The last time I’d been in the room was when Tessa stayed over one night after Christmas break. I hadn’t wanted to go in there; I never did. But Tessa wanted to see. We’d been best friends for three years, but still, she had never known Sarah. She met me as “the girl whose sister disappeared” and had become friends with me knowing only that. Of course her parents knew the whole story, and at first they wouldn’t let Tessa come over to spend the night. I guess they were worried someone might come back for me—or one of my friends. Whoever took Sarah. Or, if Sarah ran away, there was always the question of her influence on me. Was my sister bad? Was I too?
There was a dark cloud over me, over our whole family. But slowly, as the years passed with no leads and no news about Sarah, most people in town, and most of the parents at school, forgot. We were no longer that family with the missing daughter. Other scandals replaced ours—a single mom having an affair with the married PE teacher, or the pretty teacher’s aide who had a secret porn background. Sarah’s disappearance seemed less tawdry and salacious than those stories. And I proved myself to be good, reliable, not a runaway, not a bad girl. Sarah’s disappearance was not our fault—Mom always reminded me of that. It was not something we had done; it was something that had happened to us. She was the one to call Tessa’s parents and get their permission for the sleepover—my first since Sarah’s disappearance.
Tessa and I had been up late, in my room, trying to take some good photos on my phone. They were supposed to look casual—oh, hey, just hanging out at my friend’s house—but also cute and somewhat sexy. The plan was to post one or two on Tessa’s Instagram. We knew her crush, Liam, had been checking and making comments, so the pics were really for him. But we would never admit it, especially because he already had a girlfriend in our class, Kelly.
I’d done Tessa’s makeup and styled her hair, but still the pics weren’t anything fabulous. She threw open the doors to my closet and let out a sigh. “You’ve got like five hundred uniform tops in here and nothing else. Don’t you ever wear anything but a uniform?”
I shrugged, not willing to admit that I actually liked the navy skirts and white tops that we wore for school. It made getting dressed really easy; I didn’t have to think. I had a few pairs of jeans and T-shirts for the weekend and some summer dresses, but not a lot else. I never could figure out how to put cool outfits together, so I just stuck with simple. Nico, you look like you got your clothes out of the lost and found bin at school. Mom, please don’t let her go out like that.
Tessa pushed the hangers to one side and looked at what was left—a couple of sundresses and jackets. “What about your mom or your sister—do you think they might have anything? I mean, just to wear for the pictures,” Tessa added quickly.
I didn’t know how to respond. Next door was a room full of beautiful things—shoes, sunglasses, jewelry, clothing. All carefully selected by Sarah, who wouldn’t settle for anything but the best. She created outfits based on images torn from magazines. She was the one in the family who appreciated fashion—in fact, Mom often said that she was going to grow up to be a designer. Before she disappeared, she had taken a sewing class at school and made a few things—a dress and a sleeveless top—and had easily gotten an A+, the teacher noting that she had a real talent for “line,” whatever that meant.
“I’m sorry, that was . . . I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” Tessa sat next to me on my bed. “Nico?”
I stared off into space, suddenly coming around. “No, it’s okay. You’re right. Sarah has all kinds of stuff that’s just sitting in there, we might as well use it.”
“You sure?” Tessa looked reluctant now, scared even.
I nodded and opened the door to the dark hallway—my parents had been asleep for hours. We walked to the room next door and I turned the knob, opening it, probably for the first time in months. But when I flipped on the light switch it was clear that nothing inside had changed. Everything was just as Sarah had left it that morning, or at least how the detectives left it after they had gone through everything. The room even smelled like Sarah still, of the perfume she wore when she started dating Max. The cleaning lady came in to dust sometimes, but otherwise the room was untouched.
Tessa moved to the bulletin board covered with awards and ribbons. “Wow, impressive.” She fingered one of the cheer awards. “Cheerleader extraordinaire, huh?”
“She did gymnastics and dance too,” I pointed out. I didn’t want her to think that Sarah was just a cheerleader. She was so much more. She was good at everything she did. Not just good—the best.
Tessa moved to the double doors of the closet and swung them open, looking over the dresses and tops that hung there, carefully arranged by color. “Wow—even more impressive!” She pulled out a pale pink top and held it up to her chin, moving over to the mirror to see herself. “This is beautiful—what do you think?”