THE WEIGHT OF A SHADOW
2 months has passed
The cafeteria was a roar of voices and clattering trays, but for Fay, it felt like being underwater. Everything was muffled, distorted, and cold. She wasn't eating; she was just rearranging a pile of wilted salad with her fork, her eyes fixed on the empty space at the end of the table where Kei used to sit.
"Fay? Earth to Fay."
Angel's voice was soft, laced with a concern that Fay found increasingly hard to stomach. Angel and Len were sitting across from her, their usual banter silenced by the heavy aura of grief radiating from their friend.
Len leaned forward, his brow furrowed. "You're doing it again. You're staring at the ghost. Fay, you haven't slept, have you?"
Fay didn't look up. "I'm fine. I just… I went back to the house last night. I thought maybe if I sat on the porch long enough, someone would come by. A neighbor, a mailman, anyone who knew where the bank sent her files."
"The bank isn't going to tell a teenager anything, Fay," Len said gently, though his frustration was beginning to show. "We've called the district offices. We've checked the shelters. We've even messaged those weird cousins of hers in the north. Nobody knows anything."
"Someone knows," Fay snapped, her fork clattering against the table. Her eyes finally met theirs, and the hollow darkness in them made Angel flinch. "People don't just evaporate. You don't lose your house, your school, and your entire life in forty-eight hours unless someone pushes you."
THE BREAKING POINT
Angel reached across the table, covering Fay's hand with her own. "We're worried about you. You're skipping practice. Your grades are tanking. Kei wouldn't want you to ruin your life because she had to leave hers."
"You don't know what she'd want!" Fay pulled her hand away, her voice rising just enough to make the neighboring table go quiet. "She didn't 'have' to leave. She was taken by a situation she couldn't control. And I'm sitting here in this stupid uniform, eating this stupid food, while she's… somewhere."
She stood up abruptly, her chair screeching against the linoleum.
"Fay, wait…" Len started, but she was already gone, weaving through the crowd with her head down.
Angel looked at Len, her face pale. "She's going to break, Len. She's looking for a girl who doesn't want to be found, or can't be found. It's like watching someone try to catch smoke with their bare hands."
THE DEAD END
Fay didn't go to her next class. Instead, she found herself back at the public library, the blue light of the computer screen reflecting in her tired eyes. She was scrolling through public records of the bank that had seized Kei's home Northwood Financial.
She had tried calling them six times. Each time, she was met with a wall of corporate jargon. Privacy policies. Debt confidentiality. Legal guardianship.
She put her head in her hands, her fingers tangling in her hair. The trail was cold. It wasn't just cold; it was frozen. Every lead she followed the school, the bank, the old neighborhood led back to the same brick wall.
She pulled the plastic flower out of her pocket and set it on the desk. In the sterile, fluorescent light of the library, it looked pathetic. A piece of cheap neon trash.
"Where are you?" she whispered, a single tear escaping and hitting the laminate table. "Just give me a sign. Just one."
Thirty miles away, Kei was currently carrying a heavy tray of crystal glassware up a flight of stairs, her muscles screaming, her mind a blank slate of endurance. She didn't look at the windows. She didn't look at the sky. She didn't give a sign.
Fay sat in the library until the sun went down and the librarians asked her to leave. She walked out into the cool evening air, feeling more alone than she ever had in her life. She was surrounded by millions of people, but the only one who mattered had become a ghost she couldn't conjure.
As she walked toward the bus stop, she didn't see the black SUV on the way to St. Jude's decal idling at the red light. She didn't see the girl in the grey polo staring straight ahead, she was on the phone texting Sofia that she's on her way to pick her up.
Fay kept walking, her eyes on the ground, searching for a shadow that was hiding in plain sight.