A. M. Taylor - Forget Me Not

“And you’re sure it’s Elle?” I asked eventually, my voice small and young-sounding in the enveloping warmth of my parents’ kitchen.

“I don’t know for sure obviously, but I overheard the cops talking. They all know her, Mads, they know what she looks like. It must be her.”

I nodded, even though she couldn’t see. There wasn’t a single officer on our police force who wouldn’t know who Noelle Altman was.

“I have to go, Leo’s coming over. I think he’s going to ask me to leave.”

“Okay,” I said.

There was a small beat and then, “Should I still come over?”

“Yes,” I said, even though both of us knew we wouldn’t be leaving Forest View anytime soon.

I sat there for a long time, the morning seeping away from me until Ange arrived and told me what had happened after we’d hung up. Leo had been very proper, apparently. Refused to give her any details, saying they couldn’t confirm anything until the forensics team arrived from Wausau. When she’d asked him if it was really Elle, he’d glanced back towards the body— the body— and said he couldn’t say, but she said she knew.

I was having trouble getting to grips with what she was saying though, and although I could barely trust myself to speak, I said: “You’re sure? You’re really sure it’s Elle?”

Ange took a deep breath and seemed to steady herself. “I can’t be 100 per cent sure, but I heard them say her name. Why would they do that if it wasn’t Elle?”

I didn’t have an answer for her but my mind was a storm of other possibilities, other reasons, any other reason but that one which was so impossible I just couldn’t contemplate it. After everything that had happened, after ten years of missing Nora, of Nora being missing, how could it possibly be happening again? As we sat there I felt the past ten years diminish, shrink down to nothing so that we could have been seventeen again, Ange and I, stood in this very same room, as Bright explained to us that Nora was missing and we had to tell him anything and everything—every last detail—of the last time we’d seen or spoken to her, because every little thing mattered now. I thought about Elle’s pale face the day before, her quiet voice. She’d looked sick, or sickened by something, and I hated myself for not having pushed her more, dug deeper, delved further and figured out what—beyond the obvious—was wrong. And I realized then that I’d already accepted it, that I was already thinking of her in the past tense, and the steady pounding of guilt and grief began to build and build until it filled up the whole room.

Eventually, Ange looked down at her phone, which she’d been passing from hand to hand, twirling it distractedly between her fingers. “I need to call work,” she said, her voice strained, and I realized I needed to do the same.

“To tell them you won’t be coming in?”

“To tell them … to tell them about this.”

I don’t know why I was so shocked. She was a reporter after all, but still I could feel my eyes involuntarily widen, and watched as Ange bit down on her lower lip, maintaining my gaze.

“This is big, Mads. This is going to be really, really big.”

“You mean for your career?” I said, wishing as soon as the words had come out that I could take them back.

Ange slammed her phone down onto the table. “You know that’s not what I meant. Jesus Christ, Mads, could you at least give me some credit?”

“I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

Ange looked at me warily. “You meant it a little.”

“No. I didn’t. I think after everything that happened with Nora with the press, my natural instincts kicked in, that’s all.”

Ange took a deep breath, and sighed heavily, weighing down the air between us. “If I don’t call in about this, I’ll be made to look like just about the worst, most inefficient reporter of all time. We’re talking about the younger sister of Nora Altman being found dead ten years to the day, and in the same spot that Nora’s car was abandoned.”

“I know, Ange,” I said nodding, really trying to mean it.

“And if I’m writing about it, then maybe it could be just that little bit better this time?” she said, although it came out sounding like a question, as if she herself didn’t quite believe it.

“It’s possible,” I said slowly, although I too didn’t believe it. When Ange first told me she was going to major in journalism I couldn’t help but see it as a kind of reaction to everything that happened when Nora went missing.

The first time a reporter knocked on my door Nora had been missing for just under a week. The local paper had been covering the disappearance since the beginning, but it took a while for a bigger paper to take notice. But once they did, they didn’t let go. Not for a long time. She’d been a reporter for a Madison daily—Ange worked for its rival now—and she’d tried to get out of me whatever it was the Altmans had refused to give her. When I too had refused to talk, she’d described me as “pained and pale” and had questioned why it was that Nora’s best friends weren’t willing to talk about her disappearance. What were we hiding? What did we know? Didn’t we want to help spread the word about our missing friend?

It would be worse this time: I already knew that much. Ten years was a long time and not only would there be reporters and well-meaning chat show hosts pondering over this sad, tragic mystery, but now anyone with an internet connection could join in the fun too.

I wondered if Elle’s family knew yet, if their day of remembrance had been interrupted by something so familiar the remnants of it were still strewn around their lives. I didn’t even have to imagine their faces as they were told the worst; I’d seen it before. The image of Nate with red-rimmed, sleepless eyes, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably reared up at me and I looked down at my phone, almost convinced that, despite everything, there would be a message from him, but there was nothing. I could hear the hollow knock at their front door as the Chief stood outside in the gently falling snow and could see as Nate answered, already knowing the worst from Leo and yet still unable to quite believe it. Katherine would be in her bathrobe still, knuckles white as she gripped the hallway bannister, refusing to break down, unable to speak, her wide brown eyes drowned in exhaustion, all color drained. The only one I couldn’t see in all of it was Noah. It was only in his mind that the memory of Nora’s disappearance wouldn’t be playing in full technicolor, reliving the same moments again and again, trying to make sense of how it was all happening again.

My heart clenched, a cold, iron fist squeezing tight, the shock of it no less bright, no less big because I’d felt it before. We’d all been there before and yet familiarity doesn’t always mean comfort. Sometimes what we fear the most is the unknown. But other times, knowing what’s coming, the shape of it, the taste, the smell, is so much worse. How it sets the world on edge, blurs the edges of your vision, peels back layers of skin only to reveal more and more of the same damn thing. Sometimes, knowing what’s coming doesn’t save you, it just sets your heart pounding as you teeter on the edge, waiting for that rush of air before the earth rises up to greet you.

I didn’t make it back to Madison of course. I went to bed early, not because I thought I’d be able to sleep the day away but because retreat has always been my first and last form of defense. I chose something on Netflix that I’d watched a thousand times before and didn’t have to think about at all, so that when my phone gently buzzed beside me I was only dimly aware of what Lorelai and Rory Gilmore were saying to one another. You would have thought that upon seeing it was Nate texting me I would have read and replied to the message immediately, but instead it stilled me, froze me even, and I had to wait a few minutes before shoring up enough courage to read it in full.