Page 2 of Cruel Pleasures

I’m just about the only person around that disagrees.

My best friend’s still alive. She might have disappeared, but she’s out in the world somewhere.

I’ve never been surer.

But that’s the problem—when you start talking about how a person believed to be dead is really alive, people look at you like you’re crazy as fuck.

Tupac. Elvis Presley. Hell, even Michael Jackson.

Anybody saying they’re still alive is treated like a looney toon.

Anytime I’ve even suggested Lyra’s still alive, I’ve been given the same kind of treatment. Pitying shakes of the head. Sad sighs. Gentle pats on the shoulder. A million and one fucking “sorry for your loss’s”.

So, I’ve learned to bottle it up. Keep it to myself. Agonize over and over again about how—and why—Lyra would leave me in the dark.

We were best friends!

How could she ghost me?

By the end of my shift at Strictly Pleasures, my anger’s morphed into a bottomless sense of loss. Worse than any fiery-tempered outburst, it’s like having a hole gaping inside of you that you can’t possibly fill. It’s a hollow feeling that makes everything around you duller, grayer.

I pack up my things and enter the December frost.

I could go home, where my roommates will likely be crowding any common space in the townhouse; where I’ll be forced to listen to them laugh and raise their voices at each other over a game of spades—or I can do what I really want to do.

The only thing that feels like it might fill the emptiness Lyra’s absence has left behind.

I choose the latter.

Instead of hopping on the subway to head toward Harrisburg, I head in the opposite direction. I blink and find myself standing outside a squat, faded brick building that was once a sheet metal warehouse.

The building’s inside is as worn-down and barren as the outside. Passing through the hall of Lyra’s floor, the muffled sounds of TV shows and small children’s cries reach my ears. The fragrant aromas of dinner being cooked assault my sense of smell. Scents like smoky meats being fried and the strong bite of garlic in the air.

I stop outside her old apartment and tap my knuckles against the door.

It takes only two more knocks for Lyra’s roommate, Taviar, to answer.

We’ve met twice. Both times in passing.

The third time mirrors the first two times—Taviar’s distracted on the phone as he draws the door open and cocks an uncertain brow at me. It takes him a second longer to recognize me, in which he mutters to whoever he’s on the phone with to hold on.

“Hey,” he says. “You’ve heard about Lyra, right?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard. I’m her best friend.”

He snaps his fingers, pointing them at me as if to jog his memory. “Imani, right?”

“I heard the police have finished collecting what evidence they can from her room.”

“You want to take a look? Anything you want is yours. Everything else I’m tossing out. Got an ad up on Craigslist for her room. Somebody should take the bait any day now.”

I ignore the casual disregard with which he speaks of Lyra, her things, and renting out her old room.

They were roommates for years, yet he doesn’t seem to give a damn about her.

Few do.

Something I’ve always known—and experienced myself—but didn’t understand the magnitude of ’til Lyra’s disappearance.