The un-missing (a Maya Hart story)

"She was just gone."

It happened when we were in ninth grade.

We were all 14.

One day, Maya started acting strange.

We asked her.

She laughed and smiled.

"Everything is fine," that's what she said.

But then she disappeared.

She was just gone.

No tracks. She always was smart.

It's been a year.

We looked for her.

The police kept the case open for months.

My dad payed them.

We looked too.

We haven't stopped.

But it's harder now.

It's harder to remember that one conversation where she mentioned an aunt in Minnesota or her cousins in Louisiana or what her favorite place to hideout was or that one time we found her behind a Chinese takeout place.

It's harder.

I cried myself to sleep for months.

I still have Lucas and Farkle, but things change.

Farkle used to so full of light, bouncy, energetic. So much innocence. His eyes used to shine when he told us about equations and x's and y's.

They don't.

He's still smart, and he still bounces, but there's a darkness. And it won't go away.

And Lucas is so different. He still walks me to school every day.

But the first thing he always asks is, "Any news on Maya?"

And every day I have to say,

"No."

And we spend the five minutes to school creating theories about where she could be.

On the days he has his best theories, there are dark circles under his eyes.

I'd like to think she's okay.

I'd like to think we are all okay.

She's always looked older than she was.

Maybe she convinced someone she was old enough to work.

Maybe she got a job.

Maybe she rents a room in a house with lots of children and the children make so much noise the people can't hear a 15 year old girl crying out for help.

Her picture still appears on those "missing children" boards at gas stations and grocery stores.

I wonder if she looks that happy now.

She's so happy in the picture.

That's probably her happiest picture ever taken.

The photographer couldn't get her to smile so Lucas and Farkle said they would try.

They danced around the confused man and sang the song Maya had written for Lucas' grandfather.

She smiled.

They sang and she laughed.

I don't remember them singing like that again.

But I remember her laughing.

Those missing posters usually disappear faster than the others.

That gives me hope.

She is the only one who would know she isn't missing.

Or that she doesn't want to be found.

But she doesn't know that she needs to be.

We need her.

But we can't find her.

We can't tell her.

We can't tell her how badly we need to find her.

-s