East Of Eden

Chapter 16

Nathan's Point Of View

Sitting in the living room with Holly's family and Holly's friends with police is to surreal for me to handle. I sit on the couch next to Nick and Amy. The morning is very slow and my mind is going a mile a minute. My hands are shaking and I feel pale and sick to my stomach. I'm worried as hell. Holly didn't come home yesterday. Her truck isn't here and a lot of stuff is missing from her room.

The police ask us all a billion questions. They ask me why I think she might have left and I told them what I think. I think she left because I'm such a fucking idiot. I told them what I did and that's when she left the school crying and that's the last time anyone has seen her. Police sent out an Amber Alert, but no one has responded. Her phone is disconnected and she hasn't used her I.D anywhere. She hasn't left any trails anywhere and I'm extremely scared. I didn't even sleep last night. My eyes feel heavy and dry. Amy notices and she goes to the kitchen and returns with a cup of coffee. I thank her and take a sip of the warm bitter beverage.

A few hours pass by and one of cops that has been here all morning flings his laptop out and Holly's parents hand him their most recent Christmas card. The cop attaches a scanner to the laptop and scans the photo. Within seconds the picture of her beautiful face is processed on the laptop screen. The cop finishes a missing person paper and sends it through email to Holly's parents. "Nathan?" Holly's worried mother asks. "Yeah." I sit up at her command. She hands me a printed out missing person paper. "Can you go down to the Dock's Printing and make around 500?She asks handing me her credit card. "Of course." I assure her.

I ask Amy to join me and we drive away from Holly's house. We sit in silence for most of the ride when she speaks up and says, "Do you feel guilty?" "Yes." I simply say. "Me too." she adds. "Of course I feel fucking guilty." I rub my hand over my face. "I asked out another girl and then she took off crying and now she's missing."

After we load the box of paper in the trunk of my car I pull Amy gently near me. "What?" She looks at me confused. I rest my hands on her shoulders to get all of her attention. I lower my head to meet her eye level. Her breath starts to hitch and she inches closer to me. I pull my head back slowly. Did she think I was going to kiss her? I say, "We need to look for her." Disappointment slightly flashes across her face, but quickly recovers. "What do you mean?" She asks. "We need to look for Holly. Wherever we need to go. Hotels, friends houses, relatives houses. We can even drive down to Chicago to go see if she's staying at her cousin Jenna's." I explain. "Okay. We can do that. Maybe driving to Chicago is a little extreme. I mean we don't even know if she's there. And to drive several hours there and back just to see the possibility of her being there." She protests. "Amy, I don't care. You've become one of my good friends and you're Holly's best friend. She's the love of my life and....I need to find her." I stammer through the words. "Okay." She agrees. 

We go back to Holly's house and hand Holly's dad the stack of paper. Amy and I leave the house with about half of the papers and a staple gun to go post around the town. We spend about two hours at groceries stores, mailboxes, bulletin boards at churches, and any light pole we come across. Amy suggests that we go to Holly's Aunt Tammy who lives in the west and she is close to. Her Aunt Tammy, I have only met a few times. She let me and Holly spend the night at her house. She is very rich and has huge house. She is also very young probably in her early thirties. We stop by and she tells us that she got a worried call from her parents this morning, but Holly isn't hiding out in her house. After we take a couple hours hopping around from different hotels and other places she could possibly hiding out, we don't have any luck. 

Driving back to Holly's house me and Amy sit in silence. It's not uncomfortable, but there's a little tension. I can feel it. I don't why there would be any tension, but it's there. "Where is she?" I whisper. "I have no idea." Amy responds. Tears fill my eyes. They fall fast down my cheeks and I turn my head so Amy won't see. I miss her. I would kill to kiss her, hell even see her one more time. I have no idea where she is. She could be hurt, she could be lost and all of thinking frustrates the fuck out of me. My protective instincts are hyper alert. I slam at the steering wheel to relief the crazy thoughts rambling through my mind. It doesn't help.