Page 28 of Our Moon (JACT #1)

We’re at the party for almost two hours before Alex gets a text from Lucy asking if he was still with Ally.

I’m immediately on alert because I know Ally was heading straight over to Lucy’s graduation party after dinner; her parents were supposed to be dropping her off there on their way home.

She would have told Lucy if she had a change of plans.

“Did you try mom’s cell phone?” Trevor asks Alex as we all step outside in the front yard.

“Yeah, hers and dad’s. They both went to voicemail,” Alex replies, looking worried .

“What about Ally’s?” I ask, trying not to panic myself.

“Lucy tried her cell first, and I just tried it again.”

“Let me try,” I say and pull out my phone. Same thing, voicemail. I shake my head at them to let them know the call didn’t go through. Why isn’t she answering her phone?

“I just tried the house,” Trevor says. “No answer.”

“We better go look for them,” Alex says and heads straight for the car. We all follow, saying nothing to anyone as we make our way down the street to where we parked. We get in the car, Trevor and Alex up front and Joey and I in the back.

“They probably got distracted on the way home, you know how Ally gets. Probably stopped for ice cream or something,” Trevor tries to reason, but I can tell by the shakiness in his voice that he’s starting to panic.

He’s just trying to hide it from his brother.

As the oldest sibling, he’s always trying to be stronger for the others.

“They had dessert at the restaurant,” Alex says quietly. He’s got his elbow propped up on the door and he’s leaning his head into his hand. His hands are shaking, and he’s completely freaking out.

“Maybe Ally wasn’t feeling well and just went home and went to bed.

She ate a lot at dinner. I’ve never seem someone so little pack in so much food,” Joey offers.

It’s possible, but she still would have texted Lucy, or someone, to communicate the change in plans.

She’s meticulous about stuff like that for this very reason.

She hates for people to worry. And why wouldn’t their parents be answering their phones either? Or the house phone?

“I have a bad feeling,” Alex says shaking his head.

We all whip our heads quickly to look at Alex.

We know what he means when he says he has a bad feeling.

He’s had bad feelings before, once was when Ally fell out of their old treehouse and broke her arm, and the other time was the night she and Blake broke up.

In both of those instances, his bad feeling was spot on.

“What kind of bad feeling?” I’m the first to ask.

“I don’t know,” he whispers.

“It’s probably nothing,” Trevor says.

“No,” Alex says quietly. “It’s not nothing. Pull over,” he says quickly, “I’m going to be sick.”

Trevor barely gets the car to the side of the road before Alex has the door open and is out of the car puking on the ground. He’s on my side, so I get out and help him up .

“You alright, man?” I ask, knowing damn well that he’s not okay.

When he looks up at me, I’m stunned to see tears running down his face. “I can’t lose her, Chase. I can’t.” He drops his head and starts sobbing. My eyes widen, and I take a step back as I realize what he’s saying.

He thinks he’s going to lose her?

He can’t lose her.

I can’t lose her.

We’re supposed to start our life together tomorrow, for real. Tomorrow is supposed to be the best day of our lives. It’s supposed to be a new beginning. What am I supposed to do if she’s not there?

Trevor gets out of the car and gets down on the ground with his brother.

“We don’t know that something bad happened.

Let’s just go to the restaurant and follow their route home.

Maybe they just have a flat tire or something.

You know that strip near Martin Road has shoddy cell reception and tons of pot holes. ”

Always the voice of reason. It makes me feel a little bit better myself, until I remember that they wouldn’t have taken Martin Road to Lucy’s house. But I don’t say anything. I can’t say anything. We all need to hang on to any hope we can .

Trevor helps Alex back into the car and Joey hands him a water bottle from the back seat. Alex rinses his mouth and spits the water out the open car door before shutting it.

“About an hour before I got the text from Lucy,” Alex starts, “I had this sharp pain go straight through my body. It’s the same feeling I had when Ally fell out of the tree, and when she and Blake broke up.

I didn’t think anything of it at the time, at any of those times, until after the fact when I realized she’d been in some kind of pain.

” He pauses for a moment and the car is completely silent. “I’m scared,” he finally says.

Trevor reaches over and grabs Alex’s hand. “We will find them,” he says. He clearly knows better than to make promises he can’t keep. Yes, we may find them, but will they be okay?

I sit back in my seat and look out the window. The sky is so cloudy, I can’t see the moon.

***

We’ve been driving for about thirty minutes, following the route they would have taken from the restaurant back to the house. Then from the restaurant to Lucy’s house. We don’t see their car at all along the way at all, leaving us completely baffled as to what could have happened.

“Should we call the police?” Alex asks .

“What would we tell them? Our parents and sister are missing, help us find them? It’s not exactly a kidnapping.” Trevor sighs.

Alex nods. “Something just isn’t right. What other way could they have gone?”

“Blanton’s Bridge,” I say quietly.

“What?” Trevor says.

“Blanton’s Bridge,” I say louder. “If there was traffic on the main road, your dad may have looped around to the bridge to enter Lucy’s neighborhood from the back side. Which is very possible with all the graduations at the different schools today. There were probably a lot of people on the road.”

Trevor’s eyes widen as he takes a U-turn and heads back to the street that cuts through the middle of town and will lead us over to Blanton’s Bridge Road. We’re all completely silent as we weave through the dark streets, cautiously racing to the bridge.

My heart is racing, and in my mind and my heart, I’m praying to every deity out there that Ally and her parents are okay. As we round the bend before the bridge comes into view, my stomach sinks to the floorboards of the car.

“No. No, no, no, no!” Alex screams .

Trevor stops the car, and we all get out and run towards the emergency vehicles surrounding the entrance to the bridge.

“You can’t come back here,” a police officer standing just outside the barricade states.

“You don’t understand, our parents and sister are missing. They may have come this way,” Trevor tells him. “Please just let us see if it’s their car down there.”

A shadow seems to fall over the officer’s face once Trevor mentions his parents and sister, and I just know. I just know it’s them. I’m sure this officer knows enough about the occupants of the vehicle to know that they match Trevor’s description.

“Look, son, just step on back, and I will have an officer come speak with you, okay?”

Trevor takes a step back, but Alex doesn’t move.

“Come on, Al,” Trevor says, pulling on his arm.

Alex doesn’t leave his spot, he’s staring down at the ground just beyond the police officer. I follow his gaze and freeze.

“We gave mom so much shit for that little tie-dyed monstrosity and refused to ride in the car with her so long as she had it on her antennae. Remember, Trev?” Alex says quietly as he looks at the small Mickey Mouse antennae ball on the pavement.

I look over at Trevor and he, too, is staring at it the small souvenir.

“We gave her such grief for it.” A sob breaks free and Trevor pulls his little brother in his arms. “Why, Trev? Why did this happen to them?” Alex cries.

“I don’t know,” Trevor answers, his voice breaking. “I don’t know.”

Seeing my best friends, my brothers, falling apart causes my own tears to spill over.

Ally .

The police officer is still standing only a few feet away, watching the scene unfold, the brothers breaking in front of him.

I take a brave step towards him. “Please,” I beg.

“Can you please tell us if they’re still down there, if there were any…

any survivors?” More tears spill down my cheeks, and my voice breaks as I say that last part.

The officer sighs, looks over to Trevor and Alex, then looks back at me. “Look, I’m in charge of traffic control, so I don’t know what’s going on down there,” he gestures behind him. “But two ambulances have already left transporting victims to the hospital. Memorial General,” he adds .

“Thank you,” I tell him and step over to the guys. “Come on, we’ll go to the hospital. The officer said ambulances have already brought people over. There’s nothing we can do here, let’s go, I’ll drive.”

The brothers seem strengthened by this information, and we all run back to the car and get in.

I turn it around and head back to the main road, driving as carefully as I can despite the fact that I want to break every traffic law imaginable to get to the hospital.

If they were taken away in an ambulance, that means they’re alive, right?