Hope You're Not Here

No one is referring to this as your funeral in any official capacity, but everyone in attendance knows what it is.

Except, perhaps your mom, who calls the detective assigned to our case faithfully. Who drives out to the motel we were last seen at every Friday night. This past Friday she brought a bottle in a paper bag. She took a swig, white knuckles still gripping the steering wheel, rain slicing through her headlights. I sat next to her on the passenger seat, turning her radio to static. I always liked your mom, even when you complained about her, I know you love her. So I sat there, listening to the storm outside and the rhythmic swoosh of the windshield wipers. I told myself I was there to stop her from doing anything stupid, but how I would do that, I really don’t know.

After all, I’m dead.

She organized this vigil to keep the search for you alive. To keep our mental pictures of you, that are growing cracked and faded as more time passes, as vivid as the last day we saw you. So to her, it’s not a funeral. It’s a desperate clawing for the attention of a community that is starting to move on without you. Without us. But everyone else that is here is here to say goodbye.

You have been missing for a full three hundred and sixty five days, and the last person known to have seen you alive (yours truly) was found murdered a week after we disappeared. I hate to admit it, but the odds are miserable. The person who killed me remains at large, so there are no deals on the table to negotiate a sentence for your whereabouts. I am no help in this, as no matter how hard I think back, my memories of him or her are blurry. There’s a shape, vaguely human, but they’re faceless, sexless, voiceless.

My memories of you, though, are vivid. Even though I am a ghost, you haunt me.

We were bound with duct tape on a cold wooden floor, our faces dirty and tear stained. I remember laying there, hearing a car engine start up, followed by the sound of tires crunching over gravel. I had worked tirelessly all night chewing the duct tape around my wrists. As soon as I heard the car pull away, I ripped the tape from around my ankles and got to work on yours. You winced in pain as I snatched the tape from off of your mouth, and you reached up and returned the favor.

My heart was pounding in my ears, my limbs trembling with a frenetic mix of energy and fear.

“Run.”

That’s the last word I ever spoke aloud to you.

I have spoken to you many times since my death, called out to you in the ether. I don’t know how being a ghost works. It’s entirely possible that you are standing by my side, right now, watching this crowd of people that love you gather in the park. But I hope not.

Dusk is falling over our town, a few early stars glisten in the darkening sky. More and more people arrive, slowly making their ways across the lawn to your favorite tree. I even see Morgan Thomas. I haunted her for a while, avenging you for all the shit she posted about you online. Until I saw her break down in the counselor’s office, sobbing about how she couldn’t believe how mean she was to us, especially to you. The counselor told her to write an apology letter, even if there was no way we would ever read it. I watched over her shoulder as she wrote it, my presence causing the lights in her bedroom to flicker as her tears blurred the ink. I think she really means it.

And I hope that you are out there, somewhere, biding your time to make your return. That one day you will appear downtown at the police station, announcing that you are not missing, you’re here. Then Morgan will have a chance to give you the letter, to apologize in person. The two of you can share a teary hug, and you can welcome her into the new chapter of your life—the part after you and your best friend were kidnapped but only one of you made it out—with a new friend. Or you can even rip her letter into shreds and tell her to fuck herself, but I don’t think you will.

Quite a crowd has gathered to remember you, Megan. Tiny flames spark up the night air as everyone lights candles to honor you. Ms. French is going to be speaking later. I hope she doesn’t go all cliché, talking about how you lit up any room you walked into. Have you noticed how after something bad happens, everybody “lit up the room?” That was never you. You’re quiet, introverted, sensitive. You’ve never lit up a room in your entire life, but that’s not the point. You lit up my life, and that’s enough.

I met you in the seventh grade. I was the new girl at our middle school, trying to break into cliques that had been established since Kindergarten. It was overwhelming and exhausting, and after a week, I had just settled into a routine of eating my lunch in a bathroom stall, and keeping my hand down in class so as not to draw unnecessary attention.

We were in gym class together, and Mike and Tommy were picking teams for dodgeball. I had my arms wrapped around my stomach self-consciously, watching the crowd of teamless kids get smaller and smaller, two by two.

“Don’t worry,” you said, turning to me with a smile, “They’ll pick you before they pick me.”

I laughed. And it was genuine. “I’m going to be last for sure.”

As everyone bounced over to their teams, we giggled amongst ourselves. Suddenly their rejection of us became amusing, our first inside joke. In the end, I was picked before you. Just before you. Us, the two outliers assigned to each of the teams by default. I wasn’t cute enough to bounce or strut over to my team, but I felt lighter. I had made a friend.

We were together every day after that. Unlike other friendships that dwindled when we moved on to high school, we grew closer. When the girl with the flaming red hair assured me I wasn’t going to be picked last, never did I imagine she would share my interests in true crime and the Arthurian cycle. The true crime fascination mystified our families, now it hurts them. The two girls who loved crime stories so much got written into one.

Your mom moves to the center of the crowd, clutching a picture of you. It’s one of my favorites, taken on a trip to the lake last summer. The sunlight glows in your hair and your lips are spread into a wide smile. You always were the pretty one.

As your mom starts to speak, a cool breeze rustles the leaves of the trees, lifts her hair from her shoulders. It could be your spirit, come to lay peace over this gathering, to bring comfort to your mother and let her know you’re safe now.

I hope it’s just the wind.

I hope you’re far away from here, with cut and dyed hair (maybe a wig) and glasses that hide your features. I hope that detective loses sleep every night, poring over details of who took us and where they might be. So that when those shiny metal cuffs clasp their hands behind their back, you can return to us. Worse for wear, but whole. Maybe I will move on to whatever comes after this. Or maybe this is all there is.

And if that’s the way it is, so be it. I can linger in my family’s living room and make Netflix freeze. I can sit by your bed in the hospital and call the nurses in repeatedly. I can make Shake It Off play for your first dance at your wedding. And you’ll throw back your head and laugh, and take it as a sign from your old best friend. Later in the evening you’ll take your new best friend aside, with tears in your eyes and say, “I think she’s here.” I can watch over your babies while they sleep. Or if you never have babies, I can watch over your dog while he watches over you.

Tears stream down your moms face as she calls out to you, wherever you are. I just hope that wherever it is isn’t here.