Find A Way

Day 2: Adrienne

When I went to pick up Alaina, I already knew something wasn't right. The sun was hanging low in the sky, getting ready to set into different shades of pink and orange, and the mountains were a pale yet beautiful purple when I pulled into Alaina's apartment complex parking lot. The Beast, also known as her beat to shit red pickup truck, was parked in its usual spot: the corner, under the only shade the lot had to offer. I parked my little two-door coupe next to it, climbed out, and did what I usually did: drew an inappropriate picture of a certain male body part in the dirt of her passenger's window.

That was when I noticed them: Alaina's cell phone and MP3 player on the floor. I tried the door, but it was locked, so I reached underneath for the hide-a-key and let myself into The Beast. Alaina's phone was blinking "low battery" as well as "29 missed calls." We had been friends for so long that it didn't bother me to snoop in her call log. There were two missed calls from my phone, six from Sam's, one from her parents' house, three unknown numbers, and seventeen from her work.

My heart dropped, but I was hopeful. Maybe Alaina didn't notice that her cell phone was on the floor of her car and she thought she lost it, so she kept calling her own number from work in hopes of finding it. But I knew that couldn't be the case; I had noticed the phone way too easily.

I wasn't a runner, but I found myself sprinting up the stairs to Apartment 23B. Open palmed, I smacked the door. "Alaina!" my voice shook, but there was no reply. The doorknob didn't budge as I twisted it, so I dug out my own lanyard and used my spare to open the door.

Two steps into the living room, I stepped in something sticky; my shoe gripping the floor in an unnatural way. "Alaina!" I called again, even though the Alaina I had known for so many years would've never left something messy on her clean floor. No voice answered my own. I still found myself searching the apartment like some kind of detective. All I saw were numbers though: twelve new messages on the house phone in Alaina's bedroom, one pair of shoes in the hallway (Alaina's work shoes), nine things on the grocery list on the fridge (milk, peanut butter, ramen, cinnamon raisin bagels, yogurt, tortillas, dental floss, apricot preserves, and carrots), and 6:23 pm blinking on the microwave. I went through the apartment, looking for some kind of sign. The whiteboard calendar in the living room showed Alaina's work hours for the month, including her 8 to 5 that she was supposed to be working that day. The rainy day fund was tipped over, but it didn't look like any money was missing from it. I peeked into the bathroom only to find dirty laundry still in the hamper and on the floor.

I didn't know what to do, so I called Sam.

"Lainey, finally," he breathed a sigh of relief as he answered, and I realized that I made a huge mistake by calling him from Alaina's house phone.

"She's not here," I managed to choke out before it got hard to breathe. My eyes watered.

I knew Sam was feeling exactly how I was. "Adrienne? What do you mean she's not there? Did she get held up at work?" he asked frantically.

"No," I said, digging through Alaina's nightstand for any kind of note. All I found were a stack of bank statements, a lighter, and some crumpled up receipts. Slamming the drawer shut, I knocked over her bedside lamp. "I can't find her. The Beast is here. Her phone is here. She is the only one not here."

"I'll be there in five minutes," and he hung up.

A part of me wanted Sam to stay on the line, but the other part of me felt like my hand was burning the longer I held Alaina's telephone. I dropped it onto the receiver and did what any best friend would do: swear in Spanish. When that was out of my system, I did the crazy; I dug through Alaina's closet, trying to remember what she had or didn't have, so that I could determine if she had packed a bag or not. But I knew she didn't. Why would she have packed a bag and left her car? The Beast was the only proof in the world that I needed to know that something happened to my best friend. What? I didn't know, but I knew I had to find out.