CHAPTER TWO
833 Words
Lena didn’t sleep.
She lay on her back with her phone in her hand long after the screen had gone black, pressing the power button every few seconds like it might suddenly decide to work again. Nothing happened. No vibration. No glow. Just her own reflection faintly staring back at her in the dark glass.
The rain outside had slowed, but the silence inside her room felt louder than thunder.
She eventually dropped the phone onto the bed beside her and rolled onto her side, staring at the wall. Her thoughts kept circling back to Evan’s last message.
Because I think you should know why I keep my distance.
It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t poetic. That was what made it unsettling. It felt unfinished, like someone stopping mid-sentence because they heard footsteps behind them.
She told herself there had to be a normal explanation. Dead battery. Bad timing. Maybe he fell asleep. Maybe he changed his mind.
Still, she didn’t close her eyes until the gray light of morning slipped through her curtains.
Her alarm didn’t go off.
She woke up late, heart racing, the dream she’d been having dissolving too fast to remember. Her phone still wouldn’t turn on. She plugged it in, waited, unplugged it, tried again. Nothing.
“Lena!” her mom called from downstairs. “You’re going to be late!”
“I know,” Lena said, voice rough.
She got dressed quickly, barely checking what she was putting on. She skipped breakfast entirely, grabbing her backpack and rushing out the door while her mom reminded her again to remember her lunch.
The air was cold, sharp enough to wake her up fully. The sky was clear, which felt wrong after so much rain. She missed the bus by seconds and had to jog the rest of the way to school, shoes splashing through shallow puddles.
By the time she reached Ridgeway High, her chest ached from running and something else she didn’t want to name.
She looked for Evan immediately.
She didn’t mean to. It just happened.
Her eyes scanned the hallway, the usual clusters of students leaning against lockers, laughing too loudly, arguing about nothing. She checked the spots she’d noticed him before. Near the vending machines. By the stairwell.
He wasn’t there.
English class came and went without him.
Mrs. Dalton paused during attendance. “Evan Carter?”
Silence.
She frowned. “Absent.”
Lena stared at her desk.
Her phone stayed dead in her pocket, heavier than it should have been.
By lunch, unease had settled deep in her stomach.
She sat with her usual group but barely heard what anyone was saying. She kept glancing at the cafeteria doors, half-expecting Evan to walk in late, hair damp, hoodie pulled tight.
He didn’t.
“Are you okay?” one of the girls asked.
“Yeah,” Lena lied. “Just tired.”
Across the cafeteria, Evan’s table was empty.
The library felt different without him.
Lena showed up anyway after school, sitting at the same table they’d shared the day before. She pulled out her notebook, stared at her notes, rewrote the same sentence three times.
She checked the clock.
Ten minutes passed.
Then twenty.
She packed up slowly, her movements deliberate, like she was giving him time to arrive even though she knew he wouldn’t.
Outside, the sky had darkened again.
She walked home instead of taking the bus.
That evening, her phone finally turned on.
She didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until the screen lit up.
No new messages.
She stared at Evan’s name in her contacts, thumb hovering over it. She typed out a message, deleted it. Typed another.
Hey, you weren’t at school today. Are you okay?
She sent it before she could overthink it.
The message delivered instantly.
No reply.
***********
Days passed.
Evan didn’t come back to school.
Teachers didn’t explain why. Rumors filled the gap, as they always did. Someone said he’d transferred. Someone else said he’d gotten into trouble. A third person claimed he’d been sick for weeks.
Lena didn’t correct anyone.
She stopped going to the library after school.
She stopped writing at night.
She told herself she was fine.
********
A week later, she found the note.
It was tucked inside her English notebook, folded neatly, like it had been placed there on purpose. She stared at it for a long time before opening it.
The handwriting wasn’t neat. It wasn’t messy either. It looked careful, like someone had slowed themselves down to make sure each letter was readable.
I didn’t disappear because of you.
Her hands started to shake.
I wanted to explain in person, but I don’t think I can anymore.
Her throat tightened.
Some people leave marks you can’t see. Some stories don’t end when you want them to.
She swallowed hard.
Please don’t try to find me.
There was no signature.
She closed the notebook slowly, heart pounding.
Because she already knew one thing.
She wasn’t going to listen.
- Writer
