Looking Back

I plop down onto the back-corner seat of the bus exhaustedly. I haven’t really exerted myself that much, but I still feel tired. My mental fatigue is beginning to affect my outward self.

I rest my head against the window, watching as the familiar buildings of Harris-Hyde Prep grow further and further away. I’m on my way home. I really wish that I could say that I was going to be able to unwind and enjoy my free time, but that isn’t going to be the case. I’m an indecisive bastard, and I’m going to be agonizing over this for a while yet.

I don’t really care much for either Taylor or Minnie. I didn’t even know who either of them was until recently, and they haven’t exactly treated me favorably. My introduction to Taylor was getting gut-punched, and that's still the only interaction I’ve ever had with her. Minnie seems nice, and I guess she might’ve liked me at some point, but that’s almost certainly not the case anymore, especially considering I was a pretty likely suspect for Taylor’s disappearance.

To put it simply, there’s no real reason for me to help them. We’re not friends. We’re barely even acquaintances, really. As a matter of fact, helping them would be actively detrimental. I’ll essentially be giving up on Sofia, and lose this round. It really shouldn’t even be a question of whether to help them or not, but…

Why does it feel so wrong?

Taylor’s existence has been erased. Only god knows where she is, and I can’t imagine she’s there by choice. Minnie wants to help her, but to put it frankly, she’s completely hopeless. I have no idea what her plan was, directly interrogating the people she thought were responsible for the kidnapping, but it was a terrible one. If I don’t help, Taylor could disappear forever, as a plaything for some player, and Minnie would continue to look for her friend, endangering herself in the process. Maybe eventually she’d succeed, but more than likely she’d either fail completely or end up kidnapped as well. I really can’t just leave this alone, but I also don’t want to throw the round.

I sigh and go back to looking out the window. Making important decisions is the absolute worst. I should probably start applying to colleges, but I really don’t know which ones, or if I even want to go. I could get accepted to the university that surrounds Harris-Hyde. It wouldn’t be too hard, most students that went to Harris-Hyde get in without question. Do I really want to do that, though? Moving far away for college isn’t really an option anymore, because I’ve got a few things here that I don’t want to leave (One of whom might literally kill me.)

I really miss when life was more simple.

The bus stops at a light, and I examine the crowd of people waiting to cross the busy street. A pretty brunette girl with sharp features and a cute pair of round glasses stands out. She looks a lot like Anna. She has too many freckles and is a bit shorter, but the resemblance is striking.

The crossing light turns, and she glances upwards, then briskly crosses the street in front of the bus I’m currently in.

I really haven’t thought about Anna in quite a while. I wonder how she’s doing now? I still have a little bit of resentment, but quite frankly, I don’t think we were ever as close as I thought we were when I was her boyfriend. She was always scant with physical affection, and quite aloof as well, but that fit me just fine. I didn’t want a super high-maintenance girlfriend, so her seeming independence was great for me. I always just assumed that she was saving herself for marriage, or something. That evidently wasn’t the case.

I unconsciously clench my fist.

Okay, maybe I am still a little bitter, but I really am mostly over it. Really. Honestly, can you ever fully get over being cheated on? It leaves scars, and no matter how much you heal, the marks are still there. I’ve moved on, and am in a relationship with 2 beautiful women, but sometimes those scars rear their heads and bring my mood down for the whole day. Like right now, as an example.

I’d love to talk with Anna one last time. I have no desire to get back together with her, but I want to know what brought on her cheating. Was it something I did? Was there something wrong on her end? Even now, I really have no idea what brought it on. We were fine, as far as I could see. I guess I’ll never really know because she disappeared and all…

Wait.

Val’s voice echoes clearly through my mind, “Nobody’s heard anything from her since a few days after you got suspended. All of her friends started doing a weird shunning thing after she disappeared and I can't even get them to talk about her.”

... There's no way. Absolutely no way that these 2 things are connected. That would be...

The girl who looks like Anna finishes crossing the street, glances down at her phone, then continues walking, leaving my sight.

Did Anna get kidnapped in the same way as Taylor? When I came back from my suspension I’d figured people would’ve made a bigger deal out of it, but it was like it never happened. I thought that people didn’t want to talk about it, or that maybe it wasn’t as big of a deal as I’d thought, but now I’m not sure.

A rush of thought overtakes me, and I begin to sweat. The more that I think about it, the more that it makes sense. I haven’t had anything happen to me that makes me 100% sure that’s what happened, but it fits the various other pieces of the puzzle a little too neatly to be a coincidence.

This raises a new, horrifying question. Did Anna… really cheat on me? That sounds stupid because obviously she did. I caught her in the bathroom with several other men. What I mean is, did she want to? She was never particularly physically affectionate and struck me as a little frigid. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think she had much of an interest in sex, so finding her having sex with other men was completely uncharacteristic.  It happened before the game began, but there’s a nonzero chance that another player started before I did.

I peel my forehead from the glass of the window. There’s not even a question of whether I’m going to help Minnie with this investigation anymore. I need answers.