"Hey, Erin!" My dad yells up the stairs, "If you want a lift to school, me and Declan are leaving now?"
"I'm coming, Dad!" I call back, closing my laptop and standing up. I grab my bag off the floor, shoving it in with my phone as well. I jog towards the stairs, grabbing the Prada ankle boots that Dahlia lent me off the floor.
When I get downstairs, my dad hands me a letter and hustles me out of the door. I read the front of the envelope before shoving it into my bag. I recognise Dahlia's handwriting on the front and guess that she's run away again.
Every so often, Dahlia runs away. I guess it's just to keep the allure of Dahlia Winchester or something but, when she returns, the whole school's spread rumors about her and she can barely walk along a hall without everyone talking about her.
Dad starts the car and looks across at me briefly, "Are you working tonight?"
"Yeah, but I'll borrow Ed's bike and cycle home. Don't worry," I tell him.
"And I've got football tryouts," Declan adds, leaning forwards in his seat.
"Sit back, Dec," Dad says tiredly, turning onto the road out of our neighbourhood.
"Like we could forget," I roll my eyes, and pull my phone out of my bag, expecting a text from Dahlia, but all I have is a single text from Conor. Normally, I get at least five in a row, expressing his joy over Riverdale or whatever. I open it:
Have you heard?
I type back quickly:
What?
He replies almost instantly:
I'll tell you when you get here. Where are you?
I raise one eyebrow:
I'm on Riverside Drive
I go to press send, but I look up and freeze. Outside the school, there is a pair of police cars parked outside of the school. I've never seen the police here, ever. As Dad stops the car, I shove open the door and step onto the sidewalk, hurrying into the school. I hear Dad call some sarcastic comment after me, but I'm surrounded by people whispering.
I jog through the sanctuary of the doors, and someone grabs my arm. I spin, yanking my arm out of their grasp, and then I realise that it's Conor.
He pulls me into a hug, "Oh, honey, I'm so sorry."
"What is it?" I pull away, looking at him seriously, "Why are the police here?"
Conor bites his lip, saying nothing.
"Are you okay, Ava?" A soft voice asks behind me, and I turn to look at them.
"I'm fine?" I say cautiously. I grab Conor's arm and pull him along the hall, "What's going on?"
He looks at me sadly, "Dahlia's gone missing."
"She always goes missing."
"No, I mean she's really missing. She's been gone all weekend and hasn't even texted any of us. Her parents reported her as missing this morning. That's why the police are here, they want to talk to us all. They've been talking to the Principal for the past half hour," Conor says softly.
My eyes widen, "But... how. I knew she'd gone. She sent me one of her letters again."
"You're gonna have to show it to the police," Conor states. "It's-"
He stops as the police leave the Principal's office, and we start towards them.
"Conor East and Erin Lucas, I presume?" The woman says, raising one eyebrow, "We need to talk to the pair of you, and Luke Fairbank."
YOU ARE READING
After the Petal Falls
General Fiction"I guess that Dahlia was like the sun to all of us," I begin, my lips trembling, "We orbited her, and, in some ways, we worshipped her. But we have to keep going with our lives. And that's what they always say to people who've lost someone. They wou...
