I Just Saw her

FOUR

I watched Dez's fingers as she slowly and carefully peeled an orange. She was focused on the task, and meticulously pulled each individual white bit from the fruit. When she was finished, she set it on the table.

"That was a lot of work for nothing," I said.

She shrugged. "I guess I'm not hungry."

Bree snapped her fingers in the air between our faces. "Hi, hello. Care to join us?"

It had been twelve days since Casey had gone missing. I was drained straight to my bones, and had barely slept. I knew I looked as terrible as I felt, but we all did.

We had attended the funeral for Casey's parents the previous weekend. The church had been so full, the walls seemed to heave. We sat in the row behind Brian and Katie Rose. Mr. Hanson had made sure the seats were reserved for us. The detectives hovering in the back of the room stood out to everyone.

After the funeral, there was a reception at a local restaurant. Joel had a bottle of tequila in the trunk of his car, and we had toasted to Casey by ourselves before trying to get lost in the crowd. I felt the eyes on us, Casey's friends.

We paid our sympathies to Brian and Katie. We saw the aunts and grandparents and cousins we had met many times before. Our own families were in attendance, mourning a member of their community and more. All of our parents were shaken. They could hardly recall a time before their kids had been friends.

Mr. Hanson found us out behind the restaurant, overlooking the ocean. He sat with us quietly, letting us just talk to each other and nobody in particular, airing our worry about Casey, listening to our memories and stories of Mr. and Mrs. Rose. He was a calming presence, almost like we had needed someone to hear us, our fears and sorrow, without questions or suspicions.

After that day, we tentatively allowed Mr. Hanson into our fold. He was much more forthcoming about the investigation than the police or our parents were, and we finally felt that we were being taken seriously. We were scared, and someone was finally easing our fears just a little by giving us information.

The rumors had grown louder, some ridiculous, some not as much so.

Some people said Casey had staged her abduction after she murdered her controlling and abusive parents. Some people said her brother killed the Roses because he wanted to get an inheritance to pay off a gambling or drug debt. Some said she was kidnapped and trafficked into sex trade. One rumor even pointed the finger at her girl friends, who had simply grown tired of being overshadowed by perfect, beautiful, loved Casey Rose, and had done away with her so they could pretend to be upset and thereby get the attention they were desperate to steal from her.

That one was the most upsetting.

Detective Prentice had spoken to all of us again. The questions became repetitive. We knew they had no new information.

At our last meeting, she had looked tired and almost mournful. What I perceived at first as her vague manner of questioning had turned into a sense of distress. She was giving up, it seemed. She had nowhere else to look, and no more questions to ask.

She had spent long minutes turning pages in her file, pouring over the text messages, page after page of tiny print that read the same as they had the day before and, in some situations, hours before. She was wearing glasses, her eyes too dry and irritated from the long hours and excessive reading to handle contact lenses.

"I don't know, Patrick," she had said, shutting the cover of the file, then begrudgingly flipping it open again. "Let's start back at the beginning. When did Casey first tell you about the texts?" We would begin the walk down the timeline all over again.

I was spending nights awake, trying to prepare myself for the news I feared the most: that Casey's body was found.

The worst part was that, in just twelve days, the tension had gotten its fingers entwined in us, in our bond and friendship. We were snapping at one another. Messages were starting to go unanswered, calls missed. We still met in the parking lot every morning but even then, our conversations had grown halting, like we were holding back. Everything was fractured. I felt sick all of the time.

"I feel like a leper," Heather said. "Everyone is being so weird."

"It's more fun to talk shit than be human," Bree said, raising her voice to reach surrounding tables. "Meanwhile, while everyone is spreading stupid rumors, whoever actually did this might be right in this room with us."

"Yeah," Alex said. "It was me."

"Hey," Joel deadpanned. "Stop taking all the glory. I helped too."

Despite the horrible idea, Heather burst out laughing. She covered her mouth when Bree glared at her.

"It's not fucking funny," Bree hissed. "I'm not going to let anyone destroy my name. I didn't do anything."

"None of us did," Dez stressed. "Do you even care about the rest of us? Of course not, just your precious name."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Would you like me to stand up in the auditorium and give an impassioned speech, begging everyone to stop the bullshit because the rest of you can't defend yourselves? Yes, I'm worried about my name. You know college admissions google applicants, right?"

Alex dropped his head into his hands and groaned dramatically. "I'm so sick of this shit. Can we not be assholes to each other for one day?"

"Who's an asshole?"

"Right now? You, Bree." He stood up, shrugging his backpack over his shoulder and grabbing his trash in his fist. "I'm taking a break. Later."

"What's his problem?" Bree asked.

"I think we're his problem," Joel answered, standing to follow Alex. "I think we all need a breather."

After Joel left, Bree marched out of the cafeteria in the opposite direction. Dez, Heather and I sat quietly until the bell rang.

"Want to leave and get high?" Heather asked hopefully.

Dez and I grinned at each other and stood. "We deserve a day."

Hours later, we lay on our backs in the early spring sun. The grass behind Heather's house had grown long enough to hide us from prying eyes through the window. We alternated between uproarious laughter, and heartbreaking, soul crushing emotional outpouring.

It was the best therapy I could have gotten. I was determined to bring us back together as a group, and to face this as one powerful force.