All We Will Never Know

Chapter 20 - Cordelia

Cordelia was wide awake when the sun came up, her cell phone in her hand, waiting for a sign. She needed something, anything to let her know that her suspicions were unwarranted. So far, she was being significantly let down. After talking to Peyton that night, she tried to sleep it off. It'll be fine, she told herself. We will know more in the morning. As many times as she closed her eyes and tried to drift off, the pit in her stomach continued to wake her up. At around four a.m., she finally gave up hope.

Something felt wrong. Really wrong.

After the party the night before, Peyton was able to get a hold of Alexis, thankfully. Soon after that text was sent, Cordelia received the same one. She had breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that their friend was okay. Then, she wandered back into the party to talk to Macon.

"Hey," she had said, tapping him on the shoulder.

He turned, his eyes glassy. "'Sup?" he drawled, taking another lug from the bottle in his hand.

Cordelia grabbed it from, hoping to keep his attention. "Where's Kass?" she had asked casually. "I figured you all would show up together tonight. She never misses a good party."

Even though he was drunk, she couldn't forget the look in Macon's eyes. "She's not home," he said through gritted teeth. "She ditched me, dude. She ditched us all." He snatched the bottle out of her hands and tipped it back again.

It didn't add up.

"What do you mean she's not home?"

Macon shrugged, falling back onto a couch. "I stopped by her house to pick her up. And she was gone." He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and fumbled with his lighter.

Cordelia didn't remember how she had ended the conversation, but she could still hear his words echoing in her head hours later.

She was gone.

It had been a long time since they had wondered about Kass's whereabouts. She was always right there, front and center. She craved attention. If there was a place to be seen, to be noticed, Kassidy wouldn't miss it for anything. But Cordelia couldn't lie to herself. This wasn't the first disappearing act that she had pulled, and the last had ended with Kass back home safe and sound after a mere seventy-two hour escape.

A few weeks after Will's sentencing, the girls had gone over to Kassidy's house for a scheduled Friday night in. They were going to watch cheesy rom-com movies and binge on snacks and cheap wine. They arrived, arms full of their bounty for the night, yet when they knocked on the door, it was Kass's mother who answered. Catherine Edwards was almost never home, so when they noticed that her eyes were swollen with tears, they knew something had happened.

"She left," Catherine had cried. "I came home, hoping she would be happy to see me. And she stormed off, calling me names the entire way out. I thought she would have ended up with you girls." She had peered around them, as if Kass was playing hide-and-seek in the shadows.

Catherine wasn't able to put out a missing person's report until Kassidy had been missing for twenty-four hours. They spent the next few days searching the streets of the neighborhood, knocking on doors, calling any person who might have seen or heard from her. After a harrowing wait, in which Cordelia suspected they were going to end up as side characters in a True Crime series, Kass's dad called. She had been with him in Chicago the entire time, and her dumbass mother was too consumed by her own life and worries to consider calling him in the first place.

But this was much different. First off, Cordelia knew that Kass and her father had been in an ongoing fight for a while. Second, no one saw her leave. The last thing they all knew was that Kassidy was sitting in her giant home all by herself, sulking due to Will's arrival back in town and the weight of guilt on her shoulders. And then Macon claimed she was gone.