The rest of the day was mostly filled with quiet anticipation and dread. Tyler lumbered in and out of the house, taking time to sunbathe in a chair in the front yard or grab himself another beer. It was clear he was not worried, and that he did not pick up on the other's worry. If he did, he did not care.

They found that they stayed closed together, even Caspar, not wanting to be alone in that house. Amory continuously reminded himself that she would be there soon, and if she wasn't, they would find her tomorrow. He couldn't let himself imagine her truly gone, that didn't even seem fathomable. So, instead, he imagined himself angry at her and the exact speech he would give her upon seeing her. He wondered if it would even get through to her, or if she would just apologize to avoid confrontation and he would just give in because she was Vallie and that's what he always did.

Marc made them a simple dinner: spaghetti and meatballs. It wasn't fancy, but he didn't have the energy for fancy. Ophelia was in the kitchen with him, but this time she did not offer to help. Instead, she sat on the counter beside the stove, idly kicking her legs and acting as if she were calm. They didn't speak much, but neither was annoyed by the others presence. Perhaps they never could be.

Marc checked the pasta to confirm it was cooked perfectly al dente, then moved to drain it. He made a mistake, though. A novice mistake. The pot was old, with medal handles that required oven mitts once exposed to the gas stove's open flame. His hands burned the moment he went to grab the pot, causing him to throw it back down quickly and hiss. Water sloshed out over the side, causing the heated metal of the burner grate to sizzle and steam. Otherwise, the pasta was fine.

"Shit, are you okay?" Ophelia jumped down from the counter quickly, taking both of Marc's wrists in her hands and examining his palms. 

"Yeah, I'm fine." Marc grumbled, more annoyed with the situation than with her. He gently pulled his hands from her grasp and turned toward the sink, flipping on the tap to a cool stream of water and placing his palms under it. They weren't too bad, really. He did it anyways.

Ophelia stood behind him, staring at his back. He was so tense, she could see his strained muscles from beneath the thin fabric of his t-shirt. She wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around him from behind and whisper you're going to be okay. Perhaps she wanted someone to do that for her, too. 

She was getting bad again, and she knew it. Freshman year blow up on your whole dorm floor-bad. Back then, Nadia, Lou, and Vallie had been there to dig her out of her pit of self-loathing, even when she felt she didn't deserve it. Perhaps they had all changed, and perhaps some part of her feared they would no longer know how to love her in spite of her fury that loomed beneath the surface. Some part of her knew that was stupid, though.

She knew now that she had an abundance of love within her friends, even if she no longer knew their current favorite songs or their morning coffee orders. None of that mattered, really. They had a love that was proven by their unyielding decision to choose one another, over and over and over again. Time may age them and they may find that their physical distance grows, but they are intertwined at their core. She'd bet all the money in the world and all the blood in her veins on the fact that they all felt it, too. 

"I'm worried about her, too." Ophelia settled on, her voice soft. Only hours before, it was Lou who was pulling Ophelia from her own Vallie-induced wreckage. Perhaps that it was they all did for each other. A continuous cycle of pulling one another away from the ledge.

Marc didn't want to cry, but the tears were already forming in his eyes. He shut off the tap and placed his hands on the edge of the counter, bowing his head and attempting to steady his breath. It wasn't just Vallie; it was everything. A perfect week away didn't exist in his imperfect life. All he knew were the voices of everyone around him telling him to be more, to be better, to push harder. He was a shell of who he once was, a man who had reached for his passion whilst being pulled back by those who were supposed to love him. And Vallie wasn't there to grant him the freedom to truly pretend his life was okay.

"Amory and I decided, some of us need to go out and try to find her tomorrow." Marc straightened up, regaining his composure and turning to look back at Ophelia. "We need to figure out what's going on."

Ophelia nodded silently, in obvious agreement. They stared at each other, quietly, before Marc moved around her and grabbed a pair of oven mitts to drain the pasta. It surely wouldn't be perfect anymore, but maybe nothing was.

After Marc drained the pasta, he paused for a moment. Ophelia was still standing in the same place, feeling so suddenly wrecked with a very real anxiety. If the others were planning to search for Vallie, then that made all of this real. No one could ignore it any longer. They all were coming to terms with the fact that something was very wrong.

Marc turned back to Ophelia, a softness in him that was not there before. He studied her, before wrapping her up in his arms and pulling her tight against his chest. Ophelia squeezed him back, feeling her eyes begin to well with tears. She didn't stop them. She let herself sob, freely, against his shoulder. 

Marc knew that Ophelia would do anything for him, that she would weather any storm and take on any adversary, and he knew now that he needed to do the same for her. He was scared and sad and tired, of course, but whatever energy he had left he would spend making sure she was okay. He had to.

✩✰✩

Nadia and Amory found each other once more that day. Amory didn't dwell on the fact that they always seemed to find one another. They were like a pair of magnets, pulled apart without a thought but sticking together the second the distance dwindled. He wondered what his old teammates would say, how they would tease him about the fact that even years later, he and Nadia were still doing this dance.

They were outside, because that's where Amory had found her napping. He had joined her on the ground when she awoke, and now her legs were resting in his lap as they stared up at the sky. The sun had tanned Nadia's skin a bit darker, and her black hair stuck out wildly against the grass. It was funny, in a way. They both hated the outdoors, with all the bugs and dirt, but they didn't hate it at that moment.

"Do you think she's okay?" Amory asked, not sparing a glance at the girl. He knew that she was the only one who would tell him what she truly thought, and maybe he needed that right then.

"Honestly?" Nadia sat up, resting on her hands as she gazed down at him. "Yeah, I think so. I mean, I don't trust Tyler's bitch ass for a second, and something really weird is happening, but... But Vallie has to be okay, right?"

Amory wasn't following her train of thought, not even slightly. He gazed back at her with furrowed brows. No one has to be anything, he didn't think. He didn't have to be a football player, but he needed the money. Marc didn't have to be a lawyer, but he needed to keep his family happy. Lou didn't have to struggle alone, but it was how she viewed strength. Vallie didn't have to be okay, or not okay, that was probably out of her control. Perhaps out of all of their control.

"I don't know, Nads." Amory replied honestly.

"This isn't apart of Vallie's fairytale." Nadia shook her head, believing every word she spoke.

"I don't think any of this is apart of any of our fairytales." Amory sighed, finally sitting up. "Since when did you start believing in all of that stuff?"

Nadia became sheepish at that, not knowing how to respond. She didn't believe life was a fairytale, and she had always thought Vallie was foolish for searching for one. Still, things had worked out exactly as Nadia had planned for herself, because she worked for them. Some part of her hoped the same would be said for the rest of them. If this trip had taught her anything, it was that that was not the case.

"When did everything get so fucked up?" Nadia questioned quietly, appearing suddenly very vulnerable. Nadia was not a vulnerable person, but maybe they were all a little different in the presence of one another. Years of intimate friendship stripped them bare, leaving them as nothing more than scared 20 somethings pining for things to be easy again.

"I think maybe things were always fucked up." Amory paused, searching Nadia's eyes. Her hair was tousled, and a small twig was tangled by her ear. Amory took a moment to get it out and toss it aside, before brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "Maybe we just had each other to pretend everything was okay."

Amory's hand strayed down, resting at the junction between her chin and her neck. Nadia leaned into the touch, letting her eyes close for a moment as she accepted his warmth. When she opened her eyes again, it felt like they were sitting much closer than they were before. As if the world around them had fallen away, and now it was only them and the crickets.

"But we have each other now, and I don't think anything feels okay." Nadia spoke softly.

Amory felt almost wounded by her words. This was not the firecracker he was used to; the one who showed up late and drank everyone under the table and could make everyone smile. This was just a girl—a woman, really—who didn't know what to do when things were out of her control. A woman who was scared, it seemed, even if she didn't realize it herself.

"Maybe we're done pretending." Amory swallowed.

Like magnets, they pulled together. Except, this wasn't a quick snap of passion or attraction. This was soft, and necessary, and Amory's fingers tangled in Nadia's hair as their lips moved. Nothing was okay, maybe. Vallie was missing and Nadia wasn't sparkling and Amory wasn't angry, so clearly the world had shifted off its axis. But maybe they could have this thing, this one thing, to help them ignore all of it.

When they pulled back, they did not lunge forward again or attempt to take things any further. Instead, they rested their foreheads against one another and closed their eyes, breathing in the same Pennsylvania air. Then, they laid back down, with Nadia leaning her head against his chest as he held her in his arms. Amory didn't let himself worry about what that had meant, because right now there was no meaning to anything. All that mattered was that they needed each other, and they had each other, so fuck everything else.

✩✰✩

Lou was alone in her and Amory's room. There was an old stereo on the nightstand by the tv, and a rack of CDs beside it. Lou spent some time perusing them, mostly hits from the 70s-90s that she wasn't particularly interested in. When she settled on The Beatles Greatest Hits album, just to calm her nerves, she opened the slot and went to place it in. Instead, she found a cd already in there. Jeff Buckley's Grace.

Lou wasn't familiar with the album, but she closed the slot and pressed play anyways. She hoped that maybe the tunes would make her think of Vallie, that perhaps Vallie was the one who had chosen the cd and left it in there. She assumed that when the Wright family came to the house on trips, Vallie's parents probably took the master and Vallie and Tyler probably took this guest room. Maybe that should make her feel closer to her, but it really just made her feel sick.

Lou laid back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling as the first song began to play. She didn't like it, not really, but she didn't get up to change it, either. Song after song played, and even as she became more convinced that Vallie probably wasn't the one who last played this album, she tried to convince herself otherwise. 

There was a guilt eating at her, a guilt she couldn't share with any of the others. For a while now, she had secretly blamed Vallie for the dismantling of their group. In her mind, Vallie's wedding was when everything went to shit. It was the nail in the coffin, putting a certain finality in what probably would have been a very long and drawn out falling apart. Now, Vallie was missing and Tyler was as awful as she had always assumed and Lou realized she had never let herself wonder if Vallie was okay. This all felt like her fault, another instance of everything always going wrong for her. Now, it was effecting those she loved, too.

Lou let herself cry, in the dark room with her friends outside. She let Jeff Buckley drone on, the background music to the tragedy that had become her life. She would allow herself this, a moment of grieving alone, then she would go back out there and convince everyone she was as okay as she said she was. When "Hallelujah" began to play, she sobbed harder. She didn't know why. Perhaps it was because she wasn't expecting it.

Her sobs were interrupted by the sound of voices outside her door, causing her to straighten up immediately and wipe at her face. She half expected someone to come bursting in, but when no one did, she slowly stalked over to the door and listened out. She recognized the voices immediately. The softer one was Caspar. The louder was Tyler.

"I don't like the way you sneak around here, man." Tyler bit out, and Lou wondered if he was snarling. "Like, what are you even looking for?"

Before Caspar could answer, Lou pulled the door open swiftly. It wasn't that she thought Caspar couldn't handle himself, she was certain he was capable of much more than she realized. Still, Tyler's anger frightened her, and she was particularly frightened by Caspar being on the receiving end of it. She forced a smile, hoping that they wouldn't be able to tell she had been crying.

"Cas, you coming?—Oh." Lou acted as if they had planned to hang out, feigning confusion when she saw Tyler there as well.

The two men were silent for a moment, then Tyler cracked a smile, as if he was catching onto something. Lou realized then that Jeff Buckley was still droning out "Hallelujah," and all of the lights were off in the room, and she probably looked tousled and messy, which alone made her cringe. The implications of the moment were not lost on her, so she forced a sheepish smile and turned her eyes back to Caspar, pleading with him to just come in the room and end this torture. He nodded quickly, going to her and placing a hand on her arm. It seemed he could tell she had been crying.

"Gotcha." Tyler nodded at them, that same knowing smirk on his face. He made his way towards the front door, pausing for just a moment to look back at them. "I'm going to grab drinks with some friends, tell that Marc kid not to save me a plate."

With that, he was gone. Still, Lou pulled Caspar into the room and shut the door. He flicked the light on, gazing down at the girl in front of him. He thought of the last time they were alone together, behind a closed door. Vallie's wedding night. The night he wished he could forget, but not really. He had never known what all or nothing looked like with Lou, but that was the night he had decided he would be happy forever just to have some piece of her. The next morning he learned that the best she could give to him was nothing at all.

"Who is this?" Caspar finally spoke, his voice coming out in a whisper. He was referencing the music playing.

"Jeff Buckley. I think it's Vallie's." Lou returned the whisper. Perhaps she could convince Caspar of that lie, even if she couldn't convince herself.

A new song had started, one that neither of them recognized. Caspar thought it might be a love song, but he wasn't listening to the lyrics too closely. It sounded more like a song about love lost, the background music to a supercut of a movie's protagonist crying in the rain or wallowing in their room. It was making him antsy.

They were standing close to one another, much too close, but neither moved away. Their chests were heaving, as if they had just escaped an ax murderer. In reality, they had only escaped Tyler.

For a moment, Lou felt her strength began to slip. All she could focus on was how perfect he looked, his eyes searching her face with a sort of tenderness she was not accustomed to. He was there, in front of her, being so goddamn good and waiting for her to make whatever move she was going to make. Lou thought she had been strong for resisting him, thought she had been right, but in that moment, all she felt like was a coward. Only a fool turns away the good due to the fear that it might one day turn bad.

Caspar thought she might lean up then. He swore he could see her moving, slowly. But, then, Marc was calling to everyone for dinner, and Lou was snapping back quickly and apologizing. He didn't have time to process her fleeing the room, or the sinking feeling in his gut. All he could focus on was the droning of the stereo, Jeff Buckley's words piercing his ears.

It's never over, She is the tear that hangs inside my soul forever

Caspar wanted to scream, or punch the stereo, or ask the world what the fuck was going on. Instead, he looked down at the ground for a moment, before pausing the song and popping the cd out of the stereo. He returned it to its case, then took it upstairs and placed it in his bag before joining the others for dinner.

✩✰✩

They all ate in relative silence, much too tired or wary or scared to have idle conversation. The anxiety in the room was palpable, but no one commented on it. When 8 pm rolled around, with no sign of Vallie or Tyler, they all internally realized that they would not be sleeping that night.

---

hello! I am back after a short break from updating. Idk what happened tbh, I've had a weird last week and a half with work. But fear not! Here is an update. 

The song that was playing at the end was "Lover, You Should've Come Over" if anyone is interested! I love music and I get really inspired by songs, so they usually weasel their way into my stories. Oh well.

Hows everyone feeling :)