THE ECHO OF AN EMPTY ROOM
The plastic flower was losing its color.
Fay sat on the edge of her bed, her thumb tracing the jagged edge of the neon-pink petal. She had spent the last week in a state of frantic, vibrating energy checking the house (empty), calling the school (withdrawn), scouring every social media account Kei never actually used. But today, the energy had run out. All that was left was the heavy, suffocating weight of an absence that felt like a physical bruise.
She had gone back to Kei's house that morning, driven by a desperate, irrational hope that it had all been a nightmare. But the foreclosure notice was still there, flapping in the wind like a taunt. The windows were still dark. The porch where they had shared a bag of chips three weeks ago was now just a collection of rotting wood and silence.
"Where did you go, Kei?" she whispered.
She wasn't just losing her friend; she was losing her light. Without Kei's grounded, dry wit to balance her out, Fay felt like a kite with its string cut, drifting aimlessly into a cold, blue sky.
THE SILENT SCHOOL
Walking through the hallways of their school was the hardest part. Every corner held a ghost. The library table where Kei used to sketch while Fay ranted about literature, the vending machine that always ate Kei's last dollar, the Geometry classroom, where the empty chair beside Fay felt like a gaping wound.
Fay found herself standing in front of Kei's locker during third period. It was already cleared out. The school had moved with a clinical, terrifying efficiency. There were no stickers left, no scent of the cheap laundry detergent Kei used, no scribbled notes tucked into the vents.
A group of girls from the cheer squad walked by, their laughter ringing out like breaking glass. They didn't notice Fay. They didn't notice the hole in the world where a girl named Kei used to be. To them, she was just a school campus crush who just dissapear suddenly without a word. To Fay, she was the world.
Fay leaned her forehead against the cool metal of the locker. "You didn't even say goodbye," she choked out, her voice cracking. "How could you just leave me in the dark?"
THE NIGHT WATCH
That night, Fay didn't sleep. She sat at her window, looking out toward the city lights, wondering which one of those distant flickers might be shining on Kei.
She didn't know about the grey polo. She didn't know about Sofia's cruel glint or the way Kei's hands were starting to crack from the lye in the cleaning products. She imagined Kei was somewhere safe, perhaps in a different city, working a job that didn't break her heart. She imagined Kei was thinking of her.
But the silence from the phone was the loudest thing in the room.
Fay picked up a pen and a piece of paper. She didn't know where to send it. She didn't have an address, a phone number, or a clue. But she started writing anyway.
Kei,
I went back to your house. It's so quiet there. I hate it. I hate the way the teachers look at me when I ask about you. I hate that I don't know where you are. >
The Sun is out today, but I'm freezing.
She folded the paper into a small square and tucked it inside the wooden box where she kept her most precious things.
She didn't realize that while she was writing letters to a ghost, the real Kei was currently on her hands and knees in a mansion thirty miles away, scrubbing the floor of a girl who hated her, forcing herself to forget the sound of Fay's name so she wouldn't break apart.
Fay closed her eyes and pressed the plastic flower to her lips. "I'm not giving up," she whispered to the shadows. "I'll look until there's nowhere left to look."