What Happened That Night

14 ~ g o n e

I was sitting in one of the glazed, oak chairs with floral seating cushions tied to the bottom of the seat, in front of one of the rectangular tables-also oak-in the center of the library, an outlet emerging from the navy carpeting at the table leg closest to my foot, and the chair beside had been pulled out and was now holding my backpack, which was slouched against the barred back and open, the flap gapping as if it were a mouth revealing all of its secrets-or my notebooks, textbooks, and a crumpled plastic Ziploc bag that encased my peanut butter sandwich earlier that afternoon. My biology textbook was opened in front of me, the lettering of the glossed pages small and stained with neon yellow highlighter because the book was used, and my notebook was in front of me too, the green eraser of my pencil poised against my lips as I scribbled down notes about pinecone reproduction.

The library was relatively quiet, aside from a few kids in the Children's section of the library who were watching videos of cartoons on their iPads while their mother, a woman with frizzy hair and glasses that slid down her freckled nose, kept repeating to them to turn down the volume while she searched for books about siblings and their new baby brothers or sisters, and a couple of teenage guys that I recognized from the football team who were playing paper football on one of the tables in the newspaper section. A librarian with graying hair that swung low around her hips and turquoise glasses kept ambling from behind the desk and toward them, a blue manicured finger pressed to her lips as she shushed them, and they would smirk, apologize in a voice that I think of both us knew wasn't really that apologetic, and then would quiet themselves as they played-for a minute, until one of them missed a shot.

It wasn't until I heard the distant sound of keyboard keys clicking that I noticed her, that I realized that she was even here, dressed in a hot pink peplum top, a pair of pale pink skinny jeans, and white Converses that were scuffed around the toes and heels, and there were gold bracelets with pink gems dangling from her small, caramel colored wrists. Her ebony hair was pulled back into a "messy" braid with a few curled strands lingering around her face, which had pink lipstick on, and tucked underneath her arm was a white beanie-with a pink hem. I felt myself wanting to roll my eyes at all of her pink-I could practically hear Emily's voice in my head saying that it didn't even match-but I didn't because it sort of seemed to work for her now. I had one conversation with Aniston but it seemed impossible to picture her in any other color that wasn't pink, fuchsia, or coral.

I felt the eraser of my pencil slowly fall away from the corner of my lips as I watched her for a moment, her manicured fingers-which were pink of course, but also glitter pink-quickly typed something into a Google search engine, the shimmer from her glittery nail polish glinting underneath the library's bright lighting and it reminded me of the glitter on plastic, toy fairy wands my dad gave my sisters and I for Christmas when we were kids, and I was about to look away when I noticed something-someone-show up on the search engine results. It wasn't about any history or government class assignment, it wasn't about stores that were almost entirely made of pink themed attire, or about the school paper.

It was about Emily.

Emily Porterfield.

There was a picture of her, in the upper right corner of the screen, and her strawberry blond hair appeared almost stringy as it fell down her shoulders, the straps of her yellow tank top visible with white tan-lines from her bikini over the summer streaked beside, and her skin looked flushed and there were dark circles under her eyes as she looked into the camera as she stood in front of a white wall with black lines and numbers printed across it. It was her mugshot. I had seen it before, but I still couldn't understand how Emily-my Emily-left our house, hands cuffed behind her back as she was led by two police officers, their large hands wrapped around her elbows, and her flip-flops smacking against the pavement of the driveway as she looked over her shoulder, at my father, at my mother, at me, in just a few hours could look like that. When they were pushing her into the backseat of the police car, reading her rights to her in a monotone voice, she said something to me, familiar green eyes blinking at me as she told me, just before they shut the white door with the latter half of the word police written in gold font, that it was okay. Maybe she knew, even then, that I would think that this was my fault.