There wasn’t a question about where I was heading. I took the same path Abby, Mary Grace, Erica, and I had walked on our way to the party. The ground was still wet from last night’s storms, creating pockets of mud from the ruts where Dad’s mower had gone. The grass brushed against the bottom of my legs, and a lazy breeze blew around me until I reached the woods. Once I entered the trees, the outside world was silenced. Except for the snapping of twigs and rustling of the leaves, it was only me.
I followed the trail into the woods and watched everything around me; my eyes scanned left and right as I hoped to catch a glimpse of my sister. It was eerie being here alone. The leaves on the trees created a canopy, so only bits of light escaped through the open spaces and reached the ground.
I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye and froze. I prayed it was Abby, but when I crept forward for a closer look, I saw it was Johnson. He wore a blue thermal shirt that seemed too hot for this weather and clutched a pile of sticks against his chest.
The police had said that he wasn’t a suspect, but how could he not be when he lived in the same woods my sister disappeared in? Had he seen her that night? Or heard her? Was he holding something back? I wanted to shout out to him, ask him what he knew, but I was alone in the woods that had swallowed my sister up; I was too scared to do anything more than wait for him to leave.
My hands were in fists. I relaxed them and continued along the path until I arrived at the bonfire site, now just a hole of black soot and charred logs. I kicked at one of the stones that lined the circle and when it didn’t budge, a sharp lick of pain surged through my foot. But even that wasn’t enough to numb all of my emotions. Abby had been here two days ago, twirling around the flames with her arms held out. How happy and carefree she had been.
I walked over to where the cars had been parked. There were tire tracks in the dirt filled with cloudy rainwater and crumpled-up beer cans. A reminder that people had been here.
Tommy and I had been here.
And Abby had found us.
I sank to the ground as thoughts spun around my head. They made me so dizzy it was hard to think straight.
What had I done to my sister?
Why hadn’t I chased after her?
Why hadn’t I insisted she come back with me when I saw her at the river?
Why hadn’t I told her I was sorry?
Each what-if taunted me. There were so many things I could have done, but I didn’t do any of them.
My mind flashed to Max Locke. He was in my class until last year, when his family moved away. He was supposed to stay home and watch his little brother one day, but instead he took his brother with him to the park so he could hang out with friends. When he wasn’t watching, his brother wandered into the street, where a car hit him. He survived, but he was never, ever the same. I remember the way people at school treated Max. What they said to him and how they made him into some kind of monster. He never intended for that to happen to his brother. It was an accident, but it didn’t matter. People would view me the same way if I told the truth about what happened.
I went in the direction Abby had when she ran away from Tommy and me. I moved through the woods quickly, as if it were that night again, and I was following her. I slapped tree branches out of the way and tripped over roots, but that didn’t stop me. I moved faster and faster until I burst out into a clearing.
I was at the river.
The water moved swiftly. It churned and took anything in its way with it. A tree limb the size of a small car passed by me in an instant.
“Abby,” I yelled, but the roar of the river was the only response.
I took a few small steps toward the river until my feet were at the edge of the embankment.
“Abby, please, you need to come home,” I shouted into the empty spaces around me. “We need you.”
I choked on my words.
“I need you.”
I shifted my weight to take another step and slipped. My right foot slid down the muddy bank into the water. I grabbed at the roots that lined the edge and tried to pull myself up. I could feel the current tugging on me.
I clawed my way back, moving on all fours like an animal, struggling to get away from the angry water.
My pants got stuck on a rock, and it tore a hole through them, the cold water a shock to my bare skin. A bright red line of blood appeared, and I hurried to pull myself up all the way. I moved a few feet away from the river and fell to the ground.
I lay there, my chest heaving up and down, my heart punching against my skin. I’d almost gone into the water. I could’ve been swept away.
Panic set in as I imagined my sister too close to the edge so that with one misstep, the water could swallow her up.
The thought took my breath away, and it felt as if I were the one who was drowning.
12
I burst out of the woods and ran through our field as if an invisible demon was chasing me. I moved through the mowed lines my sister ran, and as I got close to our house, my parents and Officer Scarano rushed toward me.
“Rhylee, what’s wrong?” Dad asked, alarmed.
I was a mess. My jeans were torn and bloody, my clothes were caked with dried mud, and my hands were scraped.
“Everything,” I told him, and I choked back the fear that was threatening to smother me.
“Are you okay?” Mom asked. “Where have you been?”
“I tried to find her. I went back to the woods where the bonfire was. I searched by the river, but she wasn’t there.”
I broke down. I couldn’t be strong any longer. I sank to the ground and brought my knees to my chest. I put my head down and sobbed, too ashamed to look at anyone.
Dad kneeled and pulled me to him. He rocked me like he had when I was young.
“You’ve been so strong, Rhylee. I know this is hard, but we have to believe she’s going to find her way home.” The stiff hairs from his beard rubbed against my cheek, and I wanted so badly to believe him.
But it wasn’t true. I was by the river. I saw the footprints and how easy it was to be pulled into the water. Abby wasn’t okay. She wasn’t going to be okay. And if they had any idea what I’d done, no one would want to touch me anymore. No one would want to be near me.
“I need to ask you about that night again,” Officer Scarano said when I let go of Dad.
I was suddenly on guard. What else did they want to know?
“I told you everything I know.”
“It’s about Tommy. You two are close, right?”
“We’re friends,” I said, and tried to be careful with my word choice because I had no idea where this was heading.
“Do you remember seeing him at the bonfire while you were there?”
“Yeah,” I said cautiously.
“Do you remember if there was ever a point when you didn’t see him around? Maybe for a little bit?”
“I don’t know, maybe. He’s my sister’s boyfriend, not mine. I don’t know what he’s doing all the time. Why is that important?”
Mom and Dad exchanged glances. The two of them then turned toward Officer Scarano. It made me nervous.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Officer Scarano cleared his throat before he spoke. “Tommy’s being interviewed by some detectives right now.”
“What for?”
“Rhylee, let’s go inside. We can talk about this later,” Dad said, placing a hand on my shoulder, but I shook it off.
“Tell me what’s going on,” I demanded.
“Some of your classmates came forward and said that they heard Abby yelling at someone near the bonfire. When one of them went to check on her, they saw Tommy push your sister down and then Abby and Tommy ran into the woods. We’re trying to figure out what it was about.” Officer Scarano said it as if it were no big deal. As if we were simply having casual conversation.
I sucked in my breath. I remembered how I’d reached out to Tommy to stop him. That wasn’t my sister they saw
, that was me.
“No,” I said, not just to my parents and Officer Scarano but also to myself. “You’re making a mistake. Tommy wouldn’t hurt Abby.”
“We’re not saying that he did, but we need to check our leads.”
“What leads?” I demanded. “Who’s blaming him?”
When the officer wouldn’t reply, Mom spoke up. “His shoe prints were found along the riverbank. Near where we found the ones that match Abby’s shoe. But he said he never went near the water.”
“I have to talk to him,” I said, a sense of unease rising within me.
“You need to stay away from him,” Mom said, surprising us all. She loved Tommy. She joked that she had four children, since he was over so much.
“You can’t possibly believe he did something to Abby, can you, Mom? This is Tommy we’re talking about,” I said, mostly to convince her but also to silence the sliver of doubt that had edged into my mind.
Mom just stared at me. “Right now, all I know is that my daughter is missing and Tommy is the last person to have seen her,” she finally said.
“He’s not a suspect, is he?” I asked Officer Scarano, and when he didn’t reply, Dad spoke up.
“We’re trying to bring your sister home,” he said. “That’s what we need to focus on.”
“Tommy didn’t do anything to Abby,” I said, but my words didn’t sound so confident. And when the three of them said nothing, suddenly it wasn’t only my sister I was afraid for, but also Tommy.
13
Tommy is not a suspect.
Tommy is not a suspect.
Tommy is not a suspect.
I sat in my room and wrote the words over and over again on notebook paper. I tried to make myself believe it was true. My pen pressed down so hard that it left an imprint on my desk.
Tommy was a good person. He’d never do anything to Abby.
But the police had planted a small doubt into me, and I wasn’t sure I could shake it out of my mind. There were about thirty minutes between when Abby had run away from me and Tommy found me. What was he doing during that time?
I ripped a new sheet of paper out of my notebook and wrote a list of what might have gone on during those lost minutes:
1. Looking for Abby
2. Arguing with Abby
3. Trying to talk Abby into returning to the bonfire
4. Breaking up with Abby
5. Tommy did something to Abby
My pencil hovered over number five. I was scared to put down what the cops and my parents were thinking.
Tommy couldn’t have done anything.
He wouldn’t have done anything.
Right?
I crossed off five, then four, then three, then two. I pretended there were no other reasons or answers beyond Tommy searching the woods for my sister.
I grabbed a glue stick and created a new sort of collage. I pasted the scraps that proclaimed Tommy is not a suspect over my list. One on top of the other until the list disappeared and there was nothing but Tommy’s innocence.
14
Mom might have forbidden me from talking to Tommy, but that was all the more reason I needed to. Forget about leads and what the police thought they’d found. I had to hear it from him that he didn’t do anything.
I waited until my parents went to a community meeting to discuss efforts in the search for Abby. Collin was at a friend’s house, so it was easy to slip away.
I walked alongside the road, not wanting to cut through the field. It didn’t feel right when Abby wasn’t here to run it every day.
It was dusk, that time of day when the bottom of the horizon seems to fade beneath the darkening sky. I wondered where Abby was and whether or not she saw the same sky.
Tommy’s light was on in his room. His curtains were drawn, but a shadow moved in front of them. I pulled out my phone and dialed his number.
“I need to talk to you,” I said when he answered. “I’m outside your window.”
The curtains parted and Tommy appeared. The light behind him illuminated his face, and I felt the familiar pull toward him.
He held his index finger up, indicating that he needed a minute, the curtain dropped, and he disappeared again.
I waited for what felt like forever and almost thought he’d changed his mind when he walked out from the back of the house.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“The police questioned you,” I said. “They said someone saw you running into the woods after Abby.”
The light from his eyes faded.
“They’re calling you a suspect,” I continued.
“I’d never hurt Abby. You can’t believe that,” Tommy said.
I shook my head. “I don’t know what to think, this is all so crazy.”
Tommy sat on his front step and put his head in his hands. I reached out and my hand hovered over his back. In the life before Abby went missing, I never would’ve hesitated to offer support, but here, in our current reality, I pulled my hand back, unsure of what was right or wrong anymore.
Tommy finally raised his head. “I tried to find her. I looked for her everywhere. I went back to the woods after you had called and told me she hadn’t come home. I searched through the trees, by the river. I wanted to bring her home, but I couldn’t find her.”
“You went to the river?” I asked.
“It was a dumb idea, all of it was. She’d run away the night before, but I had this strange feeling that something wasn’t right. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“The police found your footprints there,” I said, and it made sense. He’d gone back to find my sister.
“I told them I didn’t hurt her. I was there because I tried to find her. I swear, I didn’t hurt Abby.”
“I believe you,” I said with a certainty even I didn’t understand. And this time I did rest my hand on his back.
“I told the police everything I could. About what happened at the bonfire. I told them Abby and I got in a fight because I planned to break up with her. I admitted to chasing after her, but told them I couldn’t get her to come back with me. I didn’t tell them you were there. They don’t know you were involved. You’re safe, Rhylee, and I’ll make sure it stays that way.”
Safe. I was safe. He couldn’t know how much his words twisted inside of me. How could I ever be safe again after what I had done? Until Abby came home, I’d never feel safe again.
15
I stayed home from school again the next day and returned to the woods to look for Abby, but once I made it to the river, I couldn’t move on.
I stood at the edge, because where did I go from here?
The water swirled and churned as if it waited for one wrong move to swallow me whole and claim me too. I stayed rooted to the edge, and my mind spun with reminders of how I’d betrayed my sister and the fear that no amount of searching would fix what I’d done.
16
My parents were waiting for me when I got home.
“We were hoping to meet with some of the neighboring cities’ police officers to talk about ways to expand the search. Do you mind staying here until we get back?”
Translation, “We want someone here in case Abby returns,” as if we needed to catch her and hold on to her so she doesn’t run again.
“Sure,” I told them, even though the idea of sitting in an empty house was the last thing I wanted to do.
“We’re going to find her,” Dad said, and I felt that familiar clutch in my stomach, the deep knot of fear, the whisper of doubt.
I turned on the TV after they left, because silence was impossible.
Mom had plastic bins full of pictures sitting on the dining room table. She’d been sorting through them and pulling out images of Abby to scan and upload onto a tribute page she created to help bring her home.
I grabbed a stack and laid each picture out, one after the other, until the whole table was covered. I moved each around and placed the images in chronological order the best that I could.
My sister’s life scene by scene.
I sorted through one of the stacks and found a picture of Tommy and me that I’d never seen before. We were on my front steps with Popsicles in our hands. There was purple juice from Tommy’s Popsicle running down his hand and my lips were stained bright red. It was the summer before sixth grade, because I had Band-Aids on both my knees, my elbow, and my forehead. Tommy had dared me to climb the tree in his backyard after his dad had been picking apples and left a ladder under it. The limbs were too high to get to from the ground, but the ladder made it the perfect climbing tree. At least it was until the branch I was on snapped and I slipped. The two of us had gotten in big trouble for going up in the tree, and for a week we weren’t allowed to see each other. Abby and I had spent the days together, and I remember how upset she was when our parents got sick of Tommy and me whining and we were finally allowed to see each other again.
I’d chosen him over her, always. Nothing had changed. And now Abby was gone because of it.
I swiped my hand across the table and knocked the pictures on the floor. This was useless. It was all useless.
My thoughts were interrupted by a loud knock on the front door. For a second, a brief second, I thought it was Abby and she’d returned home, but that was silly. If it was her, she’d open the door and let herself in.
I tried to hide my disappointment when I saw it was Tessa.
“We missed you at school today,” she said, and dropped the bag she carried so she could give me a hug. Her hair tickled my cheek as she wrapped her arms around me. I wanted so badly to be folded into her comfort. To take what she was offering. But how could I after what I’d done? I deserved none of it.
She let go and pulled a pile of mail from her bag. “Here, this was falling out of your mailbox.”
“Checking the mail hasn’t been our top priority these days,” I said and took the stack. I noticed a bunch of college brochures on top. Texas A&M, Pepperdine, Boston University. I’d been so excited a few weeks ago about Boston University when I found out that they had a program where you could study art for an entire year in Europe. I’d imagined days filled with museums and evenings sitting at cafés and outdoor bars where I’d savor the memories of seeing the great works of art in person. I’d pictured myself there so easily, but now that felt like a lifetime ago.
A Void the Size of the World Page 6