Page 54 of Doesn't Count

“Dinner!” She yells.

“I’ll be right back!” I reassure her before slamming the front door.

I run down the street, Oliver’s a few houses over, and ring the doorbell. Mrs. Matthews appears, surprised to see me.

“Ash, what’s going on? Is everything okay?” She asks.

“I just need to see Oliver really quick.” I tell her out of breath.

“He’s supposed to be with you.” She looks just as confused as I am.

“Huh.” I say stumped. “I, uh, I’m going to check around the block. Maybe he took a walk.”

Before she can protest and ask me any more questions, I start running. I don’t think I’ve exercised this much in my whole life, but today I was making up for that. I find myself in front of the forest again, this time even darker. The sun is setting, and I don’t have long to get in and out before it will be too hard to see.

I retrace our steps, calling out for him, but no answer. Panic, worse than before, causes a sweat to break out all over my skin. I make it to the little river we were sitting at, the place he kissed me, andfind it empty.

“Oliver!” I scream again.

I’m answered with nothing but the subtle noises of the forest. Worried and frightened, I sprint out of there as fast as I can. The sky turning a dark blue as I walk home.

As I shut my front door once again, my mom appears in the hallway, a phone to her ear.

“Where’s Oliver?” She asks again.

My eyes sting as tears forcefully push their way past my lower lash.

“Ash?” She rushes forward, panic in her eyes.

Her hand rests against my arm as she places the phone back to her ear. “She’s home. No, he’s not with her.” She turns back to me now, “Ash, where is Oliver?”

I shake my head, my throat choking on a sob.

“Honey, answer me!” She’s yelling now.

“I don’t know!” I want to fall, to melt into the ground and become nothing.

She tells Mrs. Matthews that she’ll call her if they find him before hanging up. Her arms wrap around me as I collapse into her.

Chapter Sixteen

Khaos - Present

Ilisten intently as she tells me about that day ten years ago. Opening old wounds that have never really healed. She tells me about the kiss, how she left him there all alone, how she spent hours that night with the entire neighborhood searching for him in those woods.

“We never found him. It took his parents two years to finally accept that he wasn’t coming home, so we buried him, well at least the memories of him.” Tears fall from her glazed eyes before she looks up at me. “I shouldn’t have run. I was a coward and I let my best friend die because of it.”

“Look, whatever happened to that kid, it wasn’t your fault.” I sooth her, pulling her into my chest.

“It is. If it didn’t take me so long to realize that I felt the same way, maybe he’d still be here.” Her lips start to tremble. “Khaos, I loved that boy and I wish I could have told him before it was too late. He should have been my everything.”

I stiffen beside her, that confession something I’m not sure I want to hear. There are so many things I want to say to her right now, but nothingfeels right.

“You’re trapped in a nightmare, holding yourself back because of something you had no control over. It’s not your fault he disappeared. You can’t hang onto the past and let it keep you from living your life. You’re trying to repent for sins that were never yours.”

She pulls away, frustrated that I’m being nice for once. “But they are mine! You have no idea what it was like to have the entire world question you. I was the last person to see him, people didn’t understand how I had no idea what happened. I was accused for years of being at fault to the point where his own mother started to believe it, I started to believe it!

“And then little-by-little people stopped caring. That’s when I realized that I had failed again, that I let people forget he existed. He deserved to be remembered even if it was at my expense.” I can feel the sorrow pulsing off her in waves.

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