I didn't talk to anybody about running into Adam. There wasn't anyone I really talked to besides him anyway, and there was no way I was calling him up. I didn't owe him an apology, that was for sure. He was the one who'd said stupid stuff, not me. I shouldn't feel bad for what I'd said, because it was all true. Sometimes he got too wrapped up in himself, like he didn't care about anything. But I knew he was just the opposite inside—he cared about everything. He got hurt a lot easier than he admitted, but he didn't show it by crying or getting all sad. He showed it by getting grumpy, and since he'd been in a really long bad mood, I figured he'd been hurt for a long time. Still, that didn't give him a right to act like any of it was my fault. I'd tried to help him out; I'd tried to talk to him. He just hadn't let me. So if he was angry, he had nobody to blame but himself. Of course, that reasoning didn't make me feel much better, really.

There were a lot of thoughts in my head over the next two days after I'd argued with Adam, and his bad mood was definitely one of them. I really almost picked up the phone and called him, but then I forced myself not to. He'd come around eventually, I kept telling myself. He didn't need me checking up on him. I talked myself out of calling more than once, so I was really angry at myself when Mrs. Nyler phoned my mom in the middle of dinner with some weird news.

We were all just sitting around the table—mom, dad, Corey talking too much, me being quieter than usual—when the phone rang. Mom answered it, even though we didn't usually do that during dinner, and all of us eating chicken salad stared. We watched her face change shapes as the person on the other end of the line talked. Then she said, "Hold on, let me ask him," and she turned to me. "Cole, Mrs. Nyler wants to know if you've seen Adam recently."

I shrugged. "A couple of days ago, at Sloppy Soldiers."

My mom transferred that information to Mrs. Nyler, then listened and looked back at me. "Not since then? That was the last you saw him?"

Putting down my fork, I narrowed my eyes like I was thinking, even though I knew the answer to her questions. "Nope. That was the last time."

More talking into the phone by mom. More of her listening to the person on the other end. More of her face shifting. She began to look kind of concerned. I watched her, starting to get a little nervous. "All right," she finally said. "I'll tell him that. Let me know if there's anything else we can do." Then she hung up and sat back down at the table. I kept watching her, not bothering to pick my fork back up.

"What was that about?" asked dad, piling mayonnaise-drenched chicken and lettuce into his mouth.

Mom chewed her lip. "Anne. She says she hasn't seen Adam since he went to bed last night." She shook her head. "She said she wasn't worried at first, but now that it's nearing dark, she's a little nervous." I think my mouth must've been open, because my mom glanced at me and added, "Don't worry, Cole. I'm sure he's fine. You know Adam; he tends to do his own thing."

"Yeah, but 'his own thing' isn't wandering off all alone for a whole day," I said, starting to feel my stomach sink.

Dad frowned. "Now, you don't know that. Weren't you saying just last night that he was in a bad mood?"

"So?"

"So maybe he decided to spend some time alone. He probably just went out for a walk to clear his mind and is on his way home now."

"No," I said, sure of my answer, "he's not. That's not what he'd do. Adam doesn't go out to clear his mind. I don't think he'd know how to do it. What does that even mean? I wouldn't know how to do it either. He definitely didn't go out for a walk."

Dad put a hand on my arm, which was resting on the table. "Don't worry, Cole. If anything's wrong, Mrs. Nyler will let you know. If Adam happens by, you just need to call her." He removed his hand and scooped some more chicken onto his fork. It practically dripped mayo.

I just gawked at him, my mind totally blanking out. Somewhere in the back of my head, I knew that my mom was more disturbed by Mrs. Nyler's conversation than she was trying to let on. My head swam. The faces of my family members started to get sort of fuzzy, and I just sat there wondering things not very memorable. And then, suddenly, I snapped back into solid thought. I knew that things weren't right. They were really, really wrong. Totally out of place. Adam was definitely not out for a walk. He'd left, and he wasn't coming back. Somehow I was certain of that. Where he'd gone, I had no clue, but Mrs. Nyler would be waiting forever if she just sat at her house and hoped he'd show. Turning my head down, I stared at the food on my plate. I had totally lost my appetite. My stomach was getting more nauseated by the second.

I scooted my chair away from the table and said, "I'm not hungry. I'll be in my room." Not waiting for anybody to respond, I just went upstairs.

I don't know how I slept that night, but somehow I managed. I guess I just kept my surface thoughts in the front of my head. Surface thoughts like maybe I'd wake up and Adam would be home, or maybe he'd gone out with some other friend and spent the night at his house. Even though I knew those ideas were wrong, I tried to tell myself not to worry.

When I woke up, I felt sick. Physically sick. Like I was going to throw up. I just laid on the mattress trying to think about something other than what I'd had for dinner. It was no good, though. Mayonnaise kept crossing my mind, dripping off my dad's fork, and before I knew it, I sensed the food in me was ready to come back up, whether I wanted it to or not. I made a bathroom run, and I'm glad to say I got there on time. My mom suspected something was wrong, so she came up to see me. I was feeling a lot better now that my stomach was empty, but she took my temperature and brought me up a drink anyway. I was grateful enough. I hardly ever got the flu. It must've been food poisoning, she told me. Probably the chicken salad. No need to worry about that junk anymore, though: it was all traveling through the plumbing, compliments of my stomach and the March toilet.

As much as I didn't want to just lay around and be sick, my mom wouldn't let me do anything else. She kept her eye on me. Not like she had to, really. I didn't feel exactly healthy enough to run laps or anything. She didn't need to worry so much. But then I found out Mrs. Nyler had called again that morning. Corey told me she'd said Adam hadn't come home overnight, so now he was officially missing. The cops were in on the action. Mrs. Nyler had called them and explained the situation, and while I was moving downstairs onto the sofa to watch cartoons, they were conducting a search for Adam. So maybe that was why my mom checked up on me every five minutes. Maybe she thought I was going to run after Adam or something. Like I was going to go looking for him, which I definitely considered. I didn't have much of a clue where to go looking, though.

It was the weirdest thing ever, knowing that Adam had gone somewhere that I couldn't guess. Honestly, the day didn't feel too much different. It's not like Adam called me a ton or anything. I hardly saw him at all anymore. So nothing really seemed different. It was the knowing that was weird—the knowing that he was gone and that police were out there searching. I didn't want to be laying around while people were out there looking for him. I didn't have a choice, though. Not only was my mom watching me, but I really was too weak in the stomach to get on my feet after throwing up and putting only kool-aid into my insides.

Nothing good was on TV, and Corey had gone outside to play with some friends or something, so even he wasn't around to bug. I was totally bored to death. The only thing on my mind was Adam, and since there was absolutely nothing else to do, I just laid around and thought. I thought about where he could be, mostly. In the tree or in the big drain pipe by the creek. Those were the only worthwhile places I could think of. But the cops would check the drain pipe first, because a lot of kids hung out there or went hiding in it. That thing went on underground for a couple of miles. Once, Adam and I had tried to walk to the other end, but we'd gotten freaked by the dark and turned back around. So actually, I couldn't believe he'd tried to go the whole way through it.

The cops wouldn't know about the tree, though. Right when I was feeling better, I'd check it out.

Then I also thought about why Adam would've split. I mean, he wasn't the sort to just disappear. He was the sort to lie around and mope and get cranky in his basement, like he'd been doing for the past month or so. If he had a problem, he sat and felt sorry for himself in the little hole he created in his brain. Running away was something big, something that drew attention to the runner. Adam wouldn't want that much attention, I thought.

Strangely, it never hit me that Adam hadn't run away. It didn't pop into my brain that he could've gotten abducted or beaten up or anything. I never believed anything could've happened except that he'd run until they mentioned his disappearance on the local evening news. Sitting there on the sofa, I watched as the anchor guy announced Adam missing. He said the police were searching for him . . . or his body.

His body?

The words smacked me like a ton of bricks. The guy went on to talk about "foul play" or some junk. But my brain was still stuck on the word "body." My mom saw me looking startled. She was there watching the news with me. Real quick, she got up and turned off the TV. Not like it saved me any worry or anything.

"His body?" I cried right when the TV flicked black. "Why would they be talking about his body?"

"They just have to consider all possibilities, honey," my mom said. "I hated when she called me honey. It meant that she was trying to make me feel better about something, like I was five years old and she was scared I'd get an idea she didn't want me to have.

"What possibilities? He ran away!" I was totally annoyed.

"Of course, Cole. We believe that. But they don't know Adam like you do. They're just making sure." She put a hand on my shoulder but I shoved it away. Not saying anything, I weakly rolled off the sofa and slugged upstairs to my room, slamming the door when I reached it.

Up in my own quiet, I felt my brain getting clogged up. Blood rushed into it, or at least it felt like it was. I paced the floor, feeling shaky as I walked back and forth. Something had to be done. They were getting it all wrong. Adam's body was fine. They weren't going to find it without him still inside. I was almost entirely sure of that. I tried and tried to convince myself that he'd just run, but there was a small panic growing inside me that I couldn't push away. I wanted to rip it out of me. I wanted to throw it up. But I couldn't. I didn't know what I should do. At last, after my stomach started feeling sick again, I crawled into my bed and told myself that the next morning, first thing, I was going to find Adam.

That night, I slept worse than I can remember ever sleeping. My nightmares were all about cops finding Adam's body. In the creek. In the field. On the side of the road. Those dreams made me scared to fall asleep for the next several months.