Austin gripped my arm. “Don’t, Lev. Don’t fucking do it.” He pushed me toward the door, back to the pool house. “We’ll find her, come on.” Spurred on by Austin’s words I ran back across the yard, briefly stopping at Lexi’s craft shed. It was empty.
When I was back in the pool house, I rushed to the bathroom, finding it the same with nothing moved. Next was the closet. Most of her clothes were there, but I saw her jacket, scarf and hat were gone, as were her Uggs. And my hoodie. The hoodie I’d given her that first night she came into my room, returning my stolen rosary. It had gone from the hook on the door.
“Anything?” Austin asked as he stood the center of the main room. I shook my head, wondering where the hell she could go when I looked to her bedside table.
“No,” I whispered, my eyes shutting as reality hit.
“What?” Austin pushed and I met my brother’s eyes.
“Her jar’s gone.”
Austin’s expression was of confusion. “Jar?” he questioned.
“Her lightning bug jar, like the one’s in Dante’s room.” I felt my face heat. “I made her one. She didn’t like the dark, and I told her about Mamma and how she’d make us real ones.”
“Fuck, Lev,” Austin hushed out and came to pull my head in his arms.
“She’s gone, Austin. Ain’t she? She’s fucking gone.” I pulled away from my brother to look into the small pot where her jar’s glow sticks were held—gone.
All gone.
“We’ll find her. You know where she used to go before she came here?” I shut the drawer and nodded my head. Austin slapped me on the back. “She probably just needed some air, Lev. Shit, she went through a lot last night. She won’t be gone. She won’t have left you.”
I wasn’t so sure. Grabbing my keys from my desk, I looked at her side table and raced to its drawer. When I opened the drawer and found her poetry book was gone, along with the book I’d gotten her for her birthday, a part of me knew, it just knew, that she hadn’t just gone out for air.
She’d gone for good.
“Lev?” Austin pushed, waiting by the door. “Let’s go.”
I followed him out of the door, my hand in my pocket as it ran over the wooden beads I always had with me. And I prayed, I prayed on every single bead that we’d find her and that she hadn’t done anything to hurt herself.
I climbed in my Jeep and pulled out onto the road. The tension in the car was thick. I couldn’t calm. I just kept seeing her tortured eyes. Kept feeling her limp in my arms as I washed and held her in the bath.
I’d known she was hurt, was broken, but I never thought it ran this deep. I never imagined bullying could have been this soul destroying until Lexi opened the center. It made me realize how vicious some people’s words could be.
Austin stared out of the window as I drove to the alley I’d found her in. “You ever seen anyone get bullied, Aust? Like, real bad?”
Austin shrugged. “I saw kids get beat up or roughed around, but I think the kind of bullying Elsie went through is the kind that no one sees, yeah? The kind that fucks with your mind?”
“Yeah,” I rasped, remembering her telling me how Annabelle cornered her, imitated her and laughed in her face.
“Do you think her voice is different? Elsie’s, when she speaks?” I shifted in my seat. I could feel Austin’s eyes narrow.
“She does sound different, Lev, that’s a fact. But fuck, it ain’t nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s not too prominent. And even if it was, who the fuck cares?” Austin paused. “Why? You think it is bad?”
“No!” I snapped, anger filling me. “I don’t hear it. I don’t see what people picked on her for. And at our age too. I never thought people did all the bullying crap past high school.”
“I think you can be bullied at any age, Lev. Age don’t have nothing to do with insecure fuckholes picking on others to make themselves feel better.”
I shook my head. “I just don’t hear her voice being different. I love it. I love nothing more than hearing her laugh, and speak… to say my name aloud.”
“It’s because you love her, Lev. You don’t see her imperfections, and if you do, you love her more for them.”
“I…I…” I stuttered, my face blazing with heat.
“It’s okay, kid,” Austin said quietly. “It’s okay to admit that you love her. It’s okay to open yourself up to allow yourself to love. You’ve fought getting close to anyone for too long. Elsie fucking smashed through that wall.” He huffed. “Funny for someone so timid and shy, for someone who doesn’t make a sound, to finally plow through your heart.” I stayed quiet, my heart beating too fast.
“I just want her back and safe. I ain’t sure I know what life looks like anymore without her in it.”
Austin’s hand landed on my arm as I parked up near the alley. “We’ll get her. Just see.”