Dead To You

26. unraveled completely

I trudged across the freshly trimmed grass behind the school over to the bleachers by the football field during my free period that Friday afternoon, my backpack digging into my side almost as heavy as the thought that in just a few hours, it would officially be one week since Bridgette had last been seen.

The football game for that night had been postponed to the next week, when hopefully Bridgette will have been reunited with her family, and the field was quiet aside from the occasional chirping of a distant bird perched on one of the floodlights as I plopped myself down on the creaking metal and unzipped my backpack, rummaging my hand around inside blindly for a moment until I grabbed onto my AP English textbook. A magnetic bookmark separated the pages, a calico cat with a paw held up in a wave, and I paused when I reached into my pencil pouch and caught a glimpse of the pastel highlighter Noel had teased me for last week in a rare display of humor, even if it was somewhat clumsy.

It had been a week since he came to school too, his empty seat in class almost as haunting as Bridgette's, and I thought back to how he looked last night at her vigil. The dullness in his eyes, his usually kempt appearance disheveled, something in him numbed until his movements were robotic and his expression blank. I sighed, curling my fingers around the pages of my textbook, and tried to absorb the words written on the pages with my highlighter uncapped and poised but I ended up reading the same paragraph four times and retained nothing from it. I squeezed my eyes shut, telling myself to focus, and turned back to the page. After a few minutes, I got to the end of the page but the passages about symbolism were slowly being lost to the overpowering mantra in my mind that I should Google Bridgette's name again.

I had been Googling it whenever I had the chance—and my phone—and almost every time, there was nothing new other than the occasional article that basically reiterated old information with a clickbaiting title. It had gotten to the point when some of the time, I thought it was futile to refresh that page over and over again. Then other times, I wondered if maybe there was finally a new development, maybe she had been found and I could let out this breath I had been holding in for almost a week, maybe I could walk off this football field with my footsteps lighter than ever.

But I knew it was a double-edged sword and I wasn't sure I wanted to know because limbo was as reassuring as it was frightening. She could be wherever I wanted, tell myself that she had lost all her memories and was in a hospital as Jane Doe, and no one could say that I was wrong. Not for sure, anyway.

I shook my head, like that could dislodge all those nagging thoughts from my brain, and mouthed the example of symbolism in my textbook in an attempt to sharpen my focus. I felt acutely aware of my phone in the front pocket of my backpack. I reminded myself of what my mom said every time she caught me searching the internet about Bridgette's disappearance. What is it going to change? What are you going to do with what you find? It doesn't help anyone. It just makes you anxious. It doesn't help find Bridgette. I usually argued then that I wanted to know when there was a break in her disappearance—a break I hoped would lead to her, found, alive—and then my mom would come back with the promise that she would tell me when there was something I needed to know and a gentle hug.

I knew my mom hadn't called me, so clearly that meant nothing happened that I needed to know about and I could focus on my AP English homework for now.

It doesn't help Bridgette.

I dragged my highlighter across a sentence I barely registered, but one of the words was in bold, so I assumed it must be important.

It just makes you anxious.

I tucked my finger underneath the page, waiting to turn it, even though I wasn't done reading, or—more accurately—staring at it.