The Bones To Nowhere

f i v e

I’m released from the hospital not long after my dad comes back to see me. My brain still refuses to stop spinning. So much has happened these past few months. Tears well up in my eyes, thinking about all the events that have unfolded. It feels like I’m trapped on a Ferris wheel, always spinning in the same direction with no end in sight. It’s true one could say I didn’t know Beau all that well, and they wouldn’t be wrong. But he is he closest thing I’ve ever really had to a friend. Would it have unfolded into more? I think about the way my skin tingled whenever I was near him. The way his voice would send shivers down my spine, the way my heart would thud ever so quickly in his presence. I’m pathetic. Already talking about him in past tense. Deep down I know I’ll never see him again. I also know I’m a horrible person for thinking that way. I should be more positive. But the scent of death looms too far over me. 

I close my eyes as my dad starts the car. We drive down the winding roads of nowhere. This town is nowhere. It’s not a place someone just moves to, or a place anyone really even knows about other than the residences. This town is miserable, and it has been since it was built. No one is ever truly happy here, I’m sure of that. Everyone here wants to leave, but money doesn’t grow on trees. Especially here. We have no tourist attractions. No one even passes through this dead end town. The few people who have ended up here only want the cheap hotel rates anyway. 

I know every nook and cranny, every pothole of every road here. I know every person who lives here. I grew up with most of them. My mother is the only person who has managed to weasel her way out of this god awful town. Most of that was luck. So then how, in this small town where everyone knows everything, did Beau go missing without any trace? There has to be something. Someone. And of course, the realization hits me, everyone thinks that someone is me. Im the only person Beau ever talked to. We were practically inseparable after we met, so of course I would be the main suspect. Beau what did you get yourself into? What did you get me into? 

I find it hard to believe that he was mixed up in anything scandalous, but then again, stranger things have happened. But why wouldn’t he tell me? I thought we told each other everything. Maybe I was just naive.