I tell myself she's at the lab. Or practice. She’s on a grocery run.
I push the door all the way open anyway.
The bed is stripped. Just a bare mattress. Her textbooks are gone from the desk, and there is no charger cord on the windowsill. No snacks. Her shower caddy is missing from the dresser where it always sits next to a picture of the two of us.
The picture is gone as well.
Everything is gone.
She’s gone.
I stand in the doorway, and I don't move.
I can’t move.
My brain is trying to process what I’m seeing.
“What in the actual hell?” I murmur when my eyes and brain sync up.
I pull out my phone and call her.
The phone rings four times and then goes to voicemail. Her voice sounds a little formal, just like it always does in recordings, asking me to leave a message. I don't. I hang up and call again.
Voicemail.
I text her:Hey. I'm home. Where are you?
The text goes through—one checkmark. I wait for it to turn to two. I wait longer than I should before I accept that she's probably busy. I put mine in my pocket and go downstairs.
The video game is off, and I feel it. They know something.
Crew is on the couch with his feet on the coffee table, watching highlights. Pierce is in the kitchen, eating directly from a container of leftover pasta. Holden is in the armchair across from Crew, holding his phone. Normal Saturday afternoon. Like nothing's different.
But it is, and they know it.
"When did Sutton move out?" I ask.
There's a half-second pause where three separate people don't quite look at me, and in that half-second, I learn everything I actually need to know.
Crew looks at Pierce. Then Holden. They were both way too busy to answer me. "She, uh. Left her key on the kitchen counter,” Crew says. “Didn't make a big thing of it."
"When."
"A few days ago."
Pierce sets down the pasta container and walks into the living room. "We figured you knew."
"I didn't know."
Another pause. Longer this time.
Ashton comes into the living room in a fresh pair of sweats and a hoodie. "I hate the way airplanes smell. I always feel like I stink after a long flight. I need food and—" He stops. Reads the room in the way Ashton always reads rooms. "What did I miss?"
"Sutton moved out," Crew says.
Ashton looks at me.
"While we were gone," I say.
