The Day After

It was a Wednesday when I found out. It was late, and I was coming home from a rehearsal for a show. I got in my mom’s car, and waited for her to turn on the car and drive for home. Instead, she just sat there. Something was wrong. Something had happened.

            When I heard the story, I felt as if the breath was knocked out of me. What do you mean my best friend was talking to someone? What do you mean he was a stranger? What do you mean no one knew who he was, or how old, or where he was?

            I didn’t sleep that night. I stayed up the whole time, a million thoughts and what ifs circling my thoughts. Why what if how when who? I threw up, unable to keep down food with the thought that I almost lost her. I wrote and wrote, then ripped the pages up, hating the terrified words on the paper. I phased through so many emotions, from stone cold fear to anger to relief. Morning came faster than it had ever before. I felt sick, my head was pounding, and I couldn’t focus.

I still had to go to school. The day stretched through endless hours, each tick-tock second becoming longer and longer and longer. No one was supposed to know. I had to hide something was wrong. I tried to smile, but I felt nothing underneath. I tried to laugh, but each laugh choked me. What if something was going wrong with her? What if he made his move now, now that someone knew that he was talking to girls presumably much younger than himself? Would she be okay? What was going on? She didn’t have her phone anymore. I couldn’t reach her. I couldn’t contact her. What if something was wrong? I needed to talk to her.

I needed to make sure she was okay.