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Description
“I’m not running away. I’m running to.

Please don’t try to find me. I’ll be found when I’m ready.

Love,
Evan”

I was thirteen when my brother left. I had been asked out for the first time, bursting with the news, hoping to spill it to the person I told everything to. Replacing him was a note that shook my once-reliable world.

“I don’t CARE!” Mom shrieked, “I don’t CARE that that means he’s can’t legally be filed as a ‘runaway’, and I certainly don’t care to wait a week to have him registered as missing! He’s missing NOW!”

A house is never silent, even when no one’s talking. There is always the hum of the refrigerator, the heating, our domestic man-made things that artificially fill. It’s the same with school: whenever you hear the buzzing of the florescent lights after a student’s response, you know they’re in for it. I should know, I usually was that student, all through junior high, and later high school.

So in that space of appliance-noise, I imagined what the police officer was saying on the other line to soothe Mom’s more-than-frazzled nerves.

“You don’t understand. He got accepted early decision to Princeton. Princeton, officer. He was going to graduate early, just a first semester for his senior year—he’s still a junior. He has everything waiting for him. He couldn’t have just left.”

That’s when it hit me. If we couldn’t find him(and I had a feeling we wouldn’t—sometimes I just know things), I wouldn’t have that promised bit of us being in the same schools. I wouldn’t have a friend there to protect me, a senior to my freshman, not even for a few months. There would be no rebirth of elementary, when I got the first swing because a fifth-grader saved one for me.

***

You know those missing children ads? With a photo of the kid, and a “person last seen with” photo parallel to them? I’m sure you do, they’re always printed on junk-mail, public park boards, and in the newspaper. Well, let me tell you, when it’s someone you know, you don’t just ignore them or gaze at them sadly. No, you gaze at them with piercing regret. If you’re me, you save every little scrap in a box, the same picture cut out over and over again.

It had been about a year since we had put the ads out. On that day, I had left my sheet music for choir at home. I asked Dori Macintosh, the only person standing next to me, as I was on the very edge of the last row, to let me see hers. She sneered and pointedly turned away from me. I seized it from her, leading to a confrontation interrupting “Silent Night”. Mr. Baker, the choir director, made me stay for a lecture, leading to my tardy-loathing English teacher’s annoyance. I flippantly sat down in my seat and told her that if the administration didn’t deem it necessary to use some sort of bell or clocks in the hallways, I didn’t deem it fair for me to know the time, which led to another lecture and another class I was late for.

Suffice it to say, it hadn’t been a terribly enjoyable or unusual fourteenth birthday.

My parents were still teaching at the local community college, so I had a blissful few hours of solitude to mix rum and Coke , no threat of their vigilance. Ever since Evan left, they tried to pin themselves to me, a serious motivation for pissed-off-ness, as any teenager will let you know.

An intense little rumbling in my pocket interrupted my stream of thought. The caller ID on the tiny screen of the phone I’d received last Christmas flashed “UNKNOWN”. Probably a telemarketer. No, I got a tingle up my spine that warned me this wasn’t random. Maybe Trail was asking me out; he had been acting strange lately, constantly mumbling to his feet instead of just talking to me. What would I DO? Trail had been my best friend since the dawn of time, and a recent replacement for Evan. It would be…too weird.

“Hello?”

“Clio?”

Nah. Way too deep to be Trail’s pitchy, tragic going-through-puberty voice.

“Yeah…who is—”

“Happy birthday.”

“Uh, thanks. It hasn’t been very happy, but whatever. Who is this?”

“Um…Evan.”

Instantly my heart began to race crazily, like a caged bird. I held my phone more gently, afraid any eagerness would make him disappear. Stupid, because he couldn’t see me, but I wasn’t willing to take any chances.

“Evan. How—how are you?”

He laughed generously, throatily, a babbling brook running over stones.

“It’s YOUR birthday, Cee.”

“I wanted to tell you- I got asked out the day you left. Kinda put a damper on it. I was counting on telling you. I don’t want to talk about today. Can we- can we catch up a little? First? Please?”

“I’m sorry it happened that way. Sure.”

No evasiveness, no confrontation, just “Sure.” That was so Evan. Or, the Evan I knew, anyway. I’d been afraid that one impulsive act had turned him into someone else, but he seemed familiar.

“So,” he asked, “who was it?”

“Raman Maji.”

“No, I mean seriously.”

“Don’t be a xenophobic pig! Just because he’s Persian does not mean he’s a terrorist. God. I got enough of that during the week we went out…”

“That’s not what I meant, Cee. God. Just- Ramen? As in the noodles?”

“Shut up.”

“So only a week? What happened?”

“Well…um…I dumped him.”

“Whyyy?”

“His breath smelled like…no, I won’t tell you. You’ll make fun of me. Let’s just say it was bad.”

“Oh, come on! Please?”

How do you deny someone you love? Someone you haven’t heard from so long, you at times forgot about them, then hated yourself for it?

“Ramen.”

“Yeah, I know, you said that was his name, but what did it-“

“Ramen was what his breath smelled like.”

“NO. You’re making it up!”

“I wish. OK, enough about me. What’ve you been up to?”

“Well, um, I’m in a place I actually like being in. I have a lot of roommates here…I don’t have a girlfriend, because I don’t really want one.”

“Where do you work? Live?”

“I’m a waiter at an Indian restaurant, usually serving many yellow curry things. I can’t tell you where I live, because then you’ll visit me.”

“That’s not fair, Evan. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. But you can’t drive, and I don’t want to see mom and dad. Please try to understand.”

“I….I guess I do. Two years, then?”

“Two years. Look, I’m talking on a pay phone now, and the minutes are almost up…you’re still my sister and I still love you, okay?”

“Okay,” I promised, even after the dial tone.

***

Two years later, the rain is pounding the road so hard I expect it to turn to dust, and I’m driving with Jamie, Frances, and Angela, on our school’s-over-summer’s-here road trip.

Actually, I’m driving totally solo, but that’s the story I sold my parents.

***

“Who’s the chick? She’s hot.”

“The ‘chick’ is my sister.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah. Don’t even.”

I roll over, eyes shut, and hope to fall asleep on this musty couch, or to at least leave that impression.

***

“Clio? Cleeeee-o?”

Someone nudges my shoulder. I emit something that can only be described as “murphlesnort”. Creaking open my eyelids, the fuzzy edges of some random guy become clearer. I can make out that he has a shock of hair, both the color and consistency of peach fuzz, known in this culture as a “buzz-cut”, elf-green eyes, a crooked smile. So, basically, he looks like an 18-year-old leprechaun, except that he’s rather tall.

“Good morning?”

I wrap my arms around my long t-shirt, but not because of any chill. Tragically, I’m not wearing a bra, a fact he is all too receptive to.

“Yeah, uh, Evan told me to wake you up…he’s at work right now. I’m—”

“Darren, his roommate. Yeah, he told me.”

We shake hands. He lets his fingers fan out as he pulls his hand away.

“So,” I offer, brushing off a red with all these fibers sticking out, looking scratchy, but actually soft to the touch, “do YOU know why he invited me? I mean besides the fact that I’m so lovable and all that.”

“He said he wanted you to see what the world was like without parents constantly hovering, dictating, telling you your cynicism is so ‘inappropriate”. That’s verbatim, by the way. He’s the one that’s smart. Uses all those big words. Don’t know why he’s a WAITER, if he’s so smart but…”

“And yet,” I point out wryly, “in this ‘world’ you just said ‘verbatim’.”

Darren shrugs modestly.

“Guess I picked it up.”

I slide off the couch and waltz over to the fridge, tip-toeing to survey its contents. Satisfied with the glass bottles of Starbucks latte, I grab one and swig it, sitting at the small table encroaching the small kitchen.

Darren sits across from me.

“What do you think of it so far?”

I wrap my foot around his. He loosens his grip on the table, clutching his neck.. Unfortunately for him, his hand doesn’t cover the flush crawling up it.

Even though we’re not talking, I can’t hear the fridge. Maybe you need love to cover it up.

Description
“I’m not running away. I’m running to.

Please don’t try to find me. I’ll be found when I’m ready.

Love,
Evan”

I was thirteen when my brother left. I had been asked out for the first time, bursting with the news, hoping to spill it to the person I told everything to. Replacing him was a note that shook my once-reliable world.

“I don’t CARE!” Mom shrieked, “I don’t CARE that that means he’s can’t legally be filed as a ‘runaway’, and I certainly don’t care to wait a week to have him registered as missing! He’s missing NOW!”

A house is never silent, even when no one’s talking. There is always the hum of the refrigerator, the heating, our domestic man-made things that artificially fill. It’s the same with school: whenever you hear the buzzing of the florescent lights after a student’s response, you know they’re in for it. I should know, I usually was that student, all through junior high, and later high school.

So in that space of appliance-noise, I imagined what the police officer was saying on the other line to soothe Mom’s more-than-frazzled nerves.

“You don’t understand. He got accepted early decision to Princeton. Princeton, officer. He was going to graduate early, just a first semester for his senior year—he’s still a junior. He has everything waiting for him. He couldn’t have just left.”

That’s when it hit me. If we couldn’t find him(and I had a feeling we wouldn’t—sometimes I just know things), I wouldn’t have that promised bit of us being in the same schools. I wouldn’t have a friend there to protect me, a senior to my freshman, not even for a few months. There would be no rebirth of elementary, when I got the first swing because a fifth-grader saved one for me.

***

You know those missing children ads? With a photo of the kid, and a “person last seen with” photo parallel to them? I’m sure you do, they’re always printed on junk-mail, public park boards, and in the newspaper. Well, let me tell you, when it’s someone you know, you don’t just ignore them or gaze at them sadly. No, you gaze at them with piercing regret. If you’re me, you save every little scrap in a box, the same picture cut out over and over again.

It had been about a year since we had put the ads out. On that day, I had left my sheet music for choir at home. I asked Dori Macintosh, the only person standing next to me, as I was on the very edge of the last row, to let me see hers. She sneered and pointedly turned away from me. I seized it from her, leading to a confrontation interrupting “Silent Night”. Mr. Baker, the choir director, made me stay for a lecture, leading to my tardy-loathing English teacher’s annoyance. I flippantly sat down in my seat and told her that if the administration didn’t deem it necessary to use some sort of bell or clocks in the hallways, I didn’t deem it fair for me to know the time, which led to another lecture and another class I was late for.

Suffice it to say, it hadn’t been a terribly enjoyable or unusual fourteenth birthday.

My parents were still teaching at the local community college, so I had a blissful few hours of solitude to mix rum and Coke , no threat of their vigilance. Ever since Evan left, they tried to pin themselves to me, a serious motivation for pissed-off-ness, as any teenager will let you know.

An intense little rumbling in my pocket interrupted my stream of thought. The caller ID on the tiny screen of the phone I’d received last Christmas flashed “UNKNOWN”. Probably a telemarketer. No, I got a tingle up my spine that warned me this wasn’t random. Maybe Trail was asking me out; he had been acting strange lately, constantly mumbling to his feet instead of just talking to me. What would I DO? Trail had been my best friend since the dawn of time, and a recent replacement for Evan. It would be…too weird.

“Hello?”

“Clio?”

Nah. Way too deep to be Trail’s pitchy, tragic going-through-puberty voice.

“Yeah…who is—”

“Happy birthday.”

“Uh, thanks. It hasn’t been very happy, but whatever. Who is this?”

“Um…Evan.”

Instantly my heart began to race crazily, like a caged bird. I held my phone more gently, afraid any eagerness would make him disappear. Stupid, because he couldn’t see me, but I wasn’t willing to take any chances.

“Evan. How—how are you?”

He laughed generously, throatily, a babbling brook running over stones.

“It’s YOUR birthday, Cee.”

“I wanted to tell you- I got asked out the day you left. Kinda put a damper on it. I was counting on telling you. I don’t want to talk about today. Can we- can we catch up a little? First? Please?”

“I’m sorry it happened that way. Sure.”

No evasiveness, no confrontation, just “Sure.” That was so Evan. Or, the Evan I knew, anyway. I’d been afraid that one impulsive act had turned him into someone else, but he seemed familiar.

“So,” he asked, “who was it?”

“Raman Maji.”

“No, I mean seriously.”

“Don’t be a xenophobic pig! Just because he’s Persian does not mean he’s a terrorist. God. I got enough of that during the week we went out…”

“That’s not what I meant, Cee. God. Just- Ramen? As in the noodles?”

“Shut up.”

“So only a week? What happened?”

“Well…um…I dumped him.”

“Whyyy?”

“His breath smelled like…no, I won’t tell you. You’ll make fun of me. Let’s just say it was bad.”

“Oh, come on! Please?”

How do you deny someone you love? Someone you haven’t heard from so long, you at times forgot about them, then hated yourself for it?

“Ramen.”

“Yeah, I know, you said that was his name, but what did it-“

“Ramen was what his breath smelled like.”

“NO. You’re making it up!”

“I wish. OK, enough about me. What’ve you been up to?”

“Well, um, I’m in a place I actually like being in. I have a lot of roommates here…I don’t have a girlfriend, because I don’t really want one.”

“Where do you work? Live?”

“I’m a waiter at an Indian restaurant, usually serving many yellow curry things. I can’t tell you where I live, because then you’ll visit me.”

“That’s not fair, Evan. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. But you can’t drive, and I don’t want to see mom and dad. Please try to understand.”

“I….I guess I do. Two years, then?”

“Two years. Look, I’m talking on a pay phone now, and the minutes are almost up…you’re still my sister and I still love you, okay?”

“Okay,” I promised, even after the dial tone.

***

Two years later, the rain is pounding the road so hard I expect it to turn to dust, and I’m driving with Jamie, Frances, and Angela, on our school’s-over-summer’s-here road trip.

Actually, I’m driving totally solo, but that’s the story I sold my parents.

***

“Who’s the chick? She’s hot.”

“The ‘chick’ is my sister.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah. Don’t even.”

I roll over, eyes shut, and hope to fall asleep on this musty couch, or to at least leave that impression.

***

“Clio? Cleeeee-o?”

Someone nudges my shoulder. I emit something that can only be described as “murphlesnort”. Creaking open my eyelids, the fuzzy edges of some random guy become clearer. I can make out that he has a shock of hair, both the color and consistency of peach fuzz, known in this culture as a “buzz-cut”, elf-green eyes, a crooked smile. So, basically, he looks like an 18-year-old leprechaun, except that he’s rather tall.

“Good morning?”

I wrap my arms around my long t-shirt, but not because of any chill. Tragically, I’m not wearing a bra, a fact he is all too receptive to.

“Yeah, uh, Evan told me to wake you up…he’s at work right now. I’m—”

“Darren, his roommate. Yeah, he told me.”

We shake hands. He lets his fingers fan out as he pulls his hand away.

“So,” I offer, brushing off a red with all these fibers sticking out, looking scratchy, but actually soft to the touch, “do YOU know why he invited me? I mean besides the fact that I’m so lovable and all that.”

“He said he wanted you to see what the world was like without parents constantly hovering, dictating, telling you your cynicism is so ‘inappropriate”. That’s verbatim, by the way. He’s the one that’s smart. Uses all those big words. Don’t know why he’s a WAITER, if he’s so smart but…”

“And yet,” I point out wryly, “in this ‘world’ you just said ‘verbatim’.”

Darren shrugs modestly.

“Guess I picked it up.”

I slide off the couch and waltz over to the fridge, tip-toeing to survey its contents. Satisfied with the glass bottles of Starbucks latte, I grab one and swig it, sitting at the small table encroaching the small kitchen.

Darren sits across from me.

“What do you think of it so far?”

I wrap my foot around his. He loosens his grip on the table, clutching his neck.. Unfortunately for him, his hand doesn’t cover the flush crawling up it.

Even though we’re not talking, I can’t hear the fridge. Maybe you need love to cover it up.