“We have to find her!” Tyler barely registers his own voice as he turns to see his friends behind him. He can barely make out the looks on their faces apart from knowing they agree.

  When was it, he wonders, that he first started suspecting? Was it when she went on that trip? Putting up the tents so easily, in a way eerily reminiscent of the way they were taught? Maybe it was when her expressions rang as familiar.

  Or the way she’d been able to get Nina to do what she wanted in a way he’d only seen one person do. It could have even been atLia’sbirthday, when she’d navigated the floor confidently, despite never having been there before. It could have been any of those circumstances.

  However, it would be a lie to say that was when he started suspecting. He’d tried to bury it in the back of my mind, not wanting (refusing) to hope it was true. But if he were to be honest with himself…

  “Where do you think she could have gone?”

  Tyler brings himself out of thought to see three pairs of concerned eyes trained on him. Nina is carryingherbag (he’s not ready to admit it’s…).Lia’seyes wander behind him, lips pursing.

  “How could you have let her get away,” Nina says quietly in the tense silence afterZach’squestion.

  Chocote brown eyes meet teary gray. A beat passing as he searches them. Then. “You know,” he breathes. She knows.“Don’t you?”

  “How could I not?” Nina shakes her head,Lia and Zach turn to stare at her. “Didn’t I say she seemed familiar? Of course I’d figure it out.”

  “What…”

  “Nina?”

  Tyler ignores them both, heart heavy. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  Nina blinks, holding T-Vicky’s purse close to her. “Did you want me too? You’ve always been so weird when it comes to her.”

  Did he want her to? No. No he didn’t. It feels like bsphemy even thinking it, but if she had, it would have made it so much harder for him to deny. Tyler doesn’t want to say that aloud. It feels like cowardice. Which it is.

  The silence seems to be answer enough. She sighs. “I know,” she simply states. “I’ve suspected longer than I can remember, but the night ofLia’sparty…” She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. It can wait. Let’s just find her and make sure she’s alright first.”

  “I’m confused,” Zach says, as bad at reading the room as ever. “What are you two talking about?”

  Tyler stays silent at that, knowing whether to be amused or exasperated by his friend’s obliviousness. Then he looks at Lia. At the way her eyes widen in surprise, looking between both of them and settles on exasperated.

  “Have you really not figured it out?” He feels a little numb now, brain not really wanting to work with him. The floodgates of memory threatening to overflow if he let’s them.

  “Figured out what?” Zach sends them all a confused look. “What’s going on? What are you all talking about?”

  “Zach…” Nina sighs, pinching her nose bridge. “Nevermind,” she shakes her head, “you’ll find out soon enough. It seems she’s decided to stop pretending.”

  Tyler gulps back the lump in his throat. He doesn’t really want to answer Zach’s question either. For many reasons, the least of which being that he wants his friend to figure it out on his own. It wouldn’t be fair to her otherwise.

  “Did you know!?” Lia interrupts the confused silence, sending him and Nina accusing looks. “How long have you known!?” Her nostrils fre, a spark of hurt in her eyes, mouth quivering even as she sends them both an angry gre.

  “I…” Tyler inhales deeply, releasing the breath slow. His heart beats a little faster, a restlessness under his skin. “I think I’ve always known,” he sends her a shaky smile, ignoring Zach’s confused stare again. “I just didn’t want to get my hopes up only to have them shattered.”

  Lia huffs angrily, but her eyes soften as she shakes her head. She’s not yelling at them anymore, so he considers that a win at least. A small one. They’re wasting too much time. they need to go.

  “Seriously! What are you all talking about?”

  “Zach-”

  “There’s no-”

  “Tori,” Nina cuts them both off, running a hand down her face. It makes his breath catch. “We’re talking aboutTori.”

  “What?” Zach blinks, clearly not getting it. “What about Tori? I thought we were gonna talk about Vicky and her-No.” His eyes widen, blue a shade lighter than hers meeting his. “No,” he says on a whisper, looking to the girls and their thinned lips. “You don’t mean…”

  “We do.” Tyler is very thankful Nina’s doing the talking because his mind has decided to betray him. “Come on Zach,” she says with a shake of her head, “she hasn’t changed that much.”

  No she hasn’t. Tyler can remember her smiling at him when they were kids. Can hear the voice in his head telling him to be smarter in his choices. Can feel the warmth of her family before they…He shakes his head.

  “But she…She’s been gone for over six years!” Zach still doesn’t sound like he believes it.

  Nina sighs like she can’t believe she has to say anything else. “Yeah well, she’s-”

  “Why didn’t she say something? Anything!?” Ah. Zach runs a frustrated hand through his hair, shooting him a gre like he should know why she didn’t straight up tell them.

  It’s a fairly good question, Tyler reluctantly admits, but not one he has an answer to. He has thought the same, in quiet moments where he lets himself remember. Why didn’t she say anything? Why did she up and leave without so much as a word?

  Even after that, why did she leave them? Leave him. He could still remember the emptiness of going to her house to check on her and finding her gone. The way it had hurt for weeks ter and no one would tell them where she was. He’d thought…

  “I don’t know,” Nina sighs, “she wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Didn’t tell you!?” Lia sends her an incredulous look, “when did you talk to her about this? And more importantly why the hell didn’t you say something to me!?” Again, Tyler’s gd someone else is able to ask when his mind is a blur.

  Walking by the beach. Laughter around a ke. Mud and trees in the summer. The feeling of a head on his shoulder. The way she smiled. It all comes back to him in flickers, not quite clear but spilling through until he can think of nothing else.

  “Yeah, ditto.” Zach crosses his arms, turning a gre towards her, foot tapping in impatience.

  “When I knew it was her for certain, the night of the party. She knew I knew. All she told me was to let you all figure it out for yourself.”

  Tyler is very curious how she knew for certain then, but there are more important matters at hand. He can see Lia gearing up for an argument, and they do not have time for that. Zach just looks lost, the poor guy.

  “Look, we don’t have anytime for this. We need to find her.” Tyler can hear the desperation in his voice clear as a summer’s day, but it doesn’t matter. “You can ask all the questions you want ter.”

  Clouds have moved in while they were inside, growing darker by the minute. He knows what that means even without the ants now gathering at their feet. A storm’s brewing. And on cue, a low rumble sounds behind them.

  His friends throw a gnce upwards, lips pursing, before meeting his eyes with a nod. A small relieved sigh escapes him at the determination in their eyes. Good. They can get on track now.

  “Yeah, we should,” Lia runs a hand through her hair. “It could rain any moment. Now back to my earlier question, where do you think she could have gone?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know!?” Lia shoots him a look that could kill.

  He raises his hands defensively. “It’s not like she’s done that much in the st couple of months. The only pces I’ve seen her go is school and with us. I’m fairly sure she spends most of her time looking after her Raine.”

  “Alright, fair enough. But that does put us back to square one.”

  “Why don’t we just look around for her?” Zach motions towards their surroundings in emphasis. “How far could she have even gotten on foot?” He runs his hand through his hair again, a little more forcefully than the st. “The only things that way besides houses are the bus stop and the library.”

  That…might work. Except, he’s not sure…No. He shakes his head.

  He exchanges a look with the girls. “You guys go towards the bus stop, I’ll head to the library?” It’s the best shot they have anyway. And the search is on.

  It takes a few ps around the aisles and a quick chat with the librarians to deduce that she is not in fact the library. He sends a message into the group chat before slumping into the first avaible chair. All the running has made him tired.

  More than that, his heartbeat has picked up and he feels nauseous. He promised Jade he’d get her home save. Oh god, it’s her birthday. It’s her birthday and they…

  Tyler takes in a settling breath, hand on his chest. Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat. This isn’t helping. Shit. His eyes cmp shut.

  A memory flickers to mind as he sluggishly walks out to head towards the agreed meeting pce. The clouds have completely covered the sky, distant thunder rumbling. He embraces it, it’s an echo of his own mind. Tyler can barely register his own movements as the memory spreads.

  They’re eating on the deck of her house, cake and food around them. His friends sit around him. They’re waiting for them to return. Small hands reach idly into the box of decorations as they coil them around the banisters of the stairs.

  His clothes are soaked. Water balloons y popped on the grass, with filled ones sitting in the corners of the yard. The adults sit a comfortable distance away, smiling and making small talk. It’s nice.

  Smothering a ugh as he remembers Lia dragging a ughing blonde girl through the yard, he reaches for a cupcake. Nina sits beside him, ughing at them both as he and Zach argue about the decorating. The adults watch it all with an amused smile.

  He had gred at Zach when he’d gone to sit down seconds after Nina had. They were supposed to finish this box, but he’d apparently decided food was more important. The traitor. Fine, he’d decides a second ter, slumping into a seat on the steps. It’s getting cold anyway.

  Tori’s ughter carries through the house even as Lia’s compining grows. He shares a look with his companions, hiding a smile. It’s fake anyway,Liawas the one throwing most of the balloons.

  He worries for a second when the ughter is interrupted by a yelp. What…

  “Why’d you pinch me?”

  And the worry is gone. Tyler shakes his head, sighing as he leans back. This will only get another fight started when they come out.

  True to form it does. Just when his clothes had started to dry as well. But who are they to deny the birthday girl?

  “Where the fuck could she have gone!?” Zach’s concerned voice breaks him out of his thoughts with the force of a brick to the face. “It’s going to storm in a sec.”

  “I know,” Nina says, giving him a deadpan look. “We know. But she’s not here anymore. So we need to be smart and figure out where she could have gone, before it does.”

  None of them mention that they’d wasted the better part of an hour on a fruitless search. It lingers in the silence, along with the dread. It’s too far from her house for her to get there on foot and he hasn’t got a message from Jade. She could be anywhere.

  Zachfrowns. “What about the ke?”

  “She doesn’t drive and doesn’t have her purse, so I doubt she had money for the ferry,” Lia points out.

  “Yeah, but it’s her birthday. And Tyler said she hasn’t gone home, so…”

  “A birthday she didn’t want to celebrate,” Nina points out right after.

  And that. Tyler blinks. It catches at something. A niggling at the back of his mind that comes back with a renewed force. Why hadn’t she wanted to celebrate her birthday? She always looked forward to them before, so-

  Oh. His eyes widen. Shit. He doesn’t know whether to ugh or cry as it hits him. July 21st. He feels like a complete idiot.

  Groaning, he runs a hand down his face. “We’ve been asking ourselves the wrong question,” he informs them when they look at him. Or maybe it was just him, but he’d like to think this was a group effort of stupid.

  He’d been asking himself where Vicky could have gone, when he should have been asking himself where Tori would go. He can feel their confused stares even as he runs a frustrated hand through his hair. Shit. There was only one pce he could think where she would go.

  “You know where she is,” Zach says more than asks, hope colouring his words.

  Tyler smiles wryly, grimacing. It’s not a pce he wants to visit often. Certainly not today, but it’s the only pce she could be. The answer to his earlier questions had been staring him in the face all along. He’d just been too stupid to put together.

  It seemed so obvious now that he let himself think of her as Tori and not Vicky Fleming. The reason she’d gotten quiet. Her teary eyes and ck of eating. Her reluctance to celebrate her birth every year since she’d been with Jade.

  He knew. Tori Jones would only be one pce today, and they all should have known where. After all, they’d been right beside her when it had happened. It was the reason they’d lost her all those years ago. Why they’d felt the absence of her for the st few years, even as they ignored it,

  It was the anniversary of the crash that had knocked their lives off course. “I know exactly where she is.” Where else would she go today except the cemetery? They should have known she would visit her parents when they’d been her entire world.