Statistically lost

Chapter 1: Camille

       What people don't tell you about disappearing, is that it takes a lot of work. First of all, it requires a lot of thinking, because you have to think about where you are going to disappear to. Then, you have to think about logistics such as money, gas prices, and sleeping arrangements. Not to mention you need a pretty decent car, one of those cheap flip phones from Walmart, a map, and an impressive playlist to go along with it. Last but not least, you actually have to make it clear that the disappearing was intentional and not a random kidnapping, which means you have to write letters explaining yourself to your best friends and to your twin brother. As it turns out, all of these things can't be done over a week, and instead it takes months.

So although it seemed pretty uncharacteristic of me to grab a duffle bag containing clothes, a wad of money, and a bunch of letters before hopping into my mother's beat up minivan and disappearing, it was completely intentional.

See, that's the crazy thing about all of this. When people at my southern private school got word that Camille, their star athlete, lead of the musical, speech and debate queen, cheerleading captain, Camille, disappeared off the face of the world, they didn't believe it. The rumors ranged from an unplanned pregnancy to a kidnapping, but never did someone think that my leaving was something that I had chosen for myself. No one would figure that out until the letters would start arriving.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. First, I have some explaining to do.

To be clear, it was uncharacteristic of me to erase my social media accounts, toss my iPhone into the lake near my house, and randomly break up with my boyfriend of seven months. I guess people have that part right. But, people got so many things wrong. Like how I owed them an explanation. It's funny. You spend four years in the same building as people and all of a sudden they think they are entitled to know everything about your life. And I guess I can't blame them. I did seem like an open book. Great parents, a million extra-curriculars, headed towards a top-tier school on scholarship in the fall, and a coveted place to sit at lunch.

Like most things I have learned in life, things are not how they seem.

That's what the letters were for. I had written five, one for each reason why I decided to bounce the hell out of my town. I would have made it out of the state had not my guilt eaten me up when I realized that some people deserved something more than a shitty piece of paper with an explanation on it. I was cold for leaving, but I wasn't completely ruthless. I guess that's how I wound up standing outside of my best friend's house at one in the morning.

I don't know what I had excepted when I had rolled to on Elizabeth's house in the dead of night. I had just punched in the code to get through the gates that kept her house enclosed and raced down the long driveway like I had a thousand times. I parked where I usually did, which was in front of her ridiculously gaudy water fountain in front of the steps of her white mansion, and slid out of the seat effortlessly. As if I hadn't been ignoring her calls for a week. As If wasn't planning on saying goodbye to her. As if I wasn't seconds away from leaving town.

By the time she swung open the door, I had convinced myself that I was practically back to normal.

"Where the hell have you been?" She whispered harshly, her glasses sliding to the tip of her nose. She looked like regular old Elizabeth in her oversized Harvard sweatshirt and fuzzy grey socks. I felt a small twinge of guilt when she narrowed her chocolate brown eyes at me in anger. "What the fuck, Camille?"

Scratch that. She was furious.

"Alright look, I can explain-" She rolled her eyes at me before looking over my shoulder and at my mom's minivan. "Liz,"