gone

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You ever heard of Gulf Breeze, Florida? No? Most people haven't. It's a small town, with a population of a whopping 6,500. It sits between Pensacola and Pensacola Beach, with nothing but highways connecting it to both pieces of land. You could taste the salt in the air and feel the humidity sticking to your skin. The beaches are beautiful—and you're only ten minutes away in either direction, north or south. The weather is always warm, the people are friendly and the food is good. Gulf Breeze is a quiet city, full of quiet people. Half of Gulf Breeze is the Naval Live Oaks Nature Preserve, making it somehow feel even more minuscule than it is. Nothing happens here.

Until one day, it did. 

***

I woke up to my sister hovering over me, inches from my face. I jolted backward, sinking into my bed. Freckles flew across her face, gathering in bunches on her nose and around her mouth. Her earthy, green eyes were pulled up in a smile. Everyone always said that she had my features but magnified. Her hair was wavier, her freckles were thicker and her green eyes were a deeper green than mine, but you could definitely still tell we were sisters.

"Jesus, Elodie," I said, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"I wanted to know if you wanted to go to on a hike with me." She pulled away from her previous position, straightening her back from being hunched over me. Her orange and yellow striped tube top stuck to her, outlining the thin shape of her body. She was wearing a pair of light jean shorts and her hiking shoes. She had a metallic pink fanny pack strapped to her waist, where she kept snacks and her phone. She faced away from me to look in the mirror I had in the corner of my room. She pulled her thick, chestnut brown hair into a ponytail. Even sitting on the top of her head, her hair still swam down her back. She pulled the ends to tighten it and then turned around to face me.

"How about we lay in bed for three more hours?" I pulled the covers over my head. With all the strength in the 110 pounds of Elodie, she yanked the blanket from my feet until my gray comforter sat in a heap on the floor.

"How about you get off your ass and come join me?" I lifted my head from the pillow that was begging to be used, looking at El. "C'mon! You need to get back out. It's been too long, and the weather's really nice." She said this while her hands were clasped together in front of her, as if she were just begging me to go.

"Why can't Bradley join you?" I sat up. She won in her mission to make sure I wouldn't fall back asleep. Bradley was her obnoxious boyfriend, who normally was stuck to her side like glue. He was practically obsessed with her.

"He has classes today and we have dinner plans afterwards. And I'm not hiking that late." She took a deep, over-exaggerated sigh.

"It's my last weekend before I go back to work," I said quietly. "I don't have the energy to do anything today." Next week, I started back at work taking clients. I wanted to spend this weekend enjoying the peace of my apartment.

She knew not to push anymore. "You can't let what happened to Rachel keep you in this slump, Elsie."

My heart sunk a little, hearing her name. Rachel was Elodie's and my best friend. Being only a year and two months apart, Elodie and I shared most of the same friends, with a few exceptions of having some of our own just for the sake of saying they were our own. Hiking was what we did together when she was still alive. While I chose to stray from hiking to heal, Elodie found healing within nature and the trails. It had been two months and while I knew that grief wasn't linear, I didn't think I should still be this fucked up over her death.

"It hasn't," I retorted. "I just don't want to hike today. Can we please not do this?"

"Are you ever going to want to hike again?" She asked over her shoulder, exiting the room. "It's something the two of us would do, too, you know."

She was right. "I need to get out, I know." I contemplated going with her, but I still found myself saying, "Let's go tomorrow. I'll go tomorrow, but today I need to get some cleaning done around the apartment. I'm also going to grab a few things from the store. Need anything?"

Elsie stood in my doorway, leaning against the frame with her right shoulder, arms crossed. "Grab me a two liter of sweet tea," She unhooked her arms and turned away. "I'm still going on a hike today, but you know I'll go again tomorrow. I'll see you in a bit."

"Wait!" I called out. Who did she think she was? "When do you think you'll be home?" I asked.

She rolled her eyes. "So overprotective," I shot her a look. "I'm only going to walk half of the trail since we're going to do the whole thing tomorrow. I have dinner plans with Bradley after he gets out of class, so I won't be home until around seven. I'm also going to just Uber to the nature reserve and to the pizzeria, that way I can just ride back with Bradley."

And with that, we told each other we loved one another and she was out the door. As soon as I heard the front door close and lock, I grabbed my blanket from the ground and let the warmth swallow me whole. I had fully intended on doing the laundry and clearing the dishes from the sink, but as I scrolled through social media for a bit, my eyes got heavy and I felt myself drift away.

I woke up to my phone vibrating the bed near me. It took me a second to realize that it was a phone call. I cracked my eyes open, still puffy from sleep. It was Bradley.

"Hello?" I asked, trying to not make it seem like I'd just slept literally all day. Shit. I didn't even go to the store.

"Elsie?" Bradley sounded a little worried.

"What's up, Brad?" I had my phone on speaker at this point. I was sitting up, stretching.

"When was the last time you talked to Elodie?"

That was an odd question to ask. I frowned, confused. "What? Why?"

"Because she hasn't texted me back since around four. I got out of class at five and we were supposed to meet at the pizzeria at five thirty but she still hasn't shown and she hasn't texted me back."

That wasn't like her. Elodie answered the phone on the first ring, every time. Her phone was always on her. "Hold on," I said, feeling my chest tighten and my heart start to pound. I went to my Friends app, which showed her location. Except it didn't. Instead of an address, my phone's screen read NO LOCATION FOUND.

"I'm going to throw up." I said, feeling nauseous immediately. Something terrible happened. It had to have.

"What the fuck do we do? What do I do?"

"Call the fucking police, Brad?" I said. My throat felt like it was closed. I could hardly breathe and it hurt to speak. "This can't be happening."

"I'm going to hang up and call them," Brad replied. I could hear the tears wavering his voice, too. "Then I'm going to come over."

"Okay," The response was reflex; I had barely heard him. I felt tiny. This overwhelming sense of dread washed over me and flooded my veins. I felt my heart pounding in my chest and the most indescribable feeling sat on me. I felt like I was the worst fucking sister on the planet. Why did I not go with her? Why was I so selfish, that I chose to sleep all day instead of being out there with her, protecting her? This is my fault. My fault, my fault, my fault. The words were ringing in my ears repeatedly, consuming my mind. This could not be happening.