Lost and Found: Rye Beaumont

Chapter one

Rye's POV

"Rye?" You okay, mate?" Brook's voice comes from the other side of the bathroom door. It opens slowly, creaking. Most of the studio doors do. Brook's hand claps on my shoulder. I look up at him and I can tell that there's tears burning in my eyes.

"Rye. Ryan. What's up?" I blink back the tears and lick my lips.

"I found her, Brook." His face shows confusion, his eyebrows coming together and frowning. I show him my phone screen. He bends down to read it.

"'I miss you, brother. Love from'..." his voice trails off. "Laura," he whispers. "Rye, is that-"

"Yeah. That's her. My-my sister." I take a deep breath. I click on her account and check everything out. There's nothing but likes and comments on our videos. How was I so blind? She's been commenting all this time. I'm the worst brother ever.

"Rye, what's going on? Brook?" Mikey comes over, his face a mixture of confusion and worry. He smooths back his hair and squats in front of me, his hand on my knee.

"Laura," I say quietly. He takes in a sharp breath.

"What about her?" He whispers. He knew Laura when we were young. He was best friends with her when she was still here. To be completely honest, I'm surprised she's still alive.

"Rye found a comment saying that she missed him!" Brook says excitedly. His face falls when he realized neither of us are smiling. "Why aren't you guys happy?" He asks after a few moments of neither of us showing emotion.

"I'm happy, don't worry Brook. I just..." Mikey takes a deep breath. "I haven't seen her in years. And how do you even know it was her anyways? Someone could have found out."

I shake my head. "It's her. Nobody found out. And look. At the very end." I point to the screen.

"'Laura'?" Mikey asks confused. "Oh. Wait. The emoji?" He gasps and his eyes light up. "It is her. Rye! It's her!"

Who knew a little mouse emoji could mean so much. But both Mikey and I know that it was the emoji she used most when we were young.

Both of them are smiling now, but I'm not.

"Could I have a minute, you two?" I ask quietly, not trusting my voice to be any louder. Their faces fall slightly and they both nod and leave the room, muttering things that I don't comprehend.

I stare at the comment in disbelief. I contemplate telling my family about it, but for some reason I don't want to. I wipe my eyes and put down the phone, turning it off. Not really knowing what I'm doing, I stand up and exit the room, heading out of the studio doors.

"Rye? Where are you going?" Jack's voice yells after me. I ignore him and don't look back. I can hear the others talking quietly to him.

"He'll explain later," Mikey says. "He's probably just going for a walk. Leave him be."

When I get out of the building, I sit on the steps at the door, taking deep breaths. I've missed her so much, but what do I do?

I don't want to tell my family, but I probably should. I want to find her,  but that would be letting down the boys, Blair and all the roadies if I left. Despite this, I stand up and start walking down the familiar road.

I walk for a long time, playing music through my headphones. I'm not exactly sure where I'm going, but somewhere is better than nowhere at all.

When I come across the police station, I decide to check in with them. Even though I'm pretty sure this is a bad idea, I want Laura back and if they find out, then fine.

I wait in a hard plastic chair for a while until a man in the usual police uniform walking by stops.

"What are you doing here, son?" He asks.

"I just need to talk to someone, and I'm not really sure where to go for that," I say honestly. I was hoping that someone would stop by, and he did.

"Well, son, I could talk to you. What's this about? Just generally?"

"My sister went missing and I think I've found her."