Last Seen Leaving

by Caleb Roehrig

  Someone out there knew something. January hadn’t been vaporized, or abducted by aliens or whatever—but who could I ask if not her friends? If her old clique at Riverside knew nothing, and I knew nothing about her associations at Dumas, who else was there for me to turn to?

  And then it hit me: Kaz. Fucking Kaz. A freshman at the University of Michigan, Kaz was eighteen, gorgeous, and apparently right about every fucking thing he ever said. That’s all I knew about him, and every bit of it was secondhand information from January, since I’d never set eyes on the guy myself. They’d met when he started working at the same downtown toy store where January had been employed part-time since the eighth grade, and from his very first day on the job I had heard stories about him.

  “Kaz is soooo cute! Girls are always coming into the store just to flirt with him, which is actually totally annoying because they never buy anything. He usually has to pretend that I’m his girlfriend, just to make them leave. Isn’t that hilarious?”

  Yeah. Super hilarious. The stories were more pointed whenever January and I had been arguing. Like the time she’d bailed on a concert we’d been looking forward to for months, because Tiana’s family was going to Chicago for the weekend and they’d unexpectedly invited her along.

  “It’s just a concert, Flynn! I can’t believe how immature you’re acting,” she’d snapped. “You know, Kaz was right—I really should be dating an older guy.”

  Gee, I wonder if he might have had a particular “older guy” in mind?

  “Kaz thinks we’re going to break up,” she’d announced on another occasion, completely out of the blue. “He says it’s really hard to maintain a relationship when you can’t see each other regularly, and since I’ll be going to Dumas and you’ll be staying at Riverside, we probably won’t last.”

  Like, what the fuck was I supposed to say to that? That little pronouncement had come right at the time I was starting to realize that the all-important hot-sexy-time feelings I was supposed to have for my girlfriend were simply never going to develop—right at the time that I was beginning to really worry that I would never develop hot-sexy-time feelings for any girl—and I didn’t react too well.

  “Are you refusing to sex me because you have a micropenis? Kaz said that the reason you don’t want to sex me is because you probably have a micropenis.”

  Okay, so the last one was paraphrased, but you can see why I disliked this guy whom I had never actually met. Even if I wasn’t the most satisfying boyfriend in the world, I was still January’s boyfriend, and it drove me insane that she’d take self-serving and manipulative advice from a dude who clearly had a thing for her, and that she used his words as a bludgeon whenever we argued. She was constantly reminding me that he was in her life, an enigma who was smart, cute, and supportive; an eager Prince Charming in the wings, ready and waiting to sweep her off her feet the second I screwed up. The fact that this dude was just trying to get into her pants was completely obvious, but January always became totally offended if I so much as suggested it.

  The anecdote Detective Moses had shared with my mother came back to me as I lay there and stared at the moonlight angling across my feet: A boy about Flynn’s age got in a fight with his parents, took the car, and vanished. The East Lansing police found him a week later, sleeping on the floor of a friend’s dorm room at Michigan State. Sub Michigan for Michigan State, and maybe I’d just divined the solution to January’s disappearance. Kaz was just the kind of douchewaffle who would encourage a high school sophomore to crash at his place for a week to teach her parents a lesson. Nah, it’s totally cool, babe! You can sleep in my bed, and I’ll take the floor! Unless, like, it gets cold or something and you need a snuggle buddy. Did I mention the heater’s broken?

  It wasn’t until I resolved to track down Kaz and choke some answers out of him that I was finally able to drift off to sleep.

  SIX

  THE NEXT MORNING, I was treated to a pot lecture from my parents. It was awkward. They’d both campaigned pretty actively for the legalization of medicinal marijuana in Michigan, and they openly recognized that the situation with January’s disappearance was a mitigating factor in my transgression, but they couldn’t just let me get away with it. Ultimately, they said a lot about “respecting the law,” and my punishment was a suspended sentence: If I did “community service” in the form of raking the yard and helping Mom with dinner, and I didn’t get into any trouble of any kind for at least a month, they were going to let me off the hook this time.

  After that, my mom dropped me off downtown with my skateboard, and I told her I’d take the bus home—a sword I was only willing to throw myself on for the sake of my missing girlfriend—in time to help with dinner. As soon as she drove off, I made my way to Old Mother Hubbard’s, the toy store where January worked. Housed in one of the numerous nineteenth-century brick buildings on Fourth Avenue and just a couple of blocks from the municipal complex that functioned as Ann Arbor’s civic center, the place was independently owned—which meant the prices were ridiculously high. Ergo, it was only a fierce commitment to buying local, on behalf of the city’s fiercely loyal inhabitants, that kept the store in business.

  Or so I was told. January had forbade me from visiting her at work, and I had no other excuse for going to a toy store, so I had never been inside. But I did know that she worked eight-hour shifts every Saturday and Sunday, as well as occasional weeknights after rehearsals.

  The front window was cheerfully decorated for the holiday with cutesy jack-o’-lanterns and stuffed animals dressed like mummies, witches, and vampires, all gathered around a pyramid of Old Mother Hubbard’s “spookiest” toys and children’s books. A bell jingled as I pushed through the door, leaving the chilly outside and entering the oddly sterile inside. The place smelled antiseptic, like a new car, and the displays of shining, pristine toys ranged around the room seemed somehow uninviting, very look but don’t touch. There was only one other person in the store besides me, an employee, and he was probably the hottest guy I had ever seen in person.

  Lanky and square-jawed, his hair a carefully arranged crown of messy black spikes, he had at least five inches on me. Veins bulged like ropes under the olive skin of his obnoxiously toned arms, and the douchey-fratty lavender polo shirt he was wearing only made his startling hazel eyes even more striking. He was just about my age, not that it meant much. Pigs can live to be like twenty or so, but put one next to a male model who’s also twenty or so, and the accomplishment begins to look less and less impressive.

  In this particular analogy, in case you hadn’t figured it out, I was the pig. And the male model who was smiling at me with teeth that gleamed like a freshly whitewashed picket fence—I was sure even before I saw the letters on his official employee name tag—was Fucking Kaz.

  “Hey, man, can I help you with something?” His cheekbones were sharp enough to cut glass, and for a moment I had to remind myself that I hated him.

  “Yeah,” I answered curtly, “I’m looking for January.”

  His smile dimmed a little. “She’s not here.”

  “I know that,” I returned, even more curtly. “I’m asking if you know where she is.”

  His smile vanished completely. “Why would I know something like that?”

  “You guys are pretty close, aren’t you?” I couldn’t stop it from coming out as an accusation. Everything about this guy bugged me, from his perfect face and body to his habit of inserting himself in other people’s business, and I had to work to keep my temper under control. “I figured maybe she told you where she went.”

  “Who are you?” he asked, crossing his arms over his annoyingly defined chest.

  “Flynn.”

  “Oh. The boyfriend.” His voice dripped with contempt, and I felt my body temperature starting to rise.

  “Yeah, I’m her boyfriend,” I snapped, “and I’m worried about her. So if you know where she is, just tell me, okay?”

  His almond-shaped eyes narrowed, and one corner of
his mouth tugged upward. “If January’s trying to duck you, she’s got her reasons, so what makes you think I’d rat her out?”

  “Maybe I’m counting on you being at least half as smart as you’ve been telling my girlfriend you are, and you’ll figure out that I’m being fucking serious here.” I tried to stare him down, but it’s hard to intimidate a guy who stands nearly half a foot taller than you.

  Kaz actually laughed at me. “Get a load of you, the high school badass! You can’t push your girlfriend around, so instead you come in here to push me around.” He spread his arms out, and I could see the edge of a tattoo peeking out from under his sleeve. “Sorry, but the Skinny Little Tough Guy act doesn’t really do it for me.”

  I was so surprised I just stared at him for a moment. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m saying that if January’s avoiding you, then good for her. She should’ve done it a long time ago.”

  His tone was filled with genuine distaste, and I just stood there, openmouthed, for what felt like about a year. Finally, I managed to reply, “You don’t know dick about me! What the hell is your problem, dude?”

  “My ‘problem’? How about the fact that I’ve spent two months listening to January complain about what a shitty boyfriend you are? About how you make her feel unattractive, how you guilt-tripped her for having to go to a different school than you, how you make fun of all her new friends—”

  “What. The hell. Are you talking about?” The things he was saying were so absurd that, for a moment, I was sure there’d been some kind of mistake; I’d walked into the wrong toy store, found the wrong Kaz, and was discussing the wrong January.

  I was forced to admit that, in retrospect, maybe my unusually strong aversion to even the PG-13-rated physical aspects of our relationship might not have had the most positive effect on January’s self-esteem; but I always told her she was pretty, and I never once let her get away with calling herself basic or ugly or any of the other insults she hurled at her reflection. And as for making her feel bad about going to Dumas, I was the guy who’d held her hand for an hour while she cried, promising her that she would rule that snooty prep school like a dictator by the end of her sophomore year. The only snappy comeback that sputtered out of my mouth now, however, was, “I’ve never even met her ‘friends’ at Dumas—how could I possibly make fun of them?”

  “I don’t know, but I guess you found a way. She said you called them all ‘spoiled, rich brats with disposable ponies’ or something.” Kaz glared at me. “Do you have any idea how that made her feel? Like she couldn’t make any new friends because you’d hate them and think she was a sellout! You’ve got a chip on your shoulder about rich kids, and she is one now. It made her feel like absolute shit!”

  I blinked in astonishment, the attack on my character landing like a barrage of grenades as I recalled the only exchange to which Kaz could possibly be referring.

  “You have no idea what these bitches are like, Flynn,” January had huffed incredulously after her first day at Dumas. She’d texted me during every break throughout the afternoon, giving me a progress report on her growing hatred for her new school and everyone in it, jokingly threatening to kill herself in increasingly elaborate ways to get out of having to go to her next class. Mimicking a blue-blooded accent, she whined, “‘Mummy bought me the Lambo in eggshell instead of cream, like, why is she trying to ruin my life? I am totally gonna go Menendez on her!’”

  Laughing, I’d echoed her accent, replying with, “‘Papaw, my pony got dirty and I had to get rid of it—I need a new one!’”

  How had that gotten twisted into me making January feel bad by deriding her so-called new friends? I’d been commiserating with her, for fuck’s sake!

  “Look, not that my relationship with January is at all your business, but I didn’t do any of those things you said!” I seethed. “And if you’ve talked her into believing I did, then you’re an even bigger asshole than I thought!”

  “I’m the asshole?” It was Kaz’s turn to be incredulous, his impossibly long black eyelashes fluttering dramatically.

  “Yeah! Telling her she should break up with me because we weren’t going to the same school anymore, telling her she should be dating an ‘older’ guy—like that isn’t a fucking obvious douche move—and telling her that I probably have a tiny dick? Yeah! You’re the asshole!”

  To my satisfaction, that little counteroffensive took some of the wind out of his sails. Kaz’s eyes widened and his lips parted just a little, his expression morphing from scorn into something like surprise. “Hey, look, I—”

  “You know what? I don’t even care. January already broke up with me, so I guess you got what you wanted. If she honestly thinks I was a shitty boyfriend all this time, and she’s trying to punish me by disappearing, well, you can tell her she’s succeeded and she can stop it.” I was so worked up I was almost tripping over my words, seeing Kaz through a red haze of anger, and I could feel my throat tightening. Great. That’s what I really needed: to start crying in front of Fucking Kaz. “And while you’re at it, remind her that she’s punishing a bunch of people who don’t deserve it, too. Her parents are worried, my parents are worried, Tiana is completely freaking out, and now the police are involved, so wheth—”

  “Waitwaitwait,” Kaz interrupted, throwing his hands up, his eyes wide. “What do you mean ‘the police’? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the fact that January has been missing for three days and we’ve all been shitting our pants!” Swinging around to march out, to exit on a strong note, I snapped over my shoulder, “She’s made her point, okay? And so have you. I hope you guys are real happy together.”

  It wasn’t a very sincere wish. I actually kind of hoped that at the very least, Kaz got mowed down by a fire truck. I was halfway to the door before I felt his hand on my upper arm. “Wait a minute!” he implored, and this time he looked genuinely stunned. “What do you mean she’s missing?”

  “I mean she didn’t come home from school on Tuesday and no one knows where she is.” I gave him a pointed look. “At least, no one who’s said anything.”

  He stepped back. “You think I know something?”

  “Don’t you?” I challenged bitterly. “You’re her big confidant, the one giving her tons of relationship advice and apparently making her think that disappearing to get away from me was something she should’ve done ‘a long time ago.’”

  “I didn’t—” He checked himself. “That’s not what I meant by that.”

  He looked shaken, and even though his alarm didn’t seem to be an act, I was feeling vengeful and didn’t want to believe in it. “She’s still a minor, you know, and if you’re helping her hide, that’s, like, aiding and abetting or something.”

  “I’m not,” he said, quickly and convincingly. “I don’t know where she is, man, I swear. I don’t know anything about this!”

  He looked me straight in the eye when he said it, and so help me, I believed him. Just like that, another crack spread across the already fragmenting surface of my hope that January was okay somewhere. I hadn’t wanted to find out she was shacking up with Kaz, but I also realized that in a perverse way, I’d kind of been hoping for it, too. It would have meant that she was technically safe, it would have meant that the mystery was officially over, and it would have meant I was entitled to a little righteous anger rather than just confusion and guilt and fear.

  “She didn’t tell you she was planning to run away or anything?” I asked.

  Kaz shook his head emphatically. “Is that what they think happened?”

  I shrugged, my gaze dropping to the shallow vee of his polo shirt’s open collar, to the little U-shaped dip where his collarbones met. His earnest concern was making me feel awkward; I wasn’t ready to be nice yet, to have a serious and sympathetic conversation with him about January’s disappearance. “They don’t know. She didn’t leave a note, or anything. I thought maybe … Did she call in today?”
>
  It occurred to me for the first time, right then, that if January had planned her disappearance in advance—and intended to come back—she might have requested the time off from work so that her position would be waiting for her when she returned. Of course, she didn’t need the money anymore, now that she was rich; gone were the days when Tammy couldn’t afford to buy January anything that wasn’t on clearance. But that wasn’t the point. When she’d been forcibly enrolled in Dumas, her parents had pressured her to quit Old Mother Hubbard’s so she could focus exclusively on her studies, and January had flatly refused.

  “I’m not going to let Jonathan Walker fucking own me!” she’d shouted at me once, after I’d foolishly asked why she didn’t just quit and enjoy not having to work, like anyone else in her position would do. “Don’t you get it? He already owns my house, my phone, my mom! I’m not going to let him start bankrolling my clothes and my movie tickets and my fucking Taco Bell, too, and let him control every single part of my life. Maybe I have to live with him, but I don’t have to live for him!”

  Frankly, it wasn’t a position I totally understood. Jonathan Walker wasn’t exactly a warm and jovial father figure, but he didn’t seem like one of those dead-eyed, militaristic tyrants from the after-school specials, either. The truth was, sometimes January was determined to cut off her face to spite her nose.

  Kaz was shaking his head, though, still looking confused. “Well, no.”

  “So … what? You didn’t think that maybe there was something wrong when she just didn’t show up for work today?”

  “No, you don’t understand,” he said, waving his hands agitatedly in the air. “She didn’t call in because she didn’t have to. She doesn’t work here anymore, man.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “She quit a few weeks ago. Called in sick one day, didn’t show up the next, and when I asked, the owners said she wasn’t coming back to work.” He turned his palms up to the ceiling, bewildered. “No reason, no notice—nothing. I don’t know what to tell you, man. She hasn’t worked here for nearly a month now.”