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Let me know if she’s there.
Ten minutes later, I get a response.
Jonah
No car. Weird.
I try not to let Harlow’s absence eat away at me, but it’s hard not to keep looking out my bedroom window to see if anything has changed. I try to remember the last time I saw her car, but honestly, I haven’t really been paying attention. The last time I sawherwas at the rink, which is the last time Jonah saw her too.
Surely, if Jonah wasreallyworried, he’d ask those cult cousin friends of hers, and if they didn’t know where Harlow was, then I don’t know how I’m supposed to. It’s night now, light has turned to dark, revealing the lamp on in her bedroom—the one on her desk, I think. For a long time, I sit on the roof, and I watch the world as I used to know it. And just like all those times I’d stare at the house pre-Harlow, nothing changes. Nothing but the darkness that looms over it.
I’m running on hopes and dreams the next day because I barely slept. Not because I spent the entire night looking out my window for any signs of life, but because I spent the whole night in bed, tossing and turning and thinking about her.
Worrying about her.
And now her friends are standing in front of me, both looking to me for answers, and I don’t know what to tell them. Then again, they haven’t actuallyaskedme anything… yet. “Listen,” Sammy says, void of the usual sass she throws my way. “I know that you and Harlow broke up, and you might not be on the best terms, but… do you know if she’s okay? We’ve tried calling, but her phone’s off.”
Good to know. Last night, at around four in the morning, I was tempted to call her. I picked up my phone, pulled up her number, and almost hit dial.Almost. But I pussied out at the last second, because I didn’t know what to say if she actually answered.
The quiet cousin speaks next, and I have to strain to hear her. “We’re just worried is all,” she says. “Especially because it’s the, um…”
I raise my eyebrows. “Thewhat?”
Sammy sighs. “It’s the one-year anniversary of her brother’s death.”
My chest tightens at the thought, my stomach twisting, and I shake my head, unable to look at the desperate faces in front of me. “Sorry,” I murmur. “I don’t know where she is.”
I know the half-court better than I know myself. Even in the darkness, I know every crack in the concrete, every dip, every spot where the hand-painted lines have faded. I’d spent so many hours here that I could paint a picture of the back of Harlow’s house with my eyes closed.
Fifteen minutes ago, I drove my van into her backyard for the first time since we broke up, took out my ball, and played on the half-court. It had always felt like home—the court—but there’s something different now.
Something’s missing.
Something’swrong.
It’s not as if I expect Harlow to immediately open her back door and watch me like she used to whenever she heard me out here. But… I don’t know. I expectsomething. Anything. And the longer I play, the more out of tune I become with my body, with the court, with myhome.
I stop dribbling, hold the ball to my side, and look over at the house. Earlier, I’d considered calling her dad, but I didn’t know what to say to him. He’d either tell me she was fine and that he knew where she was, or he’d worry and beg me to check the house.
I still have a key, after all.
Resignation outweighing my worries, my fears, I grab my keys from the van’s ignition and enter the house through the back door. “Harlow?” I call out. “It’s Jace.” I wait a beat for a response that never comes, and then I flick on a light, and then another, as I make my way through her house. It’s different now. There’s less furniture and decorations, and I wonder if her mom’s been to take some of it to her new house. Or maybe Harlow has. Maybe she’s moved out? Moved on? And just… didn’t bother telling anyone. Or…
Maybe she’s in her bathroom, surrounded by days-old pools of blood because?—
I don’t evenwantto think about that. Not again. Not anymore. I spent all last night drowning in those thoughts, and my only saving grace is that her dad would know. If it’s been days since her phone’s been off and he hasn’t been able to contact her, he would’ve called me. And then he would’ve come home.
“Harlow?” I try once more before climbing the stairs two at a time.
Her bedroom door is open, the light from the lamp on her desk enough to illuminate the entire room. The first thing I notice is that her room is clean and her bed is made. “Harlow?” I don’t know why I keep saying her name, as if she’ll magically appear if I do it enough times.
I shift my gaze, just enough to note her bathroom door wide open. Fear and panic swirl through my veins as my heart races, pumping harder with each step I take toward it. I try to breathe through theagony, the image of her standing at her sink, her underwear lowered to reveal her hip, and the glint… the shine of the razor caused by the lights as it pierces her flesh, and I gasp. Hold my breath. Take one more step until I can peer into the room.
It’s empty.
I enter the space, move the shower curtain aside to check in the bathtub.
Empty.