Chasing Footprints

Rebuilding

This was a very childish thing to do, since I had called him every day in the first week of his disappearance. He didn't answer when I'd called him that week; he never did. But somehow, as I listened to the ringing of the phone, the hope I'd lost a few days ago started to come back.

"This is Henry. Please leave a message."
I sighed and waited for the beep. "Hey, Henry. It's Lucy. Obviously since your phone didn't go straight to voicemail, you're keeping it charged. Things around here are getting pretty weird, and your story was on the front page of the newspaper. They're turning this into some kind of scandal. Can you believe that? Regardless, our picture's on the front page of the paper, so that's cool. We're pretty much famous."
I stopped. It was time to get serious.
"Henry, I really miss you. When you said you were scared a few days before you left, I shouldn't have brushed it off the way I did. And when you told me you loved me I should've told you back. So I guess it's now or never.

"I love you, Henry. Some part of me isn't sure how friendly I mean that, or if we'll be friends when you come back... but I do love you. My life is so different without you and it's only been seventeen days. Being friends with you is really all I've ever known, and I guess you're a huge part of my identity as a result. I don't know if that's good or bad. But the hardest part is trying to rebuild my identity when such a big part of it was ripped out."

My voice was shaking. "Henry, I don't know who I am anymore."

I ended the call and almost started to cry, but I stopped myself. I was done mourning Henry's loss, because I had really lost myself. But the good thing about losing yourself is that you can rebuild yourself, and that's exactly what I planned to do.

That night, going through my room, I collected everything that Henry had given me, or that I had gotten while I was with him, or that I had gotten as a result of him. I put these things in a large box to be stored in my closet. I ripped posters off of the wall, pictures off my bulletin board. I threw flannels and t-shirts into the box. I tossed DVDs and old CDs and even a few phone cases. I threw out his hand-me-down headphones. There was a framed photo of us in sixth grade, grinning with braces teeth as we held up our science fair project. I stared at that for a moment before tossing it too.

Many more things were eventually thrown in the box; so much so that I had to retrieve another small one. Once everything was gone, I sealed the boxes off and labeled them HK with a Sharpie. I shut them into my closet and turned around to look at my new room.

It was bare. There were the key pieces of furniture, but it was devoid of all decoration. I was missing about a fourth of my wardrobe. My light blue walls were empty, my shelves joined the club.

Rebuilding would be harder than I thought. I decided to sleep on it.

I woke up the next morning, barely realizing where I was. My room looked so incredibly different now that all traces of Henry were wiped from it. A small part of me missed having his memory around, but the rest of me realized that this needed to be done.

Henry, I don't know who I am anymore.

It was raining that morning, which seemed appropriate. As the pitter-patter of fresh precipitation greeted my roof, I decided I'd feign sick for today. My mother, who was becoming more lenient as the days went on, bought my faux headache and nausea and left for work.

The first thing I decided to do was sleep in. It was a Friday, which meant sleeping in would happen the next day anyway, but I craved dreams and nothingness. I cuddled back up into my blankets and fell asleep gently, dreaming vividly and loving every second.

As the day went on, I decided to do things that only I genuinely enjoyed. I drove with no destination in mind, but as soon as I realized this was a Henry thing to do, I drove to the library and went through old yearbooks from my school that went back several decades. This is something that I found fascinating; Henry found the library creepy and our school grotesque.
I treated myself to mint chocolate chip ice cream, my favorite flavor. I put on some Wellingtons and splashed in the puddles in the gravel road. I drove to the nearest stretch of nowhere and admired the flat land and abundance of grass.

Around 3, I headed back home. It had been a busy day, and I was tired. In order to prevent sleeping behind the wheel, something that was extremely unlikely that day but scared me nonetheless, I turned the radio up on high volume.

"The Chief of Police has announced in a statement this afternoon that the police department has exhausted many of their leads pertaining to the Henry Kallinger disappearance, despite their collaboration with the FBI. Anyone with any helpful information whatsoever regarding the case is encouraged to call the following hotline..."

I slammed on the brakes, sending a jolt through me. What was I doing? Was I burying my best friend when he wasn't even surely dead? I couldn't do this to myself. Just because Henry left a hole in my life didn't mean that I had to give up on him. But it certainly wasn't my responsibility to do the police's dirty work.

I dialed the hotline. "If you're trying to find Henry, why don't you ask the guys who hang out in the cabin at Whistle Creek at night?"