AncilAfter about thirty minutes of waiting in the empty parking lot, I decided to take a walk to see if I could find her even if I knew that it would have been useless I did it anyway. I ventured out of the parking lot with Kate’s purse and stood on the pavement staring out into the streets which were just as empty as the parking lot. There was a faint sound of sirens in the air but that was the only sign of a vehicle there was. I sat down on the edge of the pavement slowly as the cold breeze of the night brushed my cheeks. It was at that moment it dawned on me that Kate was gone. I hadn’t done anything wrong and I was assured of that. My mind was racing on the possible things I could have done wrong and during that process I found myself scrolling through Kate’s iPhone which was in her purse. It was incredibly rude to scroll through someone’s phone without permission but it was also incredibly rude to just walk out on a date without returning so — yeah, we were even. Her passcode was also 0123, of course, it was. It was my next try after 0000. Her birth year would have been my next guess.
Kate didn’t have a Facebook or Twitter account which made her quite different from probably 97% of American teens her age. She did, however, have a very active WhatsApp account which she used to talk to her many friends. Most of her contacts were males but the majority of the conversations were on a “hey” and “bye” basis. Kate seemed more interested in shutting down guys who tried to message her rather than actually talking to them.
Harold: Hey, how r you?
Kate: Good.
Harold: So when can we meet up and chat like old times?
Kate: idk
Harold: Ok
That’s basically how it went with all of her conversations with males. The only male that she actually messaged with more than one word was me. Her messages with her female friends were different though. Her latest conversation with a female friend was on Friday with Samantha and it was about me. The Friday message started mid-conversation as though they were just continuing where they had left off in another chat.
Kate: I think I like him.
Samantha: You THINK you like him?
Samantha: Yes. I THINK I do. I’m not sure. He’s a really nice guy but the toxicity of our relationship is poisoning.
Samantha: What did I tell u about using fancy words around me?
Kate: LOL. Sorry. I mean that our relationship does more harm than good. Not only because of the trouble he could get me in with my father but also because I actually think that I love him. Saying that I like him seems to just be an understatement.
Samantha: Love or LOVE LOVE?
Kate: LOVE LOVE. It’s freaking me out.
Samantha: What about it iz freaking you out?
Kate: Everything. The fact that every time I think about him I think about losing him. I think about him breaking my heart just like everyone I’ve ever loved did. My mom, my dad, Tom. I don’t think I could take another heartbreak. My heart has fallen in love already and I don’t think that it can fall again without shattering into a million unfixable pieces. I loved Tom Dale. I still love him because you can’t unlove someone. That’s just how it is. But the thing about falling in love is sometimes there’s no one there to catch you when you fall.
Samantha: I think that’s the point of falling in love. Trusting that when you fall that person will be there to catch you.
The conversation then ended. The conversation in itself didn’t explain why Kate just left our double date but I did learn something from it. I learned that Kate loved me but it was her very love for me that had the most potential to separate us. The more she loved me, the more she hated me. But, I needed to prove to her that loving me was okay. That IT WAS OKAY. I needed to prove to her that I wouldn’t hurt her and that I was different from Tom who was apparently a real person from her past. I had absolutely no idea how I was going to prove to Kate that loving me was okay but finding her would have definitely been a good start.
I looked around while sitting on the pavement in search of any clues as to where Kate could have gone. There was nothing, but on the other side of the street, a homeless man sat on the ground decked out in rags. His line of sight was the entire front part of the restaurant and the parking lot. From his position he had the ability to see Kate and where she had gone but there were so many people outside the restaurant when Tom Hiddens was around that it was highly unlikely that he noticed anyone. But what did I have to lose?
