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Bianca looked out the window and watched the sunrise, waiting to feel empty instead of wounded.
After a long, hot shower, about a gallon of water that she drank standing in front of the fridge, and then a cup of herbal tea, Bianca curled up with Jinx, had a good cry, and slept for fourteen hours straight.
When she woke up, it was early morning the next day, but it felt like she was missing more time than that. An inner alarm bell was going off—that strange, displaced feeling that she’d forgotten something important, or that something terrible had happened, but she had no idea what it was. It wouldn’t go away.
She took Jinx for a walk even though he hated walks and she ended up having to carry him home, then started calling hospitals in the Weston area, looking for Eden. She knew, deep down, that something was wrong with her friend. She finally got a bite at Newton-Wellesley Hospital.
“Are you friend or family?” the nurse asked.
“Friend. I was with her when the ambulance came. Is she still there, can I visit her?” Bianca asked.
“I’m sorry, but she’s been checked out,” the nurse replied.
“Beenchecked out? By whom?” Bianca asked, but the nurse clammed up immediately only committing to the fact that Eden was no longer there.
Bianca called Eden’s cell phone. Then the landline for her room at her parent’s house. Then she called Eden’s mother’s number, then her father’s. He father didn’t answer, and her mother had no idea Eden had even been in the hospital.
Bianca called some mutual friends, and then, after spending an excruciating half hour on the phone with a guy she’d made out with at summer camp and really wished she hadn’t, she finally got a number for Ben Goh and called him. He didn’t answer but she left him a long, rambling, and awkward message that he would probably ignore. If the number was even his, which she wasn’t even too sure about.
Bianca paced around her brownstone, going up and down the stairs, wandering in and out of rooms aimlessly, and then finally called the Weston police station.
“May I please speak to Officer Copeland?” she asked, hating the fact that even saying his last name made her voice shake.
“I’m sorry, who?” the dispatch officer said.
“Officer Copeland,” Bianca repeated, her anxiety building.
“There is no Officer Copeland at the Weston station,” came the terse reply.
For a moment, Bianca’s wheels spun. Then she remembered that Elias hadn’t had a desk. It was possible that he was from another station, and just visiting for whatever reason.
“Okay, Detective Roberts, then,” she said, trying to stay calm. She knewheworked there, at least.
A few moments passed. Bianca could hear clicking in the background as she got passed around. The dispatch officer finally came back on the line.
“What is this regarding?” he asked.
“I was there yesterday,” Bianca said, losing her patience. “I was the girl who accidentally took drugs in the station, ran away, and stole a boat? You must have heard about that one.”
A long moment passed. “Please hold.”
Bianca waited for a minute, two, and then when six minutes had passed and she was seriously wondering if they’d hung up her, Detective Roberts got on the line.
“Hey, Bianca, sorry about the wait. What can I do for you?” he said, sounding too cheerful.
“Ah, well, okay…” she took a deep breath. She’d forgotten why she was calling in the first place. “It’s my friend Eden. I can’t find her.”
“Ah-ha,” he said. “Did you try the hospital? Her parents?”
“Yuh,” Bianca replied, trying and failing not to sound like she was snapping at him. “She’s nowhere. Which is geographically impossible.”
She heard Roberts chuckle unexpectedly at her joke. “I’m sorry, Bianca, but it’s not my case.”
She’d had enough of this runaround. “Okay, where’s Elias? What station does he work at?”
“See that’s the thing,” Roberts said, his voice heavy with sympathy. She couldn’t tell if it was real or forced. “I can’t give you his information.”
Bianca was glad Roberts couldn’t see her because she stood there, huffing, with her jaw dropped, looking like a jackass, wondering if Elias was using an entire police station to ghost her.
