Finding Fireflies -- chapter 2

(Continuation from http://storywrite.com/Story/782707 )1

I couldn't sleep that night, nor did I manage anything resembling rest. I'd known Anna for two years, and had never even heard her voice. The only pictures had been school photos and one from a family reunion. Nothing with friends. The more I thought, the more I realized she had no one IRL. All she had was Kyle and myself. She'd lost half her world when he vanished, hadn't she?2

The bed squeaked and shook as I bolted upright, remembering when she'd vanished for three days, a little over a month earlier. 'She never told me why…' The room felt so cold suddenly, causing me to fall back onto my bed as I got too dizzy to stay sitting. She hadn't told me why. She hadn't told me everything about Kyle's disappearance, had she?3

If only I'd stayed on a minute longer…4

A few deep breaths later, my head had cleared enough to allow me to roll over and crawl onto the floor. The gap between my door and the floor was devoid of light, which meant my parents had already gone into their room. I pulled myself over to the door and cracked it open, listening closely to the laugh track bleeding out of my parents' room, overpowered by my mother's snoring. Dad was watching some late-late show, though the volume was loud enough to suggest he wouldn't be able to hear any typing in my room. Perfect.5

Easing the door shut and locking it, I rolled a dirty shirt from the hamper into a ball and pressed it against the main speaker before flicking the computer's power switch, wincing involuntarily when the startup beep was still audible. "Damn you, Microsoft!" I hissed, wondering if spies used Macs as I waited for the processing to complete.6

I knew little about Kyle, but I was aware he was 16 and lived a bit outside of San Francisco, in one of a million suburbs. It was quicker to type in Google than to pull it from my favorites, and within a moment I was running a search for papers in the area with archives. I found at least 60. A search for obituaries in the archives narrowed it down to three, and I held by breath in hopes he'd be mentioned in one of them.7

Three keywords: Kyle, 16, and the one that made me bite my lip, suicide, plus a date range for the week before Anna's first disappearance. One result, and it wasn't in the obituaries.8

I cried. The familiar, smirking face with its messed up black hair stared back at me, the exact and only picture I'd ever seen before of Kyle, and now it was accompanied by 3 other boys around his age. It was a line-up that belonged in a school yearbook, not the back page of a newspaper, sandwiched between wedding announcements, advertisements, and obituaries.9

The article explained how Kyle Collins and the others had all died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the Collins' garage. A pile of goodbye notes were on the roof of the car, with no real explanation in them as to why the four had chosen the easy way out.10

Had he told her he was going to die, or had she found out afterwards? I just shuddered at either idea.11

411 again. I had no other choice. It was only 10 in Indiana, against my Massachusetts 11.12

"Mrs. Jefferson?" I cringed as she answered, the pain from earlier still evident in her voice though she was trying to hide it.13

"…Yes?"14

I took a deep breath to calm my nerves. "My name is Sierra. I was sort of a penpal of Anna's."15

Silence. My mind chanted, pleading her not to hang up.16

"He note said you'd call. There's a sealed one, addressed to you."17

'Said I'd call…?' She'd told me her father's name only a couple days before hand. Had she planned it? Been planning two days ahead?18

"…May I ask how she died?"19

"Who was Kyle?"20

"…She dated him for about a year…"21

More silence.22

"…The same way as him. She suffocated herself in the garage…" She was crying. She sounded how I'd always expected Anna to sound when she cried. It was then I realized I was crying again, or that I'd stopped to begin with.23

"Ma'am… may I come to her funeral?"24

She gave me the date and address calmly, quietly, but clearly shakily, as I typed them with one hand. As I hung up the phone, I turned on notepad, typing sporadically as I drifted around the room. Clothes, necessities, my meds, and my license replaced my school supplies in my book bag as the message began to take shape and was soon posted as an away on my instant messenger.25

I'd been saving for a trip to Australia, and so a little over $800 was tucked here and there in my room. It and my cell phone went into my jacket, which in turn was hung on my chair in wait.26

My sleeping bag and I snuck out to the car, accompanied by dad's laptop. Both were stashed beneath the spare tire in the trunk.27

Boston to Indianapolis was exactly 14 hours and 28 minutes, according to MapQuest, but that was assuming good traffic. More realistically, I'd be in Philly by lunch and might make Columbus by nightfall, if I left by 6:30 the next morning, when I normally took off for school. My parents would know I was gone about 4:30, when the school would call with the day's absences.28

I turned off my monitor and crashed in bed, opening my blinds once more. Fourteen and a half hours of driving lay ahead, and it was already midnight. Now, I would have to sleep.29

Continued: http://storywrite.com/poem/80335530