jake's disappearance had taken a toll on him just as much as it had on her, and if her friend group could provide solace from his silent best friend, then she was more than happy to have Mateo at her table.
Saya slid into the empty space beside Lily, the atmosphere shifting the moment her legs were under the table.
Other people in the cafeteria were still loud as ever, but the silence enveloping their singular table was all she could hear.
