Page 15 of That's Not My Name

Thank god.

The front door’s unlocked, and I don’t bother calling out. I don’t want to talk. I want a hot shower and some sleep. I hang my keys on the hook by the door, so they’ll know I’m home, and trudge upstairs. I stop in the hallway to throw my dripping sweatshirt in the dryer and close my bedroom door behind me. I smack the light switch by the door and my desk lamp flickers on.

I sigh. Even my room doesn’t feel like it’s mine anymore.

A collection of swim team trophies and grunge band posters decorate my walls. Video games and scattered textbooks litter the carpet. Butshe’shad her hands on everything in here. She went toevery swim meet, every concert—even though she would have rather seen Taylor Swift. She studied here with me every day after school. Complained about the video games but still watched me play. She even picked out my comforter. Said the blue in the plaid matched my eyes.

Now they’re all artifacts of my old life. I’ve been asked to sit out this swim season, step down as captain—and nobody on the team will speak to me. I haven’t listened to music or picked up a controller in weeks. It’s all waiting on her. I need Lola home, so I can go back to a life that’s more than missing person posters and guilt.

I kick off my shoes, tug on a pair of sweats, and collapse into my desk chair. Maybe I don’t have it in me to take a shower after all.

Despite the exhaustion, I pull my whiteboard from the wall above my desk and flip it over, revealing the only thing I care about these days. The back of the board hides my entire pathetic investigation. Post-it notes, a printed map of Washington City marked with everywhere Lola went the day she disappeared, and photos of her. So many photos. I brush my thumb against one of us parked at the boat launch. The dark river in the background barely illuminated by the flash. We both smile like idiots, no idea what’s about to happen.

It’s the last picture I have of us.

Taken the night she disappeared.

This simple four-by-three-foot collection is everything I know about that last twenty-four hours—which isn’t much. I scan the timeline, scribbled on the back of some old homework, detailing everything that happened from the moment I picked her up for school in the morning. Her classes, after-school practice with the team, the fight with her parents, me picking her up at her house at just after 10 p.m., the boat launch, the stop she made at the convenience store right beforemidnight, and finally the cops finding her phone by the side of the road the next morning.

I have no information to add. Same as yesterday and the day before. I flip the whiteboard over and hang it back on the wall, frustration rising. Max was right. The fliers aren’t helping, but I don’t know what else I can do. I need new information, a clue, a starting place. The silent phone on my desk mocks me. Ineedsomeone to tell me something I don’t already know.

No, that’s a lie. I need Lola to call. All these weeks later, I still expect to see her name on my screen every time it rings. With every ping of a text message, I think it’s her. And every time it’s not, I feel it all over again—the suffocating loop of hope turned to dread.

My elbow brushes my laptop keyboard as I sit back down, and the screen lights up. The background is another picture of me and Lola. The last time we went to the beach with Autumn and Max—though neither of them were dumb enough to get in the water. My arm is stretched out to take the photo while we hug and laugh. We’re calf-deep in the unbearably cold ocean, jeans rolled to our knees, her huddled against the wind in her flowery jean jacket. The photo feels like karma punching me in the face.

She’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

I slam the laptop shut and brace my elbows on my knees, eyeing the trash can next to the desk in case what little I’ve eaten today makes a reappearance.

How could I do this? How did I let this happen?

There’s a knock on my door, and I look up as it creaks open. My dads stand shoulder to shoulder in the doorway. Something is wrong. They’re smiling, but not really. Tiny smiles. Don’t-panic-Drew smiles.

Dad scratches a patch of graying blond hair near his ear and drops the façade. He grimaces. “Hey, kiddo. Do you have a minute?”

Papá pulls off his glasses and squints at him. “What your dad means to say is how was your day?”

“Fine,” I say, mechanically. “What’s wrong?”

Papá comes in and sits on the edge of the bed. Dad follows him. The springs creak under their weight, and they both look like they’re dreading everything about this conversation.

Did something happen?

Did the sheriff call? Did someone tell them I was at the river?

“We missed you at family dinner,” Dad says. “Everyone was looking forward to seeing you.”

I nod. “I know. I’m sorry, I should have texted. I had to take care of something.”

“More fliers?”

I nod again, surprised they haven’t mentioned me crashing the search yet. Maybe they don’t know? “But I don’t think you guys came in here to talk about fliers. What’s going on?”

They lock eyes for a moment, like they’re comforting each other before ripping off a Band-Aid. The nausea returns. Maybe I’m not in trouble. Maybe it’s worse than that.

The whites of Papá’s eyes are pink behind his glasses, like he’s been crying.

Maybe this isn’t about the sheriff after all.

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