Finding Zara

Careful

It was  4 am on friday when I knew something was wrong.

Mom had barged into my room saying Zara's mom was on the phone and she wanted to talk to me. I had rolled my eyes believing she was perfectly fine "what did she do now?" I wasn't exactly in the mood to talk about her, not with what had happened at the party the day before. "Em. This is serious, Zara didn't get home last night" she sounded scared but I wasn't worried not  yet, this was Zara, I just tought that if she didn't come with me, she could've gone with Teagan or Elle, for all I knew maybe even with Gwen or Zoe

And after finally agreeing to talk to Ms. Blackwood, mom handed me the phone, hand shaking and a worried frown across her forehead, but I was so oblivious then or maybe I just didn't want to believe it , that something could have happened to her, because this was Zara, the girl who even the school's wrestling captain was afraid of. "Hello Ms. Blackwood". I didn't even have time to correct myself and she didn't seem to care that I had called her Ms. Blackwood instead of Clara , which was the name she wanted everyone to call her after her divorce, that was when I considered maybe I had been wrong "Emily, I-I called before and your mom told me Zara wasn't there". I was about to tell her that she had probrably spend the night in one of the girls' houses, I imagined Zara telling whoever she was with what had happened, probably making them side with her, when she said "I've called all of the girls. Elle and Teagy. Also Zoe and Gwen. No one knows anything about her" I didn't even bother telling her that it was Teagan not Teagy. "I went into her room when I got home from my nightshift and she wasn't there and everything was a mess, things on the floor, clothes, pictures, even her drawings bu-ut her phone was there. Did you see her yesterday after school? Did she tell you if she was going somewhere?" that was when it finally hit me that something could have happened to her even if she was Zara so I told her that we had been at a party with the girls but I had left first, but I didn't explain why I had left first, when I was done she didn't say anything "Ms-" she was crying. "She ... Zara... She had her phone at the party and... that means that she did get home so- " I  was the one crying then, but i couldn't say out loud what I was thinking, so she said it "Someone could have taken her" but no that couldn't happened to her, not Zara "Ms. Bl-Clara, she could have gone somewhere, you know, run away and leave her phone, so nobody could fi-" "But what would she be so upset about to run way? ".

At that moment, I panicked and hung up the phone, not being able to not feel guilty, she didn't say she was going somewhere, after the party she was supossed to go back home with me. I felt sick, sick and guilty, guilty for thinking she was bad-mouthing me, guilty for leaving alone and not like we had planned and guilty for what I did. Whatever had happened to her, whichever theory was true, either way it came back to me, it was my fault she was gone.

***

By the time I got to school, Clara had already filled a missing report person for Zara and everyone was aware of it. I felt everyone's eyes on me as I walked to my locker remembering how Zara once said that if she ever skipped school everybody would be concerned for her and I wondered if she was thinking about it now wherever she was. Clara had called again saying she was sorry for making me upset , she thought I had hung up because I was scared for Zara which wasn't entirely untrue but I couldn't tell her why I'd really hung up, I couldn't tell her that the person responsible for her not being able to see her daughter and have breakfast together like they did every morning since Mr. Blackwood left, utensils clicking against plates and not talking but still knowing that she was there, that she was safe, may be on the other end not daring to say a single word. She told me she had called Christhopher, Mr. Blackwood, and they were on their way to report Zara as a missing person, and that everything was going to be OK, that I should go to school and try to not think about it, that Zara would be alright. But she didn't know what was going to happen when I got there.

As I neared my locker, I noticed Gwen and Zoe were already there waiting for me, I had met Gwen when I got lost the first day of freshman year, we had arrived late to our first hour class and there we met Zoe, she had asked us if we knew other people there and when we said we didn't she invited us to eat lunch with her and some girls she knew and that was also the day I met Zara, after what happened that day hardly anyone wanted to be asociated with me for about two months, but they stayed by my side and we became friends. What I hadn't realized was that Elle and Teagan were also there,  that wasn't out  the ordinary, since Zara and I became friends we all started hanging out. But there was something different about their faces , I wasn't expecting smiles as a gretting like every other day, though I wasn't expecting this either, their faces looked calm but something in their eyes made them look scared and angry at the same time, and for a moment, I thought that they would all turn their back on me, that they would all agree that it was my fault she was gone but nobody said anything it was as if there was a barrier between me and them and there was a secret behind it which they didn't know how to tell me but then just as Elle was about to say something she stopped. I turned around to see principal Andrews approching us accompanied by a woman and a man, police officers. "Good morning, girls. This is Detective Jansen and this is Detective Oconnor"  he said as he pointed at the woman and the man. "We are here to talk about the dissapearence of Zara Blackwood. We know that you were all together at the party yesterday were she was last seen" said Detective Jansen while she studied each of us, as if she was looking for a clue, for a wrong move in one of us that woukd take her to Zara.

"But we weren't the only ones from school at the party" interrumpted Elle and for a second she glanced at me and I wondered if something else had happened after I left the party."We know that. We've already talk to the host of the party, Jason Westfall" Jason "and we're talking to other students who may have seen her later too. But first, we would like to talk to each of you separately, to reconstruct the events prior to Zara's dissapearence"

***

I could see Zara, as I was waiting for my name to be called.

I was sitting in the bench outside principal Andrews's office where they were interrogating each of us,  they had informed us that we couldn't talk to eachother until they had interrogated us all and being the last one I was there alone.  She was there but she wasn't there, it was the day our school won the state high school volleyball championship, memories floded me of that day, of our awkward hug after we won, and being the captain I had to congratulate everyone, things weren't good between us back then but they weren't as bad as when we first met. And between hundreds of pictures of girls and guys representing our school, there was another one that caught my attention. It was the cheerleading team with their captain, Zara, but having seen that picture many times every time I was at her house I knew there was something different about it, someone had scribble something in her hand and as I got closer to the picture and realized it wasn't a scribble but a small drawing of a lock, the door opened and Teagan came out of the office with a concerned look in her face and she mouthed two words at me.

Be Careful.

****

What do you guys think about this chapter??
Also has anyone seen TMI tv show?? Is it good?? I haven't seen it yet but I've heard that it's really different from the books like way more than the movie

P.s. does anyone know how to put a cast list??  Lol i'm lost