The Missing Light

Flyers were placed throughout the school. There was a picture of a girl with dirty blonde hair with rosy cheeks, smiling. Emilee Reen. 

The word, “MISSING” was bolded in red at the top. There was a description of her appearance at the bottom of the page. She had a tulip tattoo on her right ankle.

“I heard she got killed.” 

“She probably switched schools.” 

I wanted to scream at them both. She was my best friend. I refused to believe she just switched schools. She was a people person. I was not, but somehow we clicked. She would walk into school with the brightest smile on her face. I never understood why, though the more I saw her, the more I began to smile, too. 

The night she disappeared, we were hanging out at Whales Sundae Fun, our favorite local ice cream shop. Whales Sundae Fun was our celebration spot for every test we passed or every article published in the school newspaper. 

One scoop of mint chocolate chip, one scoop of strawberry, and one scoop of chocolate. There were four rolled wafers that she stuck in with a ton of rainbow sprinkles. She made sure to include some chewy gummy bears. We must have ordered it a hundred times. 

The wall by the corner booth is covered in photographs of regular customers. There’s a polaroid of the two of us from junior year, ice cream on our noses, Emilee’s arm around my shoulders. She’s wearing that bright yellow sweater she used to love, the one she stuffed in the back of her closet last month. At the white space at the bottom of the picture, written in Emilee’s neat, careful handwriting, it says, “Two cute girls getting ice cream!”

That night though, she was different. She kept looking at her phone, checking the time. The ice cream we usually got sat melting between us. Emilee never let ice cream melt. 

“Rachel,” she had said, picking at her ice cream with unusual hesitation. “Have you ever felt like you’re living someone else’s life?” 

I remembered frowning at her, the way the neon sign from the shop window cast strange shadows across her face. “What do you mean?” 

“Like…” She twisted one of her wafers between her fingers until it crumbled. “Like everything you do is just what other people expect. My parents have this whole future planned out for me—straight A’s, student council, pre-med track.” 

That was so unlike Emilee. She was always the one telling me to live in the moment and stop overthinking things. I should have realized something was wrong. I should have pushed harder when she changed the subject and started chattering about the upcoming winter formal. 

A few days after her disappearance, I was sitting at our usual lunch spot, staring at her empty chair. The cafeteria was filled with  people laughing, complaining about tests, and planning weekend activities—though all I could focus on was her absence. 

Just the week before, I was helping her clean her room when I found a crumpled flyer for an art program in New York. Her sketches were scattered everywhere—on her desk or under her textbooks. Her sketches ranged from flowers, butterflies, and faces filled with emotion. But when her mom walked in, Emilee quickly shoved them in the drawer. 

“Just doodles.” She smiled as her mom reminded her about the SAT prep course they’d signed her up for. After her mom left, her smile dropped. 

A tulip tattoo appeared a week after her dad threw away her art supplies. It was small and easy to hide under her sock. “My little act of rebellion,” she’d joked, but her voice shook. That was three days before the ice cream shop. Before she disappeared. When she was first declared missing, her parents texted me immediately. 

“Rachel, our Emilee is missing. She won’t answer her phone and we’re worried!” I could hear the devastation in her mom’s voice. 

I’ve been spending a lot of time in her room afterschool. Her mom doesn’t mind. Maybe she hopes I’ll find something that explains everything. Maybe she just likes having someone around who misses Emilee as much as she does. 

“She was always so focused,” her mom says one afternoon, bringing up a plate of cookies she knows I won’t eat. She sets the plate down on Emilee’s organized desk, next to the stack of medical school brochures. “ I just don’t understand.” 

But I was starting to. 

There were signs. Little things at first. She stopped raising her hand in Pre-calculus, even though I knew she knew all the answers. The girl who used to actively participate in class began sitting in the back corner, sketching in her notebook. 

I remembered the first time I met Emilee, freshman year. I was eating lunch alone behind the gym, and she just plopped down next to me with her ridiculous rainbow lunchbox. “You look like you could use these,” she’d said, pulling out a package of Oreos. “My dad says they’re basically toxic, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” She’d smiled, made it feel like I was in on a secret. 

That became our thing—sharing forbidden snacks behind the gym. She’d bring Oreos. I’d smuggle in sour gummy worms. Those were her favorite candies. We’d sit there planning out our future. She was going to be a doctor who actually listened to their patients. I was going to write novels. We were fourteen and everything seemed possible. 

Sophomore year, she convinced me to join the school paper with her. “You can’t spend all your time hiding behind the gym,” she’d said. “Besides, you’re the best writer I know.” That was Emilee, always pushing me out of my comfort zone, always believing in me more than I believed in myself. 

In the beginning, she’d drag me to every school event, insisting on taking pictures for the paper. We’d stay late on production nights, sprawled on the worn-out couch, editing articles, and sharing earbuds. The wall above the couch is a collage of photos from past years—football games, school plays, pep rallies. Emilee took most of them. She had a way of capturing moments that made even ordinary things look special. 

But these past few months, she stopped volunteering for photo assignments. The camera she’d begged her parents for last Christmas sat unused in her locker. The week before she disappeared, we were supposed to work on college essays at her house. Instead, she suggested that we drive to the beach which was two hours away, on a school night. 

“We can’t just skip the essays,” I said. “They’re due next month.” 

“But what if we did? What if we just kept driving until we found somewhere new?” I laughed it off, pulling out my laptop. “Come on, Harvard won’t wait forever.” She eyed me and then just looked away. I should have noticed something wrong. – 

After the disappearance, I started going to her house more frequently. 

“Good afternoon Mrs. Reen,” I shouted on one of those days, walking in without knocking, just like old times. In response, I heard, “Hey dear. Come to the dining room please.” Obeying her, I walked to the dining room to see a police officer sitting in front of her. 

The police started their investigation two days after she disappeared. 

“Good evening Ms. Rachel,” the officer spoke while she stood up to shake my hand. There was a fluorescent light hovering over Detective Chen while she asked the same questions over and over. 

“And she didn’t mention any specific plans that night?” 

I shook my head. “She was just quieter than usual.” 

She slid photographs across the table. They were surveillance footage from shops near Whales Sundae Fun. There was Emilee, walking alone after leaving our ice cream gathering. Her pink backpack hung from one shoulder. She kept looking over her shoulder at something off-camera. 

“Does she usually take that route home?” 

“No,” I said, leaning closer to the photo. “That’s toward the bus station. 

Detective Chen’s interest sharpened. “We found her phone in a dumpster behind the station. Last call was to a number in New York.” 

My heart skipped. The art program flyer. 

– 

The investigation stretched into weeks. They invited me to a small room at the station. They brought in her parents before me. I watched through the window as her mother collapsed into tears at the sight of Emilee’s phone in an evidence bag. Her father kept repeating, “She had everything she needed. She was happy.” 

They ended up interviewing our teachers and our classmates. Everyone had a different version of Emilee. The straight-A student. The talented photographer. The quiet girl who stopped raising her hand. 

“Did she ever mention feeling pressured?”Detective Chen asked during our fifth interview. “Overwhelmed?” 

I thought of the crumbled art program flyer. The hidden sketches. The way she’d asked about living someone else’s life. 

“She…” I started, then stopped. How could I explain that my best friend had been slowly disappearing before she actually left. 

The police eventually focused on the New York lead. They found security footage of someone matching Emilee’s description boarding a late night bus. But the trail went cold after that. 

A month after her disappearance, I’m now lying on her bed. Her mom has gone out to get groceries, and the house feels empty. I trace my fingers along her desk, thinking about all the hours we’d spent together here and at Whales Sundae Fun, planning futures that maybe only one of us wanted. In the corner of my eye I spot the vinyls that I got her when she got her record player for Christmas. I push myself off her bed, making my way to the vinyls on her table. My foot catches on something and I lose my balance, fall straight to the floor. It is a tile. Out of curiosity, I lift the tile up and it reveals a sticky note. My heart stops. Hey Rach, check under my sketches. 😉 

I quickly get up from the floor, rummaging through her drawers. I know where she kept her sketches, the ones she managed to keep hidden from her parents. These sketches were shoved under her books and I see one now, folded up. I carefully pull it from under and unfold it. She always dedicated so much time to her drawings. She never skipped class—unless her nose was in her sketchbook. Hidden under everything, there’s a photo of us at Whales Sundae Fun that we took home. Attached to it is a note:

I’m sorry I couldn’t stay. 

Her familiar handwriting reminds me of the titles of her sketches and the polaroid still hanging up at Whales Sundae Fun. I realize that for Emilee, disappearing was the only way she could truly be found. 

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