A Void the Size of the World

by Rachele Alpine

  “Of course I’m curious. And do you want to know why? Because that’s my house. That’s my family and that’s my sister missing. So how about you stop and think for a minute how interesting I find it that assholes like you drive all the way out here because they want to stare at someone else’s tragedy.”

  “Well, I’ll be . . . ,” he said and instead of being apologetic for getting called out, he seized the opportunity to get a firsthand look at exactly what he had come here to find. His gaze felt unsettling and gross. “You’re that girl’s sister.”

  “And you’re a pathetic human being,” I said. I stepped in front of his car. Then I turned and continued down the middle of the street so that if he wanted to follow me, he’d have to run me over. It was nearly impossible not show how shaken up I was. But I did it. I walked all the way back to my house and never moved out of the road. He followed behind me at a slow speed. When I got there, I turned and stared him down. I placed my hands on my hips and made it clear I was not budging.

  “Screw this,” he finally said. “It isn’t worth it.”

  He reversed his car into the grass along the side of the road, turned, and peeled out. There was a squeal of tires.

  “Good riddance,” I said. It might have only been one person I stopped, but it was one less person who made it to our house to use our family’s heartbreak for their personal fun.

  43

  I wasn’t the only one against the circles. Dad was fed up with them, and it had become a constant battle with him and Mom.

  “This is ridiculous,” he argued with her. “Our yard has become a circus.”

  But she wouldn’t budge. She refused to destroy them.

  “Why don’t you go out there and mow them down?” I asked. “You can’t tell me the police want you to keep them still. They’ve become nothing but a giant pain in the ass to everyone.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “I don’t have the heart. Not when your mother finds some kind of solace in them.”

  And so the circles stayed and our family’s misfortune continued to be Coffinberry’s daily entertainment. We were our own morbid sideshow of loss, and people loved to gawk to see how we were holding up.

  People brought food; picnic baskets with salads, cakes, and cold cuts to the field. They passed their plates around as they spoke about Abby and our field and faith. Everyone was praying for Abby. They wanted Abby home. I couldn’t fault them too much because I wanted the same thing.

  I slipped into the house after school one day without Mom or Collin stopping me to talk. Collin had parked himself in front of the window to watch the circles, and Mom sat at the dining room table uploading more pictures of Abby on the tribute site.

  I should’ve been trying to catch up in my classes, since I seemed to be falling more and more behind, but it was impossible to concentrate on school. I had too much energy. The worry, the fear, the shame, everything was bottled up inside me, and it needed to get out. The urge to run surged through me, and I didn’t think I could fight it.

  I changed into shorts and an old T-shirt, but couldn’t find my running shoes. I searched all over the house and they weren’t in any of the usual places: near the door, outside in the garage, or hidden under the piles of clothes in my room. They were missing and I needed to run. It was as if my body craved the rush.

  I remembered the pair that had been in the box from Abby’s locker and ran upstairs to grab them. I laced up her shoes and slipped out of the house.

  The sun began its slow crawl down, but people sat in the yard as if they’d never leave. There were twenty-three people out there now. They held hands and gazed at me as if I could give them some kind of answer to a question I didn’t even understand.

  I started with a slow jog, but then picked up my pace so I could leave them behind.

  I ran the side roads of the neighborhoods, up streets that connected to the main road, and snaked my way through my city. I pushed myself so I breathed hard enough that there was no way I could think about anything else in my head.

  Maybe that’s why I ended up at Tommy’s house. At least, I told myself it wasn’t intentional.

  The first thing I saw was his black pickup truck. He’d bought it himself, after saving up from his job stocking shelves at the grocery store. The day he got it, he’d picked me up and we drove around Coffinberry, savoring the feeling of being free. After Tommy and Abby began to date, she’d joke that he loved it more than her, and it wasn’t unusual to see him outside cleaning it or doing god knows what under the hood. Tonight, though, he had a bucket of water and was scrubbing at the side of it. He rubbed the same area repeatedly.

  “I think you got that spot clean,” I yelled to him.

  He spun around and stood with his back against the truck. “Yeah, it was dirty,” he said. He played with the sponge in his hand, twisted it around.

  I walked up the driveway toward him. He threw the sponge into the bucket of soapy water but didn’t move.

  I pointed to an invisible spot on the truck. “I think you missed a spot over here.”

  He moved to my side quickly. “Where?” He inspected the metal as if it were about to fall apart at any moment.

  “Calm down. I was kidding. I don’t get why guys are so into their trucks.” I crossed back behind the truck and he hurried in front of me, blocking my path.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “Why are you acting so strange?”

  “I’m fine,” he said, but he clearly wasn’t.

  He jumped into the truck bed and motioned for me to do the same. He reached out his hand and I climbed up. There were bags of grass clippings toward the back, and I sat against one. It made a soft hissing noise as the air escaped from it. I stretched my feet out in front of me. My calves burned from running, but it was that pain that I yearned for, just like Abby had told me.

  Tommy pulled on one of my laces. He wrapped it around his finger and let it go. I’m sure he recognized Abby’s purple laces.

  “Why are you doing this?” he asked, and I couldn’t tell if he was talking about the shoes or us.

  “I have to,” I said, and wasn’t sure what I was talking about either.

  We sat in silence and watched the clouds roll past overhead. I was too aware of how close he was and how just weeks ago I was willing to give it all to him. How I would’ve traded everything to be with him and how still, when it’s the deep dark of night and I can’t sleep, I think about those moments when I thought I finally had it all.

  I jumped up. This was a bad idea. I shouldn’t even be here. “I’d better go. I’m not even sure why I ran past your house.” I climbed down from the truck and walked around the side of it.

  “Wait,” Tommy said and tried to follow me, but it was too late. I found the reason why he was scrubbing his truck and why he didn’t want me to walk around it. Written on the whole driver’s side with red spray paint was the word “KILLER.”

  “Who did this?” I asked, sickened at the thought of Tommy walking to his car and finding this.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It could’ve been anyone in Coffinberry.”

  “This isn’t right. We need to do something about it.”

  “It’s okay, Rhylee. I can handle this.”

  “You shouldn’t have to. It’s my fault. I can’t let you carry this alone.”

  “I’m not alone,” Tommy said, and I understood.

  I stuck my hand in the bucket of soapy water and found the sponge. I brought it up to the letters and worked to scrub away the words that spelled out the sins of both of us. We rubbed the surface of his truck so much that little bits of paint chipped off. We scrubbed and scrubbed, but no matter how hard we rubbed, we couldn’t get rid of that word.

  44

  It was late when I left Tommy’s house. I ignored the people in my yard, their flashlights and candle flames waving back and forth. I opened the front door as silently as I could, easing it against the frame so it made no noise except for a small click.

 
Mom stepped out of the dark living room. “Where have you been?” she demanded. “Do you know how worried I’ve been?”

  “I told you I was out running. I left a note.”

  “That was over two hours ago. It’s dark outside; you could’ve been anywhere. Anything could’ve happened to you. Like your sister . . .” Mom’s voice cracked and she swiped the back of her hand across her eyes. “You have to be careful.”

  She was right. It was stupid of me. Even though I’d left a note in the kitchen, I could only imagine Mom’s fear.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I’d run as far as I did. By the time I turned around to come back, I was far from home.”

  I followed Mom into the living room. She took a seat on the couch, and I sat on the floor near her, my feet stretched out in front of me, my back against the chair Dad sat in.

  She hummed an old lullaby she sang to us when we were young. A song she still sang to Collin on nights when storms rattled our windows and he was scared to go to sleep.

  “I thought she’d come home,” Mom said.

  “Abby?” I asked, confused.

  “I feel like she’s everywhere. With the lights off, anyone could have mistaken you for her. You even smell like her,” she said.

  I thought about the perfume I’d found in Abby’s box and wondered if the scent had found a way to creep onto me.

  “Since when do you run?” she asked.

  I shrugged, even though it was too dark for her to see me. What was I supposed to say? Now that Abby was gone I felt as if I had to do the things she couldn’t do. That my penance was to live the life that I’d stolen from her. I couldn’t very well tell her that one day I decided to run and found I could easily go for mile after mile. She’d never believe it. I couldn’t believe it.

  “I miss her so bad,” Mom said.

  Her words surprised me. She didn’t speak like this, ever, and it was the first time she’d said anything like that since Abby disappeared. I moved closer and took her hand.

  I figured she’d fight to let go, but instead, she let me hold on.

  “I do too,” I said. “And I miss you.”

  “I’m right here.”

  I gripped her hand tight. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

  The words hung between the two of us.

  She made a noise, and I couldn’t tell if she was laughing or crying. “We’re all still here, honey.”

  “Sometimes it feels as if I’ve lost you, too.”

  “You didn’t lose me, honey,” she said, but there was no comfort in her words because it was so hard to believe that was true.

  45

  When I untangled myself from my sheets and stepped out of bed the next morning, no one was awake. Yet the house already felt claustrophobic. I might not have been able to see the people in the field, but they were there and that made it even worse.

  I was never a morning person before Abby disappeared. In fact, I despised the sound of the alarm and its insistence that it was time to get up.

  But for running, I’d make an exception.

  It was a few minutes before five a.m. Abby used to wake at this time every morning before any of us even hit the snooze alarm five million times. Her cross-country team appeared outside our house at precisely 5:11 a.m. every day. They were never late; keeping a close mark on their running time was essential to training. Even after Abby disappeared, they took the same route, moving as a group past our house. Maybe they hoped Abby would appear out of our front door and run with them.

  Today, I wanted to be a part of their group. I had no clue how they’d react, but I planned to find out.

  I didn’t bother searching for my shoes. The team would run past at any minute, and I had to hurry. I grabbed Abby’s pair and stepped outside. I imagined them moving in a pack, feet rising and falling together, ponytails bouncing in unison.

  I waited on the porch, Abby’s shoes tied tight on my feet. The team came into view and I jogged toward the sidewalk. I kept my eyes forward, so I wouldn’t have to acknowledge those gathered in our field.

  A few people on the team nodded or smiled, but most simply accepted me. They folded around me like sheep, so I was no longer a single person but part of the group. I moved in unison with them and pushed myself harder and harder until my heart thrummed against my chest.

  My breath burst out in strong spurts and back in through thick gulps.

  I realized why running was so important to me now. This was the pain Abby had been talking about. A feeling so real and sharp. I carried it like I carried my guilt, deep within me, so I felt it everywhere I went.

  I ran to feel a pain so intense that it reminded me I was still here. I was still alive, and I hated myself for it.

  46

  Mom must have gotten something out of my words the night before, because she did start living, little by little. At least, her version of living, because after I got back from running, I found her dressed and ready to walk Collin outside to catch the bus.

  “What are you doing?” I asked her.

  “I wanted to talk to the people in the circles.”

  “No fair,” Collin yelled and threw his book bag on the ground in protest.

  “Collin, cool it,” I said because Mom wouldn’t.

  “You won’t let me go out there. Why are you allowed?” he shouted at her, which was true. He begged to go out almost every day but Dad refused. “What if you find something? What if the aliens come back?”

  “There are no aliens,” I told him firmly. I waited for him to explode, but instead, he gave up his fight with one final rumble of frustration. Good, at least he was quiet. I turned to Mom, “You’re going to hang out with the Miracle Seekers?”

  “The what?” she asked, confused. I realized my mistake as soon as I called the group by their nickname.

  Tessa and I had dubbed the group outside the Miracle Seekers because of their belief that standing in our yard praying could bring my sister back. It seemed like a contradiction because my family was never religious.

  That’s why I was surprised when Mom not only accepted the Miracle Seekers, but decided to go outside with them. Couldn’t she see that she was substituting one obsession for another and neither would bring Abby home?

  47

  I crossed more days off in Abby’s agenda. More days that we were lost without her.

  Mom became friends with the people in our yard, Dad continued to alternate his time between work and search efforts, and Collin built forts inside our living room. Big elaborate ones with blankets and sheets. He covered the couch, table, and chairs and then lined them with pillows. It was a labyrinth of rooms with different sections, some narrowing so you had to crawl through them and others so wide and open that you could sit up.

  He worked on them for hours, constructing his new hideout, and when completed, refused to sleep in his bed. Not that Mom even noticed, especially when I was the one changing our sheets since she had given up any type of household chores.

  Dad hated the fort, and it would’ve been simple to pull the sheets down, but no one had the heart to do that.

  “I need to be near the fields in case they come again,” he told Dad.

  “Oh for heaven’s sake, there is no ‘they,’ ” Dad said, no longer trying to soften the words.

  “Something made those circles, and I’m not going to miss it when they touch down on Earth again,” Collin insisted and crawled deeper into his fort. He made his way to the section against the large window facing our backyard. The sheet rustled and he was a bulge in the center. He wouldn’t budge and no one wanted to crawl through those tunnels to try to get him to come out.

  So Collin hung out under the blankets constantly and sure enough, that’s where I found him when I came home from school. Today had been quiet; no one talked about the circles or my sister, but I’m sure that wouldn’t last. I wasn’t naive enough to think gossip just disappeared. It rose and fell like waves, some days crashing down on you so hard it was almost impossible to
stay on your feet and other times a gentle lull that tricked you into believing everyone had moved on to something new. Tomorrow I’m sure my sister and those circles would again invade the lips of everyone in the school, much like they had invaded our backyard.

  “Rhylee, come over here,” Collin said from inside his fort, and I got on my hands and knees so I could see him.

  “Where are you?”

  “You need to come in all the way.”

  “Collin, I don’t really . . .”

  “Just do it,” he said, and something in his voice made me want to crawl toward him and wrap my hands around him. I moved carefully, so I wouldn’t upset the city he’d created under the sheets. I found him on a pile of old blankets, the sheet above him dipped slightly in the center, so it brushed the top of his head.

  “Welcome. I’m so glad you could make it,” he said in the formal way that Mom had taught him to use when we had company. He nodded at my feet. “Please take off your shoes.”

  Collin pushed a plastic bowl toward me. “Would you like an appetizer?”

  I smiled and took a handful of peanuts he must have swiped from the container that Dad kept next to his easy chair.

  “I love what you’ve done to the place,” I told him.

  “Not everyone is allowed in here.”

  “I feel honored.”

  Collin turned so that he was low to the ground. He crawled toward a tunnel on his right and I followed, not knowing what else to do. He headed to the windows that faced out on the field. The space was now big enough to sit up in and was lit by the sunlight that streamed in from outside.

  “This is where I keep watch,” Collin said.

  People milled around the field, and I thought for the millionth time how weird it was that strangers would want to hang in our yard. I couldn’t stand being in my house anymore; how could these people make the choice to willingly be here?