Thinking Anna

Chapter 1: Missing

"She's gone."

Everything said after that was muffled by the ringing in my ears. Those two words threw my entire world off-balance.

"Bev? Honey?" I could hear the panic in my mother's voice.

I hadn't heard from Anna in a week. The longest silence I'd ever heard before that was when she lost her phone at the county fair for an hour. She had charmed her way into getting three ride operators to help her look for it. She could charm her way into getting anything. Actually, that's a lie. Not the charming, but the silence. One time in the fourth grade she gave me the silent treatment for a week because I sold the wrong Nintendog. She had only been agility training Pretzel for a week, and I thought a different breed would do better. To be fair it was my game, but back then we shared everything: games, classes, clothes, books, movies, even a boyfriend in kindergarten. Now we switched to sharing things less material and more emotional. I can tell by the slightest change in her demeanor when she is going to do something drastic or something she will regret later. So the fact that her location was not being shared with me at this moment, was scarily unfamiliar.

"What is going on?" I heard myself ask. My brain is going a mile a minute trying to think of all the places she could be. I'm trying to reason with what's happening. I'm trying to think of where she's been every time I couldn't find her. But that's impossible because I always know where she is. For Pete's sake, nine times out of ten it's with me.

"I just got off the phone with Imelda, they haven't seen her since last Tuesday. They filed a missing person report..." my mother's voice drowned out again.

We had been in Toronto for Canadian Thanksgiving. I know it's lame, but my mom insists on it every year. She has family there and ever since she split with my dad, she's been wanting to see them more often. It makes sense considering my dad's side of the family monopolized our time when they were still married. Anna was staying home as she usually does most breaks. Her family doesn't get out much, or ever really. The few time she's been out of the state is when she accompanied us on whatever adventure my mom tried to use to get us to take our minds off of dad leaving. It's been six years. Brady and I are over it by now but every now and then she'll march into our room with a forced smile on her signature mauve lips claiming it's time for something new.

"I need to go there, now." I run up the stairs to my room to dump my backpack. I hardly ever go to the Stevenson house. Anna doesn't like having people over unless her parents are out, which is almost never.

"Sweetie, there's nothing more they can tell you that they haven't already told me on the phone," she said following me up the stairs.

"Okay, but maybe there's something I can figure out," I said brushing past her again to head to the mudroom to put my shoes back one. It's no use explaining it to her. She wouldn't understand. For years our parents have been trying to understand the bond that Anna and I share, but to be honest we don't even understand it ourselves.

"Like what?" She asked me. I could hear how strong the worry was in her voice. I know she's thinking back to me at ten years old trying to chase after my dad's car crying and demanding answers. I grab my keys off the hook in the foyer.

"I don't know... anything. She doesn't keep secrets from me. This isn't normal. I'm sure it's a misunderstanding," I know I sound naïve. She, like most adults, are probably assuming something terrible has happened to her. And I'm not so dumb that I'm ruling that out completely. But I know Anna better than anyone out there. If she did run away voluntarily, I would be everyone's best bet at finding her. I run to jump in the car, and as I sit I check the clock.

"Crap on a turd!" I pound the steering wheel with my fist.

"Problem?" My mother asks with a knowing tone.