LOST GIRL

Chapter 9

"What class was it that you failed," Mila asked.

"Remember Mr. Lopez," I replied.

"Mr. Lopez?? I'm pretty sure he failed everyone. He barely even taught anything but expected us to know everything," she replied, "his class was upstairs, room 220."

    We headed upstairs. The school looked the same on the outside but on the inside it seemed as if they had done some recent repairs. The walls were freshly painted with stripes to match our school colors, burgundy and gold. They even put a huge painting of an Eagle in the middle of the floor of the main hallways. The walls were lined up with trophy cases for each sport that they had. In a small town, sports were the only thing exciting we had to look forward to on a Friday night.

"Your school sure does love their sports, huh," Brian said.

"Yeah, but it didn't look like this when we went here," I replied.

    We made it to class 220. And sure enough, Mr. Lopez was still there. He didn't have a class, so we knocked on the door to see if we could talk to him. He looked surprised to see us.

"Zara, Mila, what a surprise," he said, excitedly, "how's life treating you ladies?"

"Well you know, life is life," I said.

"It's going," Mila replied.

He turned to Brian, "I'm sorry, I don't remember your name, were you a student of mine?"

"No sir, I'm not from here," Brian replied, reaching his hand out, "I'm Brian. I'm Zara's boyfriend."

"Nice to meet you," Mr. Lopez replied, returning the handshake, "welcome to Crestville High."

"So what brings you ladies back to my class? Need a quick science lesson," he said, as he chuckled.

"No, we were just visiting, you know. I just wanted to see the memorial for my sister as well," I said.

"Yeah, I'm still sorry about that, Zara. The one semester that she was in my class, I was out the whole semester because my wife had heart surgery. I sure hate that I missed getting to know her. She seemed like such a sweet soul. If there's anything that I can help with, just let me know," he said, sincerely.

"Zalia was in your class," I asked.

"Yeah, but unfortunately I never got to meet her. There was a long term substitute that semester," he said.

"I didn't know that, thank you so much, Mr. Lopez," I said.

    We left to exit the school. I couldn't understand what the purpose of the note telling us to go back to the school was for. There was clearly nothing there for us to pick up on. Besides, she wasn't kidnapped from school anyways. I began to cry because I was further away from finding out where she was than I was from the beginning.

Brian noticed my tears, "babe, we are going to figure this out. I promise," he said.

"But what if we don't Brian? What if she never comes home? What if, whoever is sending these dumb ass clues only wants to fill me with hope, just for entertainment. What if she's already dead."

"Zara," Mila started.

"Don't talk like that, baby," he said, pulling me into his arms.

That enraged me, I pulled away, "what don't y'all get? This is all for shits and giggles. My sister has been gone 3 years, she's never coming home. DON'T Y'ALL SEE THAT? The letters, the riddles, it's all a part of a sick game. Whoever this person is never had intentions of releasing Zalia from the jump. They just wanted to laugh at my pain," I said.

    I stormed off to the car. I couldn't bear the thought that whoever it was, was out there watching every second of this. Whoever it was really made me out to be a fool. Whoever it was got exactly what they wanted. Whoever it was, still had my sister and will never let her go.