20th November 2019
Evening
He was missing. The first boy I’d ever loved was missing. I should have been concerned for him, but really, I was more concerned about what it really meant. Missing. There had to be some mistake? I tried to deduce from the messages posted on his Facebook wall in what context he could be unaccounted for, but I couldn’t. It unnerved me, but the article didn’t mean something terrible had happened to Jamie. He could have moved out of town without telling anyone. He could have booked a trip away, a spur of the moment thing. He was an adult, there could be a million reasons as to why he was missing. It didn’t have to mean the same thing as it did back in 1998. I couldn’t help but think about that shadow outside The Tea Tree. As soon as the thought landed, I dismissed it. There was no way it was connected.
Taking my phone into the kitchen, Jamie’s face dominating the screen, I looked again for something to drink. I knew I shouldn’t, but that seven-letter word shook me. Missing. Problem or not, I needed steadying, and a drink was the only thing that would do that. On my hands and knees, I looked into the dark corners of my booze cupboard and found an old bottle of crème de menthe that had sat in there for God knows how long. A joke gift from a friend that we drank once, despised, and put away never to drink again. I grabbed a mug from the draining board, poured a healthy measure and downed it. It made me shudder, like drinking sweet mouthwash, but I felt it warm my stomach. Pouring another I sat at the breakfast bar, transfixed by Jamie’s profile picture. He hadn’t aged well, becoming a fatter, greyer version of the boy I once knew. He was smiling in the photo, his teeth stained, probably through cigarettes, but he had a sadness in his eyes, a weight. And I knew why, because I carried the same weight too. Chloe.
The sadness I should have felt as soon as I discovered he was missing came. It seeped from my chest, pushed up my throat and from behind my eyes. Fuck, Jamie was missing. As my eyes glazed, I knocked back my mug of crème de menthe. Though it made me gag, I still poured a third, and the more I drank, the more I felt. Fear, sadness, curiosity even. Things I couldn’t feel any more without something warming my insides.
After the fourth measure went down, I felt the alcohol wave begin to roll over me, and I needed to know Jamie was OK. I’d not wanted to know anything about him in twenty years. The summer Chloe disappeared, I ran away to live with Mum, abandoning Dad who had already been tossed aside by the mine closing the winter before. I abandoned my friends and the villagers who were grieving. I’d intended to stay with Mum for a short while, but weeks became months, which turned into years. Once I left, there was no looking back. And the village, being as small and isolated from the rest of the world as it was, never forgot. I was hated, just like my mum was, and I had made peace with that long ago.
I accepted Holly’s friend request and said hello. I assumed she had added me to tell me about Jamie, but I didn’t mention it. All I could do was wait, and hope she replied. I put on my coat and shoes, grabbed my keys and headed into the cold, wet night. I knew I shouldn’t, I knew I should stay at home, wait for a reply, perhaps try and get an early night. But I walked to my local Tesco anyway to buy myself a bottle of wine, reasoning that I would only have one glass, just to calm my frayed nerves.