All of Us Are Going to Hell

FOUR

 8:48p.m.
 
Reminiscence (English) noun :
the act of remembering things that happened in the past.
 
Hadassah is missing.

    One minute she was standing there, looking like she wanted to vomit at the thought of being locked in a closet with another person for seven minutes. The next, it seemed like she became an apparition. I don't know why they invited her to this party, but I'll die before I let them do
anything to harm her.

    People are still in a craze over what happened upstairs—a fight, I think. Lilith and Capri, from what I heard a few minutes ago. They've wanted to do that for years and this party was the right opportunity. But none of that matters to me.

    None of them do.

    I double back to the kitchen when I see Jabari coming out of it. His eyes are shining and he looks like he's just been told he's never going to get a letter from Hogwarts. He isn't, but Hadassah loves to keep him dreaming. Hadassah. He'll know where she is. Maybe she told him where she was going. Maybe.

    I approach him and he hastily wipes his eyes. Part of me is itching to pry, but I swallow my questions, to ask his best friend. Jabari and I never really clicked from the start and one spring break party, a patriarchal construct, won't give us any head way to start.

    “Jabari. Hi,” I say briskly with a nod.

    Jabari turns and faces me. I can tell I startled him, but he doesn't show it. He even puts an effort and forces a wry smile. “Oh, hey, Eli. I didn't know you came.”

    “I came late.” For Hadassah. “Almost didn't.”

    “You should've stayed home,” he says with a sadness crossing his face. “I know I would've.”

    He knows there's more to this party, too. But I can't stay and question him on what he knows. I need to find Hadassah.

    “Hadassah's missing, Jabari,” I tell him, sharp.

    “Missing, as in, gone?”

    He doesn't know where she is. I know from the look on his face he wasn't watching her. “You don't know where she is?”

    “I thought she was with you!”

    “Me? I thought she was with you.” And I round up on him. He should've kept an eye on her. “Where were you, anyway?”

    He freezes. “I was—I was with —”

    The kitchen door creaks open and a tall, bulky figure clambers out. And I realize why Jabari's eyes were glassy before he can say anything else. Jabari looks like he wants to shrivel up and become no more than a speck of dust. Aaron isn't smiling, either and when they don't even spare more than a look at each other, I can tell what's happened in that kitchen.

    “I've gotta go help Alicia with snacks,” Jabari quickly says, a means of escape. “I will call you when I find Hadassah. See you.”

    And he slithers away. Aaron glances at me, nods and disappears, too. The tension in the air glides off with them and I'm left staring after them for a few seconds until an idea hits me. Mark's father's a museum curator or some other bullshit and surely, he'd have a library in his home.

    Libraries are Hadassah's greatest weakness. Whenever I went to their house on Hallmark Lane when we were little, Hadassah'd spend hours in their house library, poring through the books she's already read, rambling on about one story or the other she got lost in to anyone who'd listen, especially me. And I'd listen.