Take my Heart

Chapter One

"Sawyer, did you hear?" Asia asks me over the phone. Her voice is strained, and sounds utterly exhausted.

"Hear about what?" I ask in return, clutching the phone between my shoulder and my ear so I can continue painting my toenails. I'm painting them white, as always. Picking a real color is too much of a commitment.

"Nick Johansson."

"What about him?" I ask, finishing up the paint on my left pinky toe. Nick Johansson is one of those kids that sneaks out at lunch and smokes cigarettes behind the cafeteria. He drives a motorcycle, and no one really knows much else about him. He's mysterious and a little bit on the sketchy side. I think he has a younger brother, but now that I say it, it may be a sister. Asia doesn't know him any better than I do. Well, at least I don't think she does.

"He's gone," she says simply.

"What do you mean?" I ask, switching the phone from my left shoulder to my right to give it a break. "Where'd he go?"

"I don't know," she replies. Her voice sounds wispy and distant.

"What does this have to do with me?" I ask, scrunching up my face in confusion. Nick's in my chem class, but we aren't lab partners so him taking some sort of vacation doesn't really affect me.

"He's not the only one," Asia says slowly, hanging on the last syllable.

     "The only one who is what?" I ask Asia, more confused than ever.

     "Gone," she simply answers, causing my heart to skip a beat.

"Who else?" Asia's answers are getting shorter and shorter. She's being less descriptive and starting to scare me.

"Me."

"What?" I ask no one, because the other line has already hung up.