Cyan Sleeves

Don't Come Searching

Arc 2: The Point of No Return

The woman called the police station again, her voice frantic and frail. Her child had gone missing three weeks ago. She and her husband were the only two people who weren't beginning to give up hope.

She was beginning to question if hope was enough, though.

"Have you found him yet?" She asked once again over the phone. She knew what the answer was going to be. She knew that her husband was out searching with them, and that he would've come home if they had found him. Yet asking the question was important to her mental state at the moment, because if she stopped trying, they would never find Jay.

The woman clutched onto the note Jay had left them before he disappeared. It was a suicide note.

He would never. I know him. He's not dead.

"I understand. Thank you. Please don't give up the search." Then she hung up.

She couldn't cry anymore – she had already spent all of her tears. Instead, she sat there and stared out the window. It was autumn, just a month after Jay's fourteenth birthday. The leaves were falling, and the sky was going dark.

You're too young... too new to this world to do this to yourself. Please come back. We still need you here.

The note told her exactly where he was – the forest by the church. He said they shouldn't come looking for him, because there would be no one to find. His words proved true, as they couldn't even find a body. His mother believed this meant that he was still alive, that he would come home someday, and that they could welcome him with open arms.

Yet despite all of her hope through the decades, he never did.

The woman called the police station again, her voice frantic and frail. Her child had gone missing three weeks ago. She and her husband were the only two people who weren't beginning to give up hope.

She was beginning to question if hope was enough, though.

"Have you found him yet?" She asked once again over the phone. She knew what the answer was going to be. She knew that her husband was out searching with them, and that he would've come home if they had found him. Yet asking the question was important to her mental state at the moment, because if she stopped trying, they would never find Jay.

The woman clutched onto the note Jay had left them before he disappeared. It was a suicide note.

He would never. I know him. He's not dead.

"I understand. Thank you. Please don't give up the search." Then she hung up.

She couldn't cry anymore – she had already spent all of her tears. Instead, she sat there and stared out the window. It was autumn, just a month after Jay's fourteenth birthday. The leaves were falling, and the sky was going dark.

You're too young... too new to this world to do this to yourself. Please come back. We still need you here.

The note told her exactly where he was – the forest by the church. He said they shouldn't come looking for him, because there would be no one to find. His words proved true, as they couldn't even find a body. His mother believed this meant that he was still alive, that he would come home someday, and that they could welcome him with open arms.

Yet despite all of her hope through the decades, he never did.

I tapped my pencil on the desk repeatedly, the question going back and forth in my mind. X's? Y's? Why was math so focused on making us find X?