PTX One-Shots

Never too far away [TRIO]

[A/N: This will be my first story I'm sharing with you. I chose this one, because I feel like it shows my style really well, so I hope you enjoy]

Scott's P.O.V.

It has been exactly one year. One year since our best friend had disappeared.

Kirstin. Mitch and I had agreed to seeing her at the park where we always went to. We sat and waited under our tree. We had so many memories under this tree, but now it's a dreaded place for us. That afternoon we waited and waited and waited. I think we stayed there for about two hours. Eventually, we gave up on waiting and thought that she had maybe forgotten our rendezvous, which was already strange for her. She almost never forgot anything and especially something like this. So we went to her house and when we knocked, her mom opened. We asked if she was home but her mom said she left two and a half hours ago to meet us. That would mean that she would've been way earlier than we were. This is where we started to worry. We assured her mom with saying that we think we know where she would be hanging out, whilst we both had no idea. We walked away from her house and started to worry even more. We went back to the park and searched everywhere, we even went back to the tree. We went to some other familiar places for us, like the ice cream shop, the candy store and we even went to the flower shop because we knew she liked to come there and buy a bouquet of flowers every week. We asked the shopkeepers if they had seen her, but with no avail.

After a full day of searching, we still had nothing. When the clock struck five pm we decided on telling her mom. She wasn't mad at us because the only thing that was on her mind was probably her daughter. We went to the police and they did everything they could, they even sent out an AMBER Alert after twenty-four hours, but no one called for information. No one had seen anything of her. After a few weeks, the police gave up and came to the conclusion that she ran off by herself and that she is most likely dead by now.

But Mitch and I didn't give up. Every day we tried to check for more clues, but we didn't find anything. The little spark of hope we kept this year, was slowly dying. I graduated high school three months ago. My plan, our plan was to do it together, Kirstie and I. Mitch still had a year to go so he wasn't there. Eventually, I celebrated it with a few other friends, but not my best friend. It wasn't even really celebrating for me. I was at one party, but I didn't dance or partied, I mostly just sat and drank some of the beverages they had, non-alcoholic, since I was still under-aged. I left early and no one seemed to notice, fortunately. I called Mitch that evening, even though it was already eleven pm. He still picked up, which I was glad about. We had a really deep conversation about our friendship that night. We brought back some memories, but we were sad. Sad that we couldn't share this with our other best friend. We had always been with the three of us and now, without knowing why, it was just the two of us.

I didn't go to college yet. I couldn't. I decided to wait a year and my parents agreed with me. To kill some time, I helped Mitch with his homework, tests and exams. It was a nice way of having my mind on something else. Her disappearance still haunts me every day. I have so many sleepless nights, thinking it was my fault. That day Mitch agreed to first come to my house and we would walk to the park together. I was late, as usual. We left after about fifteen minutes from when Mitch arrived at my house, whilst it was meant that we could immediately leave. What if I wasn't late and just in time, maybe then she was still there and we could've prevented it. Thousands of times I've heard that it wasn't my fault, but I didn't believe anyone and I know I won't be satisfied until we've found her, if she's even still alive. But even if she's gone, I at least know what happened and maybe that would make my mind rest.

We never had a funeral. Her mom didn't want that and we didn't want that. There was hope. Hope that she was alive, hope that she was okay and hope that she would be found, but as I said, that hope was slowly starting to sink.