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"No, sorry," I answered, hiding my hands behind my back so she wouldn’t notice them shake. "Is she okay?"
The brunette sighed, shrugging as she licked a finger and flipped through some of her papers.
"You’re new here?” she asked, and I nodded. "Then I guess you haven’t heard the story. Her name’s Pandora. She’s missing.” She told me that as if it were common knowledge, yet it didn’t stop the tremor in her voice.
I could almost feel her sister’s ghost there with us. What happened to you, Pandora?
The girl switched from quiet thoughtfulness into playful banter. She fell into step with me, like we’d known each other for a d
ecade, bumping her hip into mine with a wink of thick black lashes. I could only muster up an attempt at a smile. All of this seemed so easy for Quirky Girl, but I was terrified.
At seventeen and three-quarters, high school was a new experience for me, and I felt as if I’d stepped into a different dimension when I walked into Wildwood Academy. Like I’m living in a dream. Or a nightmare. That’s to be decided, too.
It was an experience that magazines, TV shows, and songs all told me to cherish. Fall in love. Lose your virginity. Meet your high school sweetheart. All things I had wanted, craved to experience mere months ago, but not now, not after everything went tits-up. Now, my innocent high school dream had the potential to be a full-blown Scream-style nightmare.
"Are you related?" I asked star-sticker girl, pointing to the stack of papers in her hands. "Sisters?"
"Yes.” As she went on, her voice grew heavy, her lashes fluttering like a butterfly’s wings against her pretty pale cheeks. "Pandora went missing before we started high school. She was supposed to start at Wildwood after that summer. She was only fourteen. We called it in within twelve hours. She went to an art class and just never came back.” She swallowed thickly, and I fought the urge to reach out for her hand, knowing it might make her uncomfortable. “The police still haven't found her, and…you know, it’s rough. My parents are losing hope. They’ve forbidden me to speak about her at home."
Say what? I stared at her, knowing what to say. Your parents sound like nutcases? I managed a weak smile as she walked over to a tall pine tree and stapled a Have you seen Pandora Amberly poster to the thick, cracked wood. "I never will. You know, when we were younger, we had a little cat.”
“Right…”
“She went missing once in our garden. Pandora and I were hysterical. We made Mom and Dad look everywhere for her. We had a neighborhood search party.”
I nodded as she joined me, and we kept walking. “Did you end up finding the cat?”
Quirky Girl gave me a sideways glance, grinning. “Yeah, we did. Turns out she’d been in the garden the whole time, but she only came out when she heard my sister’s voice. They were close.”
“Okay…”
“And I know Pandora will come back if I keep looking.” She nodded to herself. “Because she knows I’ll never stop searching for her.”
I nodded, feeling the fierceness of her statement. It almost sounded like she had something to prove.
"You must’ve been close to Pandora," I acknowledged. I tried to picture myself in the same situation, even though I was an only child. But I couldn’t imagine losing someone I loved, a part of my family. Panic consumed me when I thought of losing my mom. I’d be lost without her. Please, not again. A panic attack was coming, but I forced myself to take deep, calming breaths until I relaxed more. Fuck, if I freaked out this badly, I couldn’t even imagine how messed up this was for her.
"Very. We are only a couple of years apart.” Her eyes went wide as saucers, and she added, “Oh, I forgot to introduce myself."
We stopped in the middle of the asphalt, and she shook my hand. Each of her nails were painted a different metallic color, just like the stars on her cheeks. She was definitely unique, if nothing else.
"Andromeda Amberly. Kind of unforgettable."
"You and your sister both have unique names."
She visibly lit up, and I wondered why. I realized I’d spoken of her sister in present time, and the crushing reality was that she probably got used to talking about Pandora as if she were gone.
“Our parents are historians," she explained with a well-natured shrug. "But you can call me Andie if you want. I’m trying to work on a new nickname, anyway. I don’t much like the one I have here. So, you're a senior?"
I nodded just as we came to a stop in front of the main Wildwood Academy building. My stomach dropped, and I felt another panic attack clawing to get out of me. But once again, I forced it back down.
The campus was elaborate, beautiful. It was a historical building renovated in the twentieth century and kept ultra-modern since then, and the estate stretched over enough land to host five-hundred students. A large, green property surrounded the premises, complete with tall hedges that isolated us from the rest of the city, like we ourselves were as important as the works of art decorating Wildwood’s white-washed walls. This wasn’t a school for the rowdy, restless kids of Wildwood’s rival, the public school Silverside High. This was a place for the elite, or at the very least, those whose parents were famous, loaded, or both.
"You must’ve had quite the summer," Andromeda said in her easy-breezy tone, and I glanced at her from the corner of my eye.
She knows my secret, I panicked. Everyone will know. There’s nowhere to run. For the third time, I forced myself to calm down, congratulating Dr. Morton in my mind as I prevented another panic attack from rendering me speechless. Good job training me for that, Doc.
"I didn't mean to freak you out." Her tone was softer like we were friends. It was easy to be lulled into a sense of security when she spoke that way. Or maybe I was just naïve as hell. “It's just you're kind of an urban legend around here. The Tinsley Sullivan. I didn’t recognize you first cause of the hair."
