I turned to look down at the watch on my wrist, the one I had put there about an hour ago. I happened to come across it while I was pacing anxiously around my room, throwing micellaneous items into my backpack. What did one bring on a scavenger hunt to save their best friend before they commited suicide? I had no fucking clue. So I had settled for a change of clothes, a sweatshirt, a few bottles of water and, just in case, I had thrown my cell phone charger, my car adaptor and a few lunchables (one ham, cheese and crackers and the other one nachos). I had no idea how long this was going to take. Obviously, I wouldn't be back until after seven tomorrow night. Who knows how long it was going to take me to find Macy, let alone get her back home. Was she even still in the state?
I wrestled with myself for a whole hour on whether or not I should inform Macy's mother about what was going on. I even contemplated calling the police. Surely they could find Macy, right? They were, after all, professionals when it came to finding people. But. then I got to thinking that these had not been Macy's directions. She wanted me to physically come and find her myself, not just call up the Feds and have them do all the work. No, she wanted me to find her. What if I did call the cops? Or what if I told Macy's mother and she called the cops and somehow Macy found out? Would she just kill herself right then and there? Before they could find her? That was a risk I wouldn't take. At least not now, not when I knew I had at least twenty four hours to find her. If I got desperate later on, I would have my cell on me. But for right now, it was up to me. I would have to find Macy, on my own.
According to my watch, it was 6:57pm. Which meant that I only had three minutes, 180 seconds, until the first video arrived.
God help me, I thought as I put the note I had written for my mother on the kitchen counter and began lugging all my stuff into the backseat of my car.
How the hell was I going to do this? How could she be doing this to me? I couldn't handle this pressure. What if I couldn't find her? Then I would have to go the rest of my life knowing that if only I'd been quicker, if only I had known where to go and where to look, I could have saved her. Did she really want me to live with that guilt for the rest of my life? I looked down at the clock again, just as it turned to 6:59pm.
60.
59.
58.
57.
56.
55.
54.
I began counting, staring at the screen on my phone, waiting for the message to pop up on the screen.
36.
35.
34.
33.
What if the message didn't come? What if I never received any clue? Then what? How would I find Macy? Where the hell would I start?
21.
20.
19.
Ugh, I felt as though I was going to be sick. Breathe, Max.
5.
4.
3.
2.
Bing. Just like Macy had said, the message had been preprogramed to arrive at 7pm, sharp.
I turned around in the front seat of my beat up Toyota and looked out the windows, making sure no one was standing around watching me. Then, I took a deep breath and pressed play.
"Hey, Max. It's me," Macy's voice filled the car, it's sweet sound radiating off the dashboard, sending waves over the pavement and down the empty street. "If you are watching this right now, it means you have received my first video. If not, well... Let's not talk about that right now. This is actually the first video I have recorded... I'm going to record the one you'll get first later. Which, is kind of confusing, but that's not really important right now," Macy had always had the tendency to talk too much. Especially when she was nervous or scared. And right now, she must have been terrified. As I listened to her voice, I made a note to pay attention to the backround, behind her. It looked as though she was moving. In a car, maybe? No, it was too white to be a car. Was that a wall behind her? A small room with a white wall and, wait- was that? A sink? Was she in a bathroom?
"Okay, Max. Here it goes. Clue number one. If you followed my instructions correctly, you should be sitting in the front seat of your car right now, bags packed and ready to go. Have you done that?"
"Yes," I said, out loud, not at all feeling like an idiot for responding to a video message. In my mind, I was talking to Macy.
"Okay, good. Now, I'm going to tell you a story, Max. And if I tell it correctly, and you know me well enough, you should know exactly where to go first. You ready?"
Macy looked at me, just as she had before. Her eyes piercing once again through the lens. "I'm ready," I said.
"Do you remember that time my Dad took you and I fishing at the lake?" Macy asked, her eyes lighting up, the way they always did when she told stories about her father. "He made us get up at like, five in the morning so we could get to iHop before all the hussle and bussle, as he used to say. We split those chocolate chip pancakes, remember? And he had let us get decaf coffee? And we tried it black, and it tasted so bad, we just couldn't understand why adults adored coffee so much?"
"I remember," I said, thinking back to that day five years ago, when Macy's father had just started getting used to me being over all the time. That fishing trip was supposed to just be the two of us. But, of course, Macy had gotten her way and ended up tagging along. He's my friend, Daddy. She had said. Insisting that there was no way we were going out for a whole afternoon and leaving her behind.
"That was one of the best days of my entire life," Macy continued, her eyes beginning to water as she spoke. "I was so happy to be there with you two. Later on that night, after you went home, my Mom came into my room and asked me if I had a good time with the boys. And I told her that I didn't just have fun with the boys, I had fun with my boys." I watched Macy as she paused for a second, and lifted her hand up to her face, wiping away a tear that had just begun to run down her cheek.
"That day meant so much to me, Max. I always knew it would. Which is why, that morning at iHop, when you and my father had begun walking back to the car, I snuck back into the restaurant and wrote all of our names in black sharpie, on the side of the booth we sat in."
That morning, when we had all left the restaurant and was walking back to the car, I remember Macy telling us that she had to go use the restroom. She had come back out a few minutes later, with a big smile on her face. I remember thinking she was so beautiful as she got into the front seat of the car, next to her Dad, and buckled herself in. "Let's get a move on, boys," she had said, her hair blowing out the window, looking more blonde than auburn as her highlights shone beneath the sun. It all made sense to me now. All this time, I thought Macy was like stone. I thought she held herself back, prevented herself from letting too much emotion inside. But, I was wrong. Macy felt everything.
She was sentimental.
"I guess, if I'm going to die... I just wanted you to know that I never, not once, took a single day with the two of you for granted. I love you so much Max. You're my best friend." The raw emotion in Macy's voice was almost startling. I was so used to this cut-off and reserved version of Macy. Not this... this... I don't even know how to describe it version. Even before, when Macy used to tell me she loved me, it always came out like a punch-line. Usually it was more of a "Yeah, yeah. I love you, dorkface" or, when we were in the middle of a wrestling match, I even got the occasional "You're lucky I love you, doofiss." But never before had Macy told me she loved me without adding some form of humor to the phrase, like she had in the past two videos.
"I love you more, Macy," I said, lifting my finger up to the screen and trying, unsuccessfully, to touch her. Macy had disappeared. I had no idea where she had gone and it was my job to find her.
I had to find her.
"I guess that's all for now... Don't be sad, Max. You'll see me at eight o-clock. Until then, let the scavenger hunt begin." And once, again, Macy was gone.
I sat quietly in the car for a long time, or at least it felt like a long time. I didn't even bother to shut the backlight on my phone off. I just let the glow fill the empty car, as I tried to figure out what to do now. Macy hadn't really given me much to go on. All she did was tell me a story.
I'm going to tell you a story, Max. And if I tell it correctly, and you know me well enough, you should know exactly where to go first. You ready? Macy's voice, her instructions repeated over and over again in my brain, trying to make sense of them. Don't be sad, Max. You'll see me at eight o-clock. Until then, let the scavenger hunt begin.
Scavenger hunt.
I got it. Just like that, with two words, I knew exactly what I was supposed to do. Macy's video hadn't been meant to lead me in the direction of where she was headed, it was meant to send me toward the location of the first clue. And now, with Macy herself, as my guide, I knew where to go. I put my phone on silent and threw it down on the passenger's seat next to me, then I turned the car on and turned out of the driveway, headed toward the main road.
It was time to get some chocolate chip pancakes.