Spencer wound up finding me.
I was at the laundromat that Saturday evening, alone with my freshly-dried underpants. All my weekend plans had washed out-- a lot of the people on our floor were trying to throw together search parties for Laura out of either pity for her parents, or guilt that they hadn't noticed her missing. He walked in stiffly, plopped into a plastic chair and slumped down a few inches. He was caked with dirt all over, nicked here and there by little scratches. He looked like he hadn't ever slept before in his life, and the way he failed to blink, the weight his half-closed eyes fought against made it seem like he didn't even know how. I could smell him from the door.
"Spence...? Dude, is that you? Where've you been?" I leaned across a nearby washing machine. He wasn't looking up at me, or anywhere actually. The silence was long enough I thought he might have fallen asleep. His hands were shoved deep in his hoodie pocket, and there were flecks of blood on the front of it. I leaned closer and picked a dead leaf out of his curly copper hair and dropped it on the floor. "...Spencer?" I got my face closer to get a better look at him, but he didn't move. He was nearly comatose. Suddenly, as if it were a delayed but automatic reaction, he snapped to, finally aware of my presence.
"Oh h..." he cleared his throat but his voice was still sort of hoarse, "Oh hey Tuck." He sat up a little and looked me dead in the face-- dead as I'd ever seen someone with a pulse. He licked his chapped lips, meeting my gaze squarely. It made me feel a little better that I suddenly had his full attention, that he was actually there. Something deep inside, the support beams for his soul, quivered under my scrutiny. Something was really wrong here. I swung around the washer and into the chair next to him without letting go of his stare.
"Spence what...are you okay, man?"
He stuck his chin out a little, pulling his bottom lip in to make a painfully serious frown. He shook his head slowly. His brow buckled upwards. By that point I got the feeling I had every reason to be scared. I tried not to be.
"What happened to you?"
His mouth moved, formed a word with no sound-- a name, two syllables long, starting with his tongue on the backs of his top incisors: Laura. My mind raced frantically, trying to make sense of his one-word explanation for everything wrong with him-- What about her? She's missing. You've been missing. You're filthy and you stink like a French sewer. You're tired and sore and about to come apart at the seams. All you're telling me is 'Laura'. Why are you saying 'Laura.' We don't even talk to her. The gears grinding in my head were at a standstill for about five seconds. I thought I would blow my lid at him.
Click.
Like the hammer of a pistol I didn't know was there, the gears finally budged one small, sickening bit and painted its gruesome image in my mind. He'd done something to her. Something bad. The blood, the absence, the living dead routine, the sheer sorrow welling in his eyes. He'd been running, hiding, sleeping outside, starving and freezing, crying. He did something really awful, and I was the only person he could look to for help. I was reminded of Tracey's funeral, that broken little boy who held my hand, bawling. I looked around the laundromat-- it was still empty. A group of kids walked past the door with flashlights and flyers. One stopped to put up a flyer on the telephone pole outside. I didn't need to see it to know. Her awkward yellow-banded half-smile would be there to greet us, the one picture she had of herself on MySpace.
It was like suddenly realizing you're with your best friend, standing on thin ice over an active volcano. For the time being, this was the best place to be. The eye of the storm.
"What happened?"
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