Mezzanine

| 35 |

"No." The word came out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying. "We aren't doing that."

Lola and Carter were both silent for a moment. Even Carter's thoughts were muddled as he tried to work through what I'd just said.

Why? he finally thought. Why wouldn't Jay want to look for him? I don't get it.

"Jay," Lola began, "he's right. We don't have time to figure this out ourselves. Your brother made this board. If there's anyone out there that knows what all these symbols mean...that knows more about what the ritual is for—"

"No," I growled. I ground my teeth in frustration, my hands clutching the wood chips at my feet as I stared at the circle of symbols my brother had painted around the board. In the center, the three-tailed hurricane design raged like a storm—the storm Damien put my mom and me through the day he disappeared.

My mind flashed back to the blur that followed when he didn't come home. Listening to frantic phone calls my mom made every night as I lay awake in bed. Drives through the city with her, the same album playing over and over again through the stereo—Damien's favorite when he was a child—until it made me sick everytime I heard it. The seemingly never ending questions from the police.

I remembered the way Mom jumped every time her phone rang. She'd rush to answer it, only to deflate back into oblivion when it was only another distant friend offering empty condolences and not her son calling to say he was okay.

She cried every night for weeks, but all I felt was emptiness. It was like Damien pulled a piece of me out when he disappeared, leaving me cold and alone. I didn't have any of my own friends, and he'd distanced himself from his before he left, so I had no one to go to. The fact that none of them cared about me or him became so apparent once he was gone. It was like a sickness had been lingering around me and clouding everything, and then once he was gone, I realized how fucked up my life was. How alone I was.

For so long, I'd been holding on to the idea that Damien was alive. He was still out there somewhere, and eventually, he'd come home. We'd see him again.

I'd feel whole again.

If Lola, Carter and I searched for him, what if we did find him, but he was dead? That was what I feared more than anything else. Not the search, but the eventual answer I'd been avoiding for so long.

He'd been missing for over a year. The chance that he was still out there alive was slim at best. Either he really didn't want to be found...or he was dead.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I just can't." The need to hold on to the small amount of hope the uncertainty brought me was too much. I couldn't get past it.

Lola and Carter were silent again. The sun dipped lower until it kissed the horizon, and the night grew colder. Wind howled through the surrounding trees, and the chains of the old swings clinked together as they swayed like ships fighting the wind.

I didn't realize how much I was shivering until Lola put her arm around me and held me. I wasn't sure if I was shaking from the emotions or the cold, but either way, feeling her next to me warmed me enough that I was able to calm the shudders raging through my body.

Carter and Lola sat quietly with me, for how long, I didn't know. I guessed they didn't know what to say, or maybe, they didn't need to say anything at all. Just having them with me made me feel...like I wasn't alone.

"I know it's hard," Lola finally whispered, "but we don't have any other options."

"If the ritual gets strongest on the 30th," Carter continued, "that means we only have five days left. You said Andy and his friends were planning another party that night. We need to figure out a way to stop it before then, or else..."