Half truth

Chapter Two

“So you made a fool of yourself in front of a hot guy on day one of your arrival?” my new roommate Celia asked, looking at me like I was some kind of alien she wasn’t sure she wanted to associate with.

“I don’t think I made a fool of myself,” I muttered. “I tripped. Big freaking deal. And I didn’t say he was hot.”

“You didn’t have to.” She laughed. “I can tell that from the way you flushed while you were telling the story.”

“I didn’t flush.” I frowned. “I don’t flush.”

“If you say so.” She looked around. “So, your parent’s own this place?”

“They do. All my brothers have lived here. Two in this apartment.”

“That’s cool. So you have family ties to this place.” Celia rummaged through the box she’d brought into the kitchen, pausing to look at me. “Thank you for letting me rent the room on such short notice and for such a short amount of time. I didn’t think I’d ever find someone who would lease on a month-to-month basis.”

“It’s not a problem.” I waved her off. “I’ve never had a roommate before, to be honest, but it’ll be fun.”

“You’ve never lived with a roommate?” She stopped fiddling with the kitchen. “Like ever?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I never needed or wanted one.” I shrugged. “But this is a two-bedroom and my mother insisted, and I agreed because you know, with the whole Lana Ly situation still ongoing I figured it wouldn’t hurt.”

“You know about that and you still came?”

“Yep.”

“Hm.” She eyed me suspiciously, as if there was a chance I had anything to do with her disappearance. “Where are your things?”

“They’re being sent here.” I looked at my phone. “They should be here in the morning.”

“You had all of your things shipped?”

“Most of them.”

I didn’t really want to explain the fact that my mother insisted on having everything white-glove packed and delivered for me for the same reason I didn’t want to explain that my father owned the entire building, not just the one apartment. Dating Travis for the last couple of years of my life opened me up to new experiences and made me realize that my life was anything but ordinary, and because I’d been walking on eggshells for so long, I wasn’t sure what was boastful and what was just a statement I could make and shrug off without looking like a spoiled brat, which ultimately meant that I was a spoiled brat nonetheless. It was something I knew and accepted, but not something I wanted people to think I was proud of.

I turned away from her and walked toward one of the two bay windows the apartment had. The other was in the bedroom I’d already claimed as mine. When my parents showed me the place last week, my father told me to take that room because of the view. The bay window in there had a reading nook, complete with bookshelves surrounding it. It was a lot like the one in my childhood bedroom, and one of my favorite parts of the otherwise sterile, luxurious apartment.

“When I was looking for a temp place, I definitely did not envision myself living in Millionaire’s Row, I’ll tell you that.”

I let out a laugh. I’d heard that was what locals called this block. After my father a

“I guess I shouldn’t make fun of you about the roommate thing,” Celia said. “Before this, I had the same roommate since freshman year, but she transferred out after what happened last year. Lana lived in the building right next to ours.”

“I expected vigils and posters everywhere, but so far you’re the second person to talk to me about it. Where’s the outrage? The concern? The nightly searches?” I asked. “I looked online and the last one I found happened like two months ago.”

“Yeah.” Celia walked over to the living room and sat down on the couch. I sat across from her, knee bouncing as I waited for her to give me the inside scoop. Normally students talked more than staff, so I was sure she had her own take on what happened. “Honestly, people are still looking, but it’s more on the downlow now. I think we’re all scared, you know? Like, maybe if we don’t talk about it, it never actually happened?”

“But it did happen. And a missing student isn’t really something people should forget.”

A missing rich, beautiful, female student that the news talked about on loop was even less likely to forget, so why try? Why not look for her?

“The media is saying she ran away. It’s happened before, from this very campus. Girls have run off with bad-boy boyfriends, some pregnant, some not. Guys have run off with boyfriends because they knew they wouldn’t be accepted by their families. It’s not uncommon.”

“That’s not Lana though.” I shook my head.

Celia frowned. “Did you know her?”

“Sort of. She and I went to the same high school. She was a year ahead, but we had shared interests, worked for the paper together before she graduated.”

She stared at me for a beat. “Will you be okay when I move out? Do you want me to help you find another roommate?”

“I’ll be fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know. I’m terrified of living alone after what happened.”

“Do you think it would happen again?”

“It could. If you listen to the conspiracy theories around here.” She gave me a grave look. “Personally, I think she was being followed and targeted.”

“What conspiracy theories? And why? I heard they didn’t even ask for ransom.”

“I heard they never even called after they took her.”

“Did the building have a camera?” My stomach twisted. “Don’t they have video surveillance somewhere?”

“Nope. Not according to the police anyway. The entire thing is very sad and worrying,” she said. “Anyway, this entire thing is creeping me out and I already know I’m going to have nightmares, so let’s change the subject. What are you majoring in?”

“Business and English. Double major.”

“What are you going to do with that?”

“Hopefully work for an online journal or newspaper.”

“That sounds cool. I’m a psych major, but I think I want to work in career services.”

“For a university?”

“Yup. Hopefully this one. Right now, I work at the career services office shuffling papers. My boyfriend got me the position to help pay for my books, so being there has made me realize that I want to help college graduates find jobs.”

“It’ll look good on your resume,” I pointed out. “Maybe they’ll hire you once you graduate.”

“Maybe. That’s the goal.” She smiled.

We talked for a little while longer about our schedules during weekdays and weekends. I liked to sleep in. Celia liked to get up at the crack of dawn, no matter what day of the week it was. As far as first days went, we seemed to be a good fit. When we went our separate ways, she went to call her boyfriend, whom she’d been dating for three years and also attended school here. According to what she told me, when they weren’t together, they always called each other at seven thirty. I went to my bedroom to unpack the few things I had on hand, showered, and changed into my silk pajamas.

I was putting my hair into a braid as I walked past the bay window in my bedroom when I saw four figures walking to the other side of the street.

Two had lit cigarettes dangling from their hands. The other two were looking straight ahead. They were all dressed in dark clothes and had stopped just at the edge of the park, near one of the oak trees that had surely seen and heard a lot more than we ever would. I watched as they stood there talking. It seemed like an odd place for four men to be at this time of night. I sat on the bench beside the window and tried to get a closer look. I was on the fourth floor, and they were far enough away from the street light that I couldn’t make out their faces. My curiosity got the best of me, and I squinted, pressing as close as I could to the window, until my forehead touched it. One head glanced up toward me, as if sensing me sitting there. Him. The rude guy I’d bumped into earlier. I was only four stories up, and the light of my nightstand was on, but I was sure he couldn’t see me, not really anyway, but it felt like he was looking right at me, into me. The sound of the front door of my apartment slamming made my heart thump into my chest, pulling me from my trance. I looked away for a second to listen for Celia, and when I looked back outside, they were all gone. I blinked. I wasn’t crazy, but was it possible I’d imagined them there?