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“Hello?” he answers on the second ring.
“Mav, it’s Bellamy. Is Ezra with you?” I whisper into the phone. Willa is still staring at me, confused and now suspicious, but thankfully she keeps her mouth shut.
“No. I haven’t seen him since I had to leave,” he says, and I can hear the concern in his voice.
“Mav, we can’t find him. We’ve been looking for over an hour. He was upset after you left and stormed off. He won’t answer his phone.”
“Fuck! I’ll look everywhere I can think of. Keep me updated,” he pleads.
“I will. I promise,” I tell him before hanging up.
“Tell me later?” Willa asks as we continue searching and yelling Ezra’s name. I nod to show her I will.
We search until the sun rises. The police were called, and they’ve started searching the woods with us. Our parents are driving around town and calling local hospitals.
I’m a mess. I feel guilty for not going after him when he was upset. He needed me, and I let him walk away from us. Now he’s missing.
Maverick has checked in with me every hour. He has had no luck either. Kai’s worry has turned into rage, with everyone keeping their distance. His voice is hoarse from screaming his brother’s name for hours on end, but it hasn’t stopped him. Cal, Willa, and I are right by his side, throats equally sore. We all have blisters that formed and then burstand are now bleeding, but we don’t stop. We can’t stop. Ezra is one of us, part of our family, and we need to find him.
Ezra has been missing for three months. We’re all supposed to be leaving for college next week but none of us wants to. The police called off the search after twenty-four hours, claiming that Ezra was a runaway. The officer who spoke to his family told them that since Ezra was over eighteen and there was no evidence of foul play, they just need to accept that he went off on his own. Our group still goes out to look. We’ve asked around every bus station, airport, train station, and hospital in fifty miles. He wouldn’t just run away like this.
I’m sitting on my bed, looking around my room. The floor is old and worn, the varnish having come off the wood a long time ago. The pink paint on the walls is dull and all my furniture has chips or stains from nail polish. My parents aren’t wealthy, and the used furniture and decaying house are evidence of that. I used to sit here, excited about new adventures. Now I feel like I’m sitting on the edge of a knife and no matter what direction I go in; I’m going to fall.
“Belle? Where are you?” Cal yells. I get up and head down the creaky stairs to see what he wants.
“I’m here. What’s up?” I ask him when I find him in the kitchen.
“We got offered a record deal,” he says. I watch as his emotions flicker from intense excitement to utter devastationand back again.
“What? How?” I ask, utterly confused. We only ever played the one time in the woods.
“I submitted a tape of us when we did that song you wrote,” Cal says sheepishly. We record ourselves at practice so we can watch it back and tweak what we need to. Or at least I thought that was the only reason.
I wrote a song and showed it to them. Ezra wrote the chords. Kai and I sang it together. Then we practiced it until it sounded perfect. I wrote that song about my feelings for Kai. No one else was ever supposed to hear it. I feel betrayed but stop myself from voicing that. Cal has no idea that’s who my song is about. I told everyone I wrote it after reading a romance novel that didn’t have a happy ending.
“You submitted a tape of us performing ‘Shattered Dreams?’” I ask again, dumbfounded.
“Yeah. I didn’t think anything would come of it, but they want to sign us,” Cal says, looking almost hopeful for a split second.
“But Ezra…” I say.
“I know.”
“Does anyone else know?” I ask.
“Not yet. Kai and Willa are on their way over to talk about it,” he says.
I sit on the old saggy couch in the living room feeling numb. I barely hear my brother tell our friends about the record label wanting to sign the band. Numbers are thrown out, but I don’t register them.
I look at Kai to see him staring at me. His gaze burns, and I look away. Things have been strange between us. Every time I try to ask him about it, he just says he’sstressed. Which I’m sure he is, but it started before Ezra disappeared.
“I’m out,” I announce, standing up.
“What? What do you mean? We can’t miss the opportunity!” Cal exclaims, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. And maybe I have.
“Then don’t. You don’t need me to do this,” I tell him.
“You wrote the song they want!” he yells.
