I glance up at the numbers on the lockers, navigating my way through the halls until I find mine. According to everything I wrote, I was here just this morning, searching through this locker, hours ago. I obviously didn’t find anything then, so I’m sure I won’t find anything now.
When I’m finally facing my locker, I feel the hope that I didn’t even know I had evaporate. I guess a part of me was hoping I would find Charlie standing there, laughing at this genius prank she pulled off. I was hopeful that this mess would be over with.
I’m not that lucky, obviously.
I enter the combination on Charlie’s locker first and open it in an attempt to find something we missed earlier. As I’m digging through her locker, I can feel someone approach me from behind. I don’t want to turn around and have to interact with an unfamiliar face, so I pretend I don’t notice they’re standing here in hopes that they’ll walk away.
“What are you looking for?”
It’s a girl’s voice. Since I have no idea what Charlie sounds like, I turn around, hoping it’s her. Instead, I find someone who isn’t Charlie staring back at me. Based on her looks, I assume this is Annika. She fits the description Charlie wrote of our friends in the notes.
Big eyes, dark curly hair, looks at you like she’s bored.
“I’m just looking for something,” I mutter, turning back to face Charlie’s locker. I find no clues whatsoever, so I close the locker and begin to enter the combination on my own lock.
“Amy said Charlie wasn’t home this morning when she went to pick her up. Janette didn’t even know where she was,” Annika says. “Where is she?”
I shrug and pull open my locker, trying to make it inconspicuous that I’m reading the combination from a sheet of paper in my hand. “I don’t know. Still haven’t heard from her.”
Annika stands silently behind me until I’m finished searching my own locker. My phone begins to ring in my pocket. My father is calling again.
“Silas!” someone yells as he passes by. I look up to see a reflection of myself, only younger and not as…intense. Landon. “Dad wants you to call him!” he yells, walking backward in the opposite direction.
I hold up my phone, screen facing him, so he knows I’m already aware. He shakes his head with a laugh and disappears down the hall. I want to tell him to come back. I have so many questions I want to ask him, but I know how crazy all of it would sound.
I press a button to ignore the call and I slide it back into my pocket. Annika is still standing here, and I have no idea how to shake her. The old Silas seemed to have an issue with commitment, so I’m hoping Annika wasn’t one of his conquests.
The old me is sure making things difficult for the current me.
Right when I begin to tell her I need to get to my last period class, I catch sight of a girl over Annika’s shoulder. My eyes lock with hers, and she quickly looks in the other direction. I can tell by the way she slinks away that she must be the girl Charlie referred to as The Shrimp in our notes. Because she really does kind of resemble a shrimp: pinkish skin, light hair, and dark, beady eyes.
“Hey!” I yell.
She keeps moving in the other direction.
I push past Annika and rush after the girl. I yell, “Hey,” again, but she just picks up her pace and tucks into herself even more, never turning around. I should know her name. She’d probably stop if I just called out her name. I’m sure if I yelled, “Hey, Shrimp!” that wouldn’t win me any favors.What a nickname. Teenagers can be so cruel. I’m embarrassed to be one of them.
Right before her hand reaches the doorknob of a classroom, I slide in front of her, my back against the door. She takes a quick step back, surprised to see me directing my attention at her. She hugs her books to her chest and glances around, but we’ve reached the end of the hallway and there aren’t any students around us.
“What…what do you want?” she asks, her voice a scattered whisper.
“Have you seen Charlie?” The question seems to surprise her more than the fact that I’m talking to her. She immediately distances herself from me with another step.
“What do you mean?” she asks again. “She’s not looking for me, is she?” Her voice sounds fearful. Why would she be afraid of Charlie?
“Listen,” I say, glancing down the hallway to ensure our privacy. I look back at her and can tell she’s holding her breath. “I need a favor, but I don’t want to talk about it here. Can you meet me after school?”
Again with the surprised expression. She immediately shakes her head no. Her hesitance to want to have anything to do with Charlie or me piques my interest. She either knows something and she’s hiding it, or she knows something that she has no idea could help me.
“Just for a few minutes?” I ask. She shakes her head again when someone begins walking in our direction. I cut the conversation short and don’t give her a chance to say no again. “Meet me at my locker after class. I have a couple of questions,” I say before walking away.
I don’t look back at her. I head down the hallway but have no idea where I’m actually going. I should probably go to the athletic department and find my locker there. According to what I read in our notes, there’s a letter I haven’t read yet in the locker room, along with some pictures.
I round the corner in a hurry and bump into a girl, causing her to drop her purse. I mutter an apology and step around her, continuing down the hallway.
“Silas!” she yells.
I pause.
Crap. I have no idea who she is.
I slowly turn on my heels and she’s standing upright, pulling her purse strap higher up on her shoulder. I wait for her to say something else, but she just stares at me. After a few seconds, she throws her palms up in the air. “Well?” she says, frustrated.
I tilt my head in confusion. Is she expecting an apology? “Well…what?”
She huffs and folds her arms over her chest. “Did you find my sister?”
Janette. This is Charlie’s sister, Janette. Crap.
I can imagine it’s hard enough searching for a missing person, but trying to search for them when you have no idea who you are, who they are, or who anyone else is kind of feels like shooting for the impossible.
“Not yet,” I tell her. “Still looking. You?”