One Ticket to Fill a Lacuna

Chapter 10 || The River

Chapter 10-

            Thirteen missed calls and seven unread messages.

            Rain comes down on the treehouse, pattering the warped roof and creating puddles inside it from the water seeping through a hole in the cover. Not even the extensive canopy of forest leaves protect the rotting tree house, and I sit away from the hole, hesitant to get soaked. I’m already chilled to my bone enough as it is.

            My phone rings for now the fourteenth time. It’s Blaine, again. I pick up at last, so at least she knows I’m still alive.

            “Hey Bla—“ I begin in a silvery tone.

            “Where the hell are you?” Blaine’s raucous voice resonates through my ear. In turn, I take the phone slightly away from my head, wincing as a knife goes through the back of my head and leaves the same migraine feeling that I’ve had lately.

            “I’m in the tree house,” I mumble.

            “Why in the world…” she trails off, and I can almost see her shaking her head, “you missed all your classes and we took a test in English. It was four pages long, Taryn. Double sided. Don’t you remember Mrs. Concord telling us that it would be worth forty percent of our grade?”

            I sigh, my breath creating a rasp in the phone receiver. “If I’d gone to school, I doubt I would’ve been able to focus at all. It’s better that I’m here, away from…everything,” I say in a sotto tone, a tang of bitterness on my tongue.

            “Tar, what happened?” Blaine continues to interrogate.

            “Not now, Blaine.” I snip.

            “Fine,” she says under her breath, and I can envision her furrowing her brows in confusion, “But I need to talk to you, and I’ll be at the tree house in an hour.”

            I hang up the phone and groan quietly. The stuffed bear sits away from me. I decline any theory of how it has made its way here, and I don’t want to accept its existence. It’s just a sick joke. Nothing more, Taryn.

            But, if it’s nothing more, then why do I have yet to get up and leave the treehouse that drew me to it in the first place? Why can’t I let go of the place where I find this bear that shouldn’t be here? It all boggles my mind and I push the bear farther away with my feet.

            “I don’t want to look at you,” I announce tremulously to the inanimate bear. “You don’t belong here. If you’re back, he should be back, and he isn’t. He never will be…” my voice dwindles and I stare intently at the lithe raindrops slipping off of the hole in the roof, diving a few inches away from me.

            I twist the note from the bear in my fingers. It creases, becoming more decrepit with every crumple. I’d been holding it for half an hour, unfolding it, reading it once more, and becoming irate with this joke that I don’t want to be a part of anymore. Tears well into my eyes and I tear the note increasingly.

            A constant question never quite escapes my mind. How did the bear get here? Who knows about the treehouse that would put this bear here? Only Blaine, Orson, and I know about the house to my present knowledge, so how did the bear appear here when no one else is supposed to be aware of its location? And most importantly, why isn’t it still with my dad whom I gave it to for the trip which he never returned from?

            I stand up and let go of the note, where it sinks into the rain water collecting on the floor. It becomes nebulous, and I leave the cover of the disheveled shelter. Within half of a minute, my hair is dripping wet and water cascades down my blouse. I tighten the navy blue blazer over my body before letting go to descend the treehouse rope.