The Search

I’ve been feeling low again. It’s another unimportant holiday where I get to “enjoy” not working. But if I’m not working, what is there to do? Drown myself in alcohol, spend my money on temporary joy? I’d rather just stay home so the feeling of the outside world can’t make the feeling of my inside world even worse.

I wish I knew what to do to make it go away permanently, this feeling. I know it’s human nature. You get trauma and you just have to learn to get through it and heal…but how many times can I go through it? Why can’t a few times just be enough? It hurts to think but no matter how hard I try not to, it crawls back to me. The memories beats me down with a bat of self-hatred, insecurity and misery. Is it possible to let go?

I hear keys jingling in my door, most likely my girlfriend. We’ve been together for about 2 months, she’s a beautiful woman with long blonde hair and blue eyes. She’s got so much personality and spunk, and she’s kind to me too. Sometimes, I get afraid, as if I don’t deserve to have someone like her.

It’s more towards 5 o clock now. She appears to be a bit intoxicated, stumbling through the door. I stand up from the couch ready to hold her if she falls and I ask if she’s okay. “I’m greaaaat! Just had some cockytails with my girlies.” She slurs her words a little bit and laughs. She leans towards me for a kiss and I gently push her away, saying “Can we talk-”.

She rolls her eyes and gives a short laugh, “Just kiss me, we can talk later.” She tries leaning in again, trying to grab my face. I get the feeling she doesn’t care to listen. I push her away and back up.

She scoffs and tells me in a agitated tone, ”What? What’s the problem now? There’s always something wrong with you!”

It feels like a little stab in the heart.

“I try to be positive and happy all the time for you, but you’re always upset! I get you’re still trying to get over what happened… but I can’t do this anymore. I feel like your freaking therapist and not your girlfriend!” She says while throwing her hands, and having a disappointed look on her face.

More stabs. I can’t do this anymore.

She goes into the bedroom and takes her things, throws the key to my place on the table and walks out before slamming the door. I couldn’t even do anything. In my head, I grabbed her arm to stop her from leaving. In reality my body just couldn’t move, I was frozen in place. Great, another person who’s gone. And in my head a flashback plays of my childhood best friend walking out the door, with a smile on her face waving to me for the last time.

An invisible brick starts weighing me down again, wanting me to feel numb and tears are rushing to my eyes. Why couldn’t I stop her?

Through the blur of my tears I notice a white object float to the ground. The slam of the door must’ve shaken the corkboard on it. I put all my important stuff on it like my friends hangouts, my work schedule, grocery lists, holiday cards and more. It’s very messy and crowded. I always struggle to find motivation to organize it and get rid of the old stuff…

My gut urges me to grab it so I walk over and bend down to pick it up. I try to stop the tears from crowding my vision to see what it is. A polaroid. It’s a picture of me and my best friend, with our arms around each other. Her wavy strawberry blonde hair smooshing my brown curls. We had the biggest smiles on our faces, our eyes closed and smiling too. The background being a large field of yellow and hot pink flowers, her favorite colors. On it she wrote, “Be there for others but never leave yourself behind!”

She was the best person I’ve ever known. She was super happy, strong and smart. She always knew how to get me out of a funk or how to make me feel better when my parents death affected me. She was always the best at games and puzzles.

Another wave of tears yearned to flood my eyes, but then…a thought stopped it. What if… she’s still alive and she found a way to escape?

No… it’s been so long. There’s been not much of a trail nor clues. The detectives said not to concern myself and there’s nothing I can do.

But…she always knew how to work out a problem. She’d be knee deep in true crime documentaries and solving intellectual problems on her down time. She’s crazy good at reading people and coming up with things on the spot.. what if she’s out there and I can still help save her?

Where would I even start looking?

I ran to my phone, took a deep breath, wiped my tears and called her mom.

It rung twice and then she picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hey.. How are you doing? I know it’s been a while… I just had a question.”

“I’m doing ok, I hope you’re doing well and that what happened isn’t weighing on you too much.” She said concerned.

“I hope you’re doing ok too… I wanted to ask for the contact information of the girl who was with Brielle that night.”

She paused and sighed then replied, “…Janet, her number is 874-459-2746. Take care of yourself Deon.”

“I will, thank you. You do the same.” I reply then hang up. I text the number she gave me.

“Hey, it’s Deon… wanting to know more about that night Bri disappeared. I know it’s been a while but I just can’t stop thinking about it. I want to keep trying to find her.” Sent. I hope she sees this and responds…

The next day comes and she replies in the morning.

“Hey, Deon. It has been a while… I know you want to find her but it’s been so long. I don’t think it’s healthy for you to dwell on this. We’ve all done what we’ve could.”

“I know but every time I think about it, it just doesn’t seem right. She’s too smart to be stuck in someone’s grip.”

“Well, the world is an evil place. There are people who will do anything for a sick pleasure. It’s unfortunate and horrible but, it happened. Who knows what they’ve done to her.” Well… I guess that was just a dead end.

Impulsively, I decide to grab my car keys and take a trip. Despite her wanting to steer me away, it just drew me towards trying harder.

About two hours later I’m in the city of Clens, where she disappeared. She was leaving the concert hall after seeing an artist she’d been dying to see and she went with Janet. It was dark and most likely crowded since the venue can get very busy. But somehow no one saw anything suspicious. Maybe… the crowd allowed for easily getting lost. But also, Bri has been to this venue a few times before, so I feel like she would not have easily gotten lost to the point where she could never come back to Janet and her car despite her phone being dead. Janet said she couldn’t find her after walking out the doors to go to the car. Think, think, think!

I pace around the outside of the venue and look for anything that might spark an idea.

But no matter how many times I walk around this place and look at every wall, nothing comes to mind. Before I give up to defeat, my phone dings.

A message from Janet pops up.

“Hey Deon, I thought about it more and I did feel like one of the workers there was being creepy… he kept staring at us whenever we passed by him. He mostly focused on her. I think he had a bald head and was a bit chubby. I think his name tag might’ve said ‘Kyle’ or something. I think I forgot about it when I talked to the cops because it made me so uncomfortable…”

Coincidentally, I saw a bald and chubby man with a shirt that said the name of the concert hall on it enter the building earlier.

I went into the building and looked around hoping he’d pop up somewhere. Down the hall on the second floor he was restocking a drink cart. I walked up to him and tried to confront him about that night. Stupid? Probably, but what else do I do? I just want to show a picture of her to him and see if he breaks.

“Hello, Kyle. Do you remember seeing this girl? She was here the night The Mutiny played.” I held up the photo of us.

He made a soft and reminiscent look towards the photo.

“I do actually, now that I think about it I must’ve been staring too hard.” He awkwardly laughs and scratches his head. ”Her joyful spirit reminded me of my late wife, I really didn’t mean to be rude or disrespectful… I just miss her so much, she was the love of my life and brightened every day of my life.” He starts waving his hands innocently, “I didn’t mean anything of it.”

As much as I want to believe otherwise so I can finally find a lead, his answer feels sincere.

Another dead end.

“Did you happen to remember anything weird, related to her? She’s my best friend but went missing that night and no one has found her.”

“Hmmm… only the girl with her felt strange. Maybe because I don’t understand the younger generation these days, but she was taking pictures of her while she wasn’t looking. She also would keep coming out to talk to someone on her phone. Nothing else seemed strange though.”

Being on the phone isn’t that strange, but taking pictures of her while she is not looking is… what is she taking those pictures for? Now, my suspicions have turned towards her.

“Ok, thank you.”

I left and walked outside some more. I decided to start heading home and looked at my phone, seeing multiple missed calls from an unknown number. And a voicemail from 20 minutes ago.

“Deon! It’s Bri, I managed to escape but I’m not far from where they had me.. I don’t know where I am but it has to be hours from home. All I see is random small buildings and a sign that says, ‘Super 8 Motel’. I’m going to try and keep going so I can figure out how to get home, but it was Kev-“

The message ended after that. Her voice was shaky, which broke my heart. But now I know she’s still out there, which lifts a weight off my chest. I need to find her.

I check the maps for a ‘Super 8 Motel’ and there are 4 different ones around me. How do I know which one it is?

“It was Kev-“ Kevin? Kevin… one of her exes? It sounds familiar. I knew him from school. They got together because they were both popular and started talking, they hit it off and later down the line it became obvious he wasn’t a good person. He didn’t deserve Bri. She realized he wasn’t the right one for her and broke it off. He got real mad about that. He would always try to text her and harass her about getting back together saying she needed him. Eventually he finally stopped and I thought it was over… but I guess I was wrong. That’s sick. Where would he keep her?

I looked through his social media pages and looked for places he might’ve taken her. Then I searched for them and if they were near the motel. After 2 hours of searching I found a possible location. His vacation house, which is almost an hour from it, 4 hours away from me. Jesus.

I start driving and call the detectives, telling them everything I found out.

-4.5 hours later-

I see the motel she was talking about. There’s a phone booth not to far from it and the phone hangs as if the last person who used it was in a rush and couldn’t put it back, was she being chased? Did she escape and they found her again?

Adrenaline rushes through me. God I hope they didn’t find her.

I get a text from an unknown number.

“Give up, Deon.”

Rage boils inside of me. Don’t give in, that’s what he wants…

He sends a picture of him in a dark room with a girl’s figure in the background and she looks like she’s tied up.

My heart drops.

I keep driving.

When I get there, the cops already arrived. I rush to them and ask, “Where are they?”

The cop looks confused, “There’s no one here.”

How is there no one there…? Was I wrong about the location?

“But there was someone here not too long ago, there’s shoe tracks past the door and tire marks. Whoever was here had to be in a rush.”

If someone was here then was the picture bait to stall me? God I feel so stupid.

I leave the scene and try to think, where could she be…?

My phone rings, it’s an unknown number again.

“Hello?”

In a whisper, a voice says, “Dennys diner on 49th Renburn, bug.”

Bug was Bri’s nickname when we were younger. She must be whispering so no one could hear besides me.

I drive as fast as I can, it’s 1 hour away.

-1 hour later-

I arrive at the dennys and get out my car to look around for any sign of her. I hear a rustling in the bush and I’m suddenly attacked from the side with arms wrapping around me.

Relief fills me as I realize it’s my best friend, alive and well right beside me. I wrap my arms around her as tight as I can. I can feel her sobbing lightly.

“It’s okay, everything’s over now. You’re safe.”

She lifts her head and says, “He’s still out there looking for me, we need to get his sick ass.”

I call the police so they can come to our location, knowing he should somewhere behind us.

Half an hour later I see Janet drive up and get out her car. “Oh my god! You’re ok!” She runs up to try and hug Bri but Bri has an uneasy look on her face.

“How’d you know we were here?” I asked.

“Oh! Well, the police informed your mom that Bri was found and I was there talking to her. She should be right behind me.” She said.

That’s funny. Especially since the cops specifically said to tell no one any updates until they arrived, for her safety. Even if they did, it would take her mom hours to get here. She’s had to have been close by.

“You did it didn’t you…” Bri scoffed. “You helped Kevin get through to me by pretending to be my friend.” I start holding her back so she doesn’t try to fight her, as I’m holding myself back too.

Janet’s facade started to break.

“You drugged my drink in the stadium and tucked my phone away, then pretended you were bringing me home as your drunk friend. Really you were just his little bitch, dragging me hours away to one of his houses.” Bri said, in disbelief and disgust.

“Yea! And I misdirected you to thinking the arena worker was apart of it, ha! You’re so gullible, no wonder you’re best friends.” Janet says as she looks at me. “Kevin always said you were smart Bri… I’m kind of jealous. He would always talk about you, he was so obsessed. Bri this, Bri that! I just you would stay out of his mouth and he’d pay attention to me for once! Following his plan was the only way I thought he would do that.” Janet complained.

“Oh yea? And how did that turn out?” Bri asked angrily

“Great! I finally saw the person I’ve resented feel my pain, of being tortured. As hard as you tried to keep a tough face, I could see you breaking Bri.” She said as if she was reminiscing on the moments where Kevin had Bri, and she would just watch.

“Well, it’s over now. You and your sick boy toy aren’t gonna be having fun anymore.” I say as sirens approach.

The cops get out the car and rush to Janet, putting her in handcuffs. She laughs as they do so. “They got me! Oh no! But will they ever find Kevin?” She says sarcastically.

They drag her into the car and she continues laughing maniacally.