Ok. I feel better now that they listened, and we can find her faster than on our own.
“I’m going to find my friends,” I say feeling relieved I’m glad that Garrett is sober right now. Someone needs to be sensible right now. I might not feel drunk anymore, this has sobered me up, but I don’t feel in control yet. “One of them might have seen her. And if not, then I will get them to join in with the search. They’ll want to help.”
Garrett grabs my hand and squeezes. “Thank you. Then we will all meet back here.”
I don’t feel bad going out on my own, I feel much less scared because I have a mission in mind. I am looking for Sadie. She might be mad at me right now, but she needs me, she needs us. Garrett is right, we need to get out of this party and get back home where we can all sort this out. Emotions might be all over the place based on how tonight’s events unfolded, but when we find her and sleep on this, we will be fine.
“Sadie,” I yell. “Marissa! Where are you guys? Sadie, come on. Time to go!”
I find Marissa being harassed by an older guy that she clearly isn’t interested in, so she’s relieved for the diversion. She comes with me to find Sadie.
“I don’t know what happened,” she mutters angrily, seemingly forgetting that she started all the drama with me and my best friend. Then again, she does it so often that she probably doesn’t even remember she said anything about Garrett and I. “I don’t know who these guys are but they wrecked everything. You know, a bunch of people left a little bit ago because this was getting out of hand. Sadie could have gone home with one of them?”
Normally, Sadie wouldn’t leave me behind anywhere, but she’s so furious that it’s a real possibility. I suppose I would prefer that she was on her way home rather than wondering around, but I can’t be sure that’s where she went, so I ask Marissa to call her to check.
“Why won’t you call her? You guys are best friends, aren’t you? She would probably answer your call way before mine…
“I lost my cell phone,” I lie because I don’t want to remind Marissa what she did, that’s a problem for another day. “Do you mind?”
She nods and does what I ask, but no one picks up. I don’t know why, but this leaves a pit in my stomach. I don’t know how this is going to end, but it’s bound to be disastrous in some way, isn’t it?
Maybe we shouldn’t have come to this stupid party after all. It’s turned out to be fucking awful.
Chapter 6 – Garrett
Okay, this is getting fucked up now. I’ve been trying to be calm about Sadie being missing, but now it’s starting to stress me out. She isn’t at home, she doesn’t appear to be with any of her friends, including the ones who left the party hours ago, and no one can find her here on the property either. We’ve been looking for over an hour now, a God damn hour and no one has seen her. With all the people that we have looking for her, she should have turned up by now.
“Mr. Miller looked in all of the barns,” Benny tells me in a hurried tone of voice. “And we’ve gone through the whole field. Someone even looked in the house and she isn’t there. Have you tried calling your house again?”
“I will check it again.” I don’t want to. I don’t like bothering my mother with this. She is already pissed off that I don’t know where Sadie is and since I won’t tell her what happened, she is even more wound up. If she could drive, she would be here already probably kicking my ass until there is nothing left of me.
The ringing sound as I wait for Mom to pick up makes me feel sick to my stomach. To be perfectly honest, I’m pretty sure that if Sadie was home already, I would have heard. But I have to try, don’t I? I need to do something …
“Garrett?” Shit, Mom sounds upset. “Have you found her yet? What’s going on?”
“Er, no. I take it she isn’t home yet?” I cringe, hating myself for making this call. Actually, right now I hate myself for all of this. It’s my fault entirely. If tonight hadn't gone the way that it had…
I can’t get stuck on that thought. If I go down that hole right now, I will break down and I can’t let that happen. If I let this guilt get to me, it will derail the search. I’m just barely holding it together as it is. I don’t want to make it any worse.