The Missing -2014- [ Mobile ]

“Good,” she said. “Then you won’t be boring.”

“This time’s different,” she said, but her voice wavered. the missing -2014-

Leo— Dad got a call. New job, new state. We left an hour ago. I’m sorry I couldn’t say it in person. You’re not boring. You’re the least boring person I’ve ever met. Keep watching the sky. It’s the same everywhere. —Mira “Good,” she said

That was the start. For the next six weeks, they were inseparable in the way only summer allows—no school, no clock, no witness but the sun. She taught him how to skip stones across the creek so they’d bounce seven times. He showed her the treehouse, and she declared it “a fire hazard and a masterpiece.” They lay on the roof at midnight, counting satellites, and she told him about her mom who’d left when she was ten, about the four cities she’d lived in since, about the way she never stayed long enough to unpack. New job, new state

“No,” he admitted.

“Seven,” Leo corrected. Then, because his mouth had no filter: “You smoke a lot.”