Gravity - By Abigail Boyd Page 0,5

have completely failed.

"I'm not upset about it, Claire," I assured her. "It went fine. I didn't want a big revelry, I told you that."

In light of the situation the very idea had sounded disrespectful and more stressful than it was worth. Thankfully, it was only my fifteenth birthday and not my sixteenth, or she may have hired people to come as my guests. She didn't seem convinced. I changed the subject.

"I wondered if I could ride my bike for a little while," I said, testing out the waters of her approval. It was always safest to only dip a toe in.

"By yourself?" she asked, looking up at me. Her lips were frozen on the rim of her mug. I ignored the urge to roll my eyes. I wasn't defenseless. I wished she would stop treating me as though I were.

"It's still day time. Nothing is going to happen to me, and I'll stay on the street," I offered patiently, running my hands back and forth over the headrest of the dining room chair.

"I just want you to be safe," she said, leaning back and shutting her pale eyes. My parents barely let me go out to check the mail since Jenna disappeared, based on the idea that someone lurked behind the bushes, ready to snatch me if I took two steps out the door.

"I'm always safe. I will take my phone with me and be back within an hour, I promise." I was getting restless. I couldn't stand still, my feet shifting back and forth.

"Is your phone charged?" she grilled me.

"Oh, come on," I scoffed. "My phone is always charged. It lives on the charger." I gestured to where it sat plugged into the wall.

She still looked doubtful, so I played my only card.

"It's my birthday," I pleaded. I hated making her feel bad. But I just needed to get out for a while. And something important required my investigation.

After a moment, she said, "Fine. You can go. But you have to be back within the hour. Not a second later. Not a millisecond later." She looked down her nose at me to make sure I got the point. Her glasses started falling off her head and snagged in her hair.

I thanked her, and sped over to the door, snatching the phone. I escaped outside into the afternoon, breathing the fresh air in deeply. Pathetically, I couldn't remember the last time I set foot outside.

Summer had been blisteringly hot, but autumn was swiftly descending. Though the sun shone brightly, the dark blue of the sky interrupted only by a few errant, puffy clouds, the shadows were growing longer. They made everything look underlined. The faintest of cool breezes blew through, ruffling the trees.

I got my bike out of the shed where it had been vacationing, untouched for months. I rode the easier way, instead of through the woods, sticking to the street as I had promised. The dense traffic on the main road was due to the nice weather, since it could change so quickly in Michigan.

I've lived in Hell my whole life. Despite the unusual name, and the affinity of many of the residents to dress it up like Halloween Town all year, Hell is your typical suburban town. We were lucky so far to miss the brunt of the state's economic troubles. Many towns nearby were in danger of becoming ghost towns, but for Hell, ghosts were merely a bonus.

Cheerful rows of pastel houses and local business passed me by, thriving on nearly every street. I passed a jack-o-lantern painted on a mailbox and a plastic skull hanging out on the front porch of a grandmother gardening in her sun hat. Both typical sights. The town committee had succeeded in keeping away the big name stores, at least for the time being. We had no Walmart and only one lone fast food restaurant that was always busy at 3 AM, getting business from every truck driver and stoner for miles around.

My mind focused entirely on Jenna as I passed the familiar landmarks. We'd been best friends ever since we fought over a plastic pony ranch in kindergarten. Hardly a day went by that we didn't talk to each other since. Being without her was like being cut in half.

I hadn't heard a word from her since the night she left. Her parents were convinced she ran away. Everyone else seemed to believe that, too. Her mother apparently found "suspicious" emails that confirmed the hypothesis, though no amount of