Drop

Two.

The way she said that word made the hair on my neck stand up.

I stared at Mom's glazed-over green eyes with more love than when I handed her the macaroni poodle I'd made for her in Kindergarten. "Mom, I'm right here." My tone was softer than a pillow. I was beginning to feel pathetic just standing there, staring at the world like I was seeing it for the first time.

Maybe I was.

"Mrs. Hale, I-I'm s-so sorry." Owen was, my gosh, he was bawling.

I think my jaw dropped when my own mother didn't acknowledge my presence. The scene unfolding before me was getting me more and more freaked out. Legit freaked out.

Ash went from gripping the end of her soggy-from-tears soccer hoodie to gripping Owen's arm like her life depended on it. 

Before I had a chance to speak further, a large man dressed as the Sheriff came sauntering over with a trente Starbucks latte and a stack of paperwork. His eyes lacked emotion, and his lips were pulled into a thin, straight line. He didn't have much of a jaw when you considered the double chin he had going on, so I couldn't tell yet if the guy even had teeth.

When he spoke, it was confirmed that he did, indeed, have teeth. "Nothing's been confirmed yet, ma'am, but my team of investigators aren't about to rule out any possibility about the whereabouts of your son."

At that, my heart stopped.

Okay, so not really. But still. I think I may have had a bit of a heart murmur or something.

The Sheriff continued, "We've narrowed down the options of Finn Hale's disappearance to three," He cleared his throat, took an unnecessarily long guzzle of his latte, and flipped to page four of his paper stack, "One: Mr. Hale swam out of the lake after the fall, and ran off. This suggests the possibility of Mr. Hale pre-meditating a get-away. Two: Mr. Hale was pushed purposely into the lake, and an accomplice pulled his body out to hide forensic evidence; for that we'd be looking at a homicide case." 

Owen was staring forward at the Sheriff like he could see right through him. The tears he had shed were stuck to his cheeks as a bitter reminder of whatever he suffered inside.

I simply stood there, watching my life play before me like a movie.

"What's the third option?" Dad came up behind the Sheriff with a face I will never forget: defeated horror.

"Number three? Your son is still at the bottom of that lake somewhere, and we'll never, ever find him." He kept the stack of papers in his sweaty, left hand, and took another long sip of his coffee with the other. 

I almost laughed aloud at my parent's shocked-beyond-belief expressions. It was like watching a soap opera. A really cheesy one.

"What?" Mom exclaimed through tears, clutching on to Dad in the same fashion Ashley was clutching on to Owen. "That's complete bogus. Superstitious! You've already dropped a crane down there, and sent two divers. You've already made a statement to everyone saying you didn't find my son. You can't just say he might still be down there, and we'll never, ever find him."

I watched my mother, whose motto was literally "stay cool, calm, and collected", yell at the Sheriff with such a rage in her eye I thought she might rip the dude's double chin off.

It was a very unusual scene.

The realization of the situation must have hit me then, because I started screaming.

It was one of those crazy moments, you know? When you just have nothing left to do but scream. Scream until someone hears you.

For me, no one ever did. I screamed right in Owen's face. I think I might have said a couple of words I would have regretted later, had Owen even heard me. His eyes were still trained on Ashley, his quiet, devastated words still spoken for her.

I fell back on my heels, and grew silent.

When I looked back up at the heated conversation between my parents and the hobbling Sheriff, I noticed it was coming to a close. There was nothing more to be said. They couldn't find my body, that much I was sure.

But why? Why was I standing there, watching everyone cry over me, and not be able to tell them I was fine?

"Did you see that, Ash?" Owen's chilling voice made my eyes dart sharply in his direction.

He was looking straight at me, and my heart felt like a hammer against my rib cage. 

"See what?" Ashley's brown eyes were so wide, I thought they would pop out of her head and roll across the ground. 

They didn't.

"Water." Owen said, "There was a drop of water. It just... fell. Out of nowhere."

I think I stopped breathing. My eyes held Owen's but he wasn't looking at me. He was watching drops of water creep down my forehead and dance into the air.

All Owen could see were the drops. The tiny, drops of lake water.

Ashley's wide eyes seemed to have a seizure. "I see it now."

I watched my two best friends in horror as they stared back at me, but not at me. They stared at whatever was left of me after a freak act of nature had stolen my soul.

Yeah, that must've been what happened. God wanted me to still be alive and not miss out on graduation and college and everything, but he thought he'd have a little fun and hide my soul at the bottom of Ridge Park Lake. Yeah, that's what happened.

My gosh. I'm invisible and insane.