Missing

Katie is grateful for the reprieve. When she leaves the room, she thinks about the eagerness on Bethan's face and it makes her feel benevolent, like she's offering life-giving water to someone needy.

She races up the stairs to her parents' room and reaches behind the shoes. She feels around but the camera's not there. Panicking, she pulls the shoes out and takes her phone to search thoroughly but it's definitely gone.

Her anxiety levels have escalated. It's been moved and she's certain she knows by who.

Tears fill her eyes and she starts to place everything back as well as she can remember. She doesn't want her dad to know she's been there.

What should she tell Bethan?

Luke

The pub is less busy this time and Matt is already here. He hasn't seen me and I take a moment to look at him, hunched over his pint, hands either side of it, gazing at something on the floor. He looks burdened. I know that feeling.

Bethan

I can hear Katie upstairs. She's taking her time. I feel...I'm not sure what I feel. Excited? Worried? Confused? My stomach's in knots. I mean, after Laney...we still had her things. It was difficult...not knowing. What do you do? It felt like a betrayal, you know, to go through her stuff, to give it away. What if she came back? But as weeks turned into years, the weight of her possessions felt wrong. I didn't purge, but I did thin out - clothes that would be too small; books that she'd have outgrown. I did this for myself. That might sound weird because I never gave up hope that she'd come back. Never. But...I knew deep down, it was unlikely, and being tethered to that idea threatened to keep me under, like a tangle of weed at the bottom of a quarry pool, entwined. So I tweezed.

To hold her camera again...it will be a bittersweet moment.

*

Bethan can hear Katie's footsteps on the stairs.

Katie is tear-stained as she enters the room and Bethan gets up from her chair, the impulse to comfort propelling her.

"What is it?" Bethan asks.

"It's gone!" Katie says. "He must know!"

***

365 words

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