Memory Lane

Part 0: Beginning of the End

To say that I love you is an understatement.

I have a new family, a new father to be exact. I'm polished and civilized, with all my scruffy adolescence washed away. But inexplicably, you never leave me.

For a whole year, I smell you everywhere. You're in the spring breezes and my winter meals, the hot pavement and the falling leaves. You're there during the day in every girl that walks by me. And at night, you stand in the corner of my bedroom, watching me.

You say you love me. No matter how hard I try to change, to become the furthest thing from the girl you fell for, you still see me. It doesn't matter how I paint my face or wear my clothes. To you, I'm always her.

I will admit, that scares me. But I don't want you to know that I'm afraid. So I hide my fear and play it off as shyness, its lesser cousin. I make my cheeks red with embarrassment. That feat is far from difficult because of the effect you have on me.

I'm not used to that kind of attention. You give me so much of it and it's unfair. What have I done to deserve your smiles, your hugs? I'm spoiled by your presence. You've made the whole world green with envy by speaking to me.

I'm terrified of how hard I'm falling for you. The universe has always been a blurry streak of colors that never made any sense to me. You are the only clear thing in it, dare I say the only thing I would accept as human.

You are everything right in the world.

So where did you go? I can't find you. I know you didn't mean to leave.

No one tells me where you went. They act like you never existed. Even my mom pretends not to know your name.

She expects me to go on without you, to change myself for her new life. Because I love her, I try my best, but I can't get rid of this feeling that something happened to you.

Your house is empty. There's a sign out front that says it's for sale, but that's impossible. Your mother loved that place. She would never leave it, never leave you.

I scour the internet for news of your disappearance. I put your photos into a reverse image search. Nothing comes up.

I read the local paper. They would have snatched up news of your case. And yet even they don't say a word about you.

You've fallen off the face of the earth.

They want me to act like you weren't real. But Elle, can't they see how futile that is? You've left traces of yourself all over me.

I picture us in my old room. We're shoulder to shoulder as you doodle on a corner of the wall. You've chosen the area beneath the table so my mother wouldn't get upset. I don't have the heart to tell you that she doesn't care about these things.

Your eyes light up when you know you do something you're not supposed to. You smile at me in your special way when we get to share a secret no matter how small the conspiracy. You are only drawing on my walls, but I've gained another piece of you to covet.

And there are the photos, the obvious pieces of evidence.

We smile side by side in Disneyland, Lake Mathews, and Laguna Beach, holding hands in the way people think that friends do. But it was our love, our secret that kept us together.

A different set of photos is in a box underneath my bed, ones where our true selves are carefully documented. I've taken care to place them under a loose floorboard in my new home. I don't think I would be able to answer the questions they would bring if somebody saw them. If I had any sense, I would burn the photos, but I don't want to destroy any trace I have of you.

You would never leave me willingly to endure reality alone. We did everything together because you hated being by yourself. You were never able to tolerate isolation like I did, but the world shouldn't have expected you to.

And yet you're out there somewhere, all by yourself.

Why am I the only one who notices that? The whole world used to lean toward you like you were the living embodiment of the sun. How can they act like you were never here?

I ask everyone I know if they've seen you. When that bears no fruit, I ask everyone I don't know and hold up your favorite picture of yourself when I do.

"I think they moved," someone tells me. "Her mother left in a rush. They didn't say where they went."

I lost track of the number of messages I've left on your phone. If you were gone because of problems with your family, I would have known. You wouldn't have been able to stop talking about it. My phone would be buzzing with text messages from every platform because I know you don't suffer quietly.

Who did this to you? If I think of everyone who resented you, I have a list of names. But none of them hated you enough to make you disappear, right?

It's hard to see things clearly when I'm a few time zones away. I may be sixteen hours ahead, but living in the future won't help me look into the past.

I'm still wearing that necklace you bought for my birthday. The glass teardrop hanging from a thin chain is tucked under my shirt. I don't take it off in the shower, but I know I should. I keep forgetting to. It's unclean to keep it on for so long.

You wear a matching one around your neck. Unlike me, you always had it in front of your shirt. You weren't scared that it would break.

I hope you're safe. Despite being far away, I'm going to try to file a missing person's report. In the meantime, I need to start from the beginning if I want to find you.

On the calendar, I have one date circled. November 17, 2016. The day I lost you.