Places I Never Meant To Go

by Shay Lynam

  “That little punk,” I whispered.

  “What?”

  “He was holding out on me,” I said turning around. “That kid right there.” I jammed my finger against the screen.

  “Oh, Jordan?” Heather asked. “He comes in like every day. He just sits in his little corner and watches her. I think he likes her.”

  “Ya think?”

  Heather stared at me. “What? What am I missing here?”

  I looked back at the television. “I think I need to have a little talk with him tomorrow.”

  The following day, I stomped back into the coffee shop and over to Jordan's table. I picked up his laptop, slamming it shut and dropped it on the table behind me.

  “What gives, man! That's a Mac” he yelled pulling the unplugged headphones out of his ears.

  “You lied to me yesterday,” I growled.

  Jordan glared at me. “Uh, no I didn't,” he replied.

  “You withheld information which is basically the same thing,” I snapped glaring back and sat down across from him. “You know Emily more than just as a girl that comes in here a few times a week and someone who's in a few of your classes.”

  “Yeah, I told you what I saw, what's the big deal?” Jordan asked getting up and grabbing his laptop back.

  “You failed to mention that you talked to her after the guy left.”

  “Well, duh, I talked to her. She was upset.”

  “Did she tell you anything about who the guy was?”

  “Not really.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What falls under 'not really'?” I asked.

  “Look,” Jordan leaned forward. “Can you blame me for not really mentioning everything?” he asked. “I don't know you. You could be a murderer who favors blondes for all I know.”

  I sighed. “Alright, alright,” I said. “But honestly, Jordan, I'm just trying to find my friend. I'm really worried about her.”

  “Yeah, I guess I can see that,” he said.

  “So what did Emily say after the man left on Friday?”

  Jordan shifted in his seat and picked out a stray thread on his gloves. “Well, I could tell she was scared,” he said.

  “Did she mention why?”

  “She said he had threatened her. She told me he had said 'you'll pay for this.'.”

  “You'll pay for this?” I repeated.

  Jordan nodded.

  So Heather had heard him wrong. He wasn't talking about the coffee. I guess that made more sense. I looked back at Jordan. “Think he's the one who kidnapped her?”

  “Well, I know he was the one behind the wheel of the car she got into on Saturday,” he said. “I saw her get in with him.”

  “Tell me everything you saw and heard on Saturday,” I said looking him straight in the eye.

  “I got to the coffee shop at eleven like I normally do,” Jordan explained. “I usually have tests on Mondays so I study on Saturdays. Then Emily came in and she looked just... awful.”

  “Awful how?” I asked him.

  “Well, she looked like she hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. Her hair was a mess and she had these dark circles under her eyes. She was really pale, ya know?”

  “What did she do then?”

  “Ordered some coffee then sat down at her table and took her laptop out.”

  “Do you know what she was doing?”

  “I think she was writing something,” Jordan said. “She was chatting with someone like she usually does.”

  “That was me,” I muttered remembering having talked to her that morning. “She didn't seem freaked out. Why would she have been acting normal to me when she clearly wasn't?”

  Jordan shrugged. “Maybe she didn't want you to know what was going on.”

  “I guess. So you don't know what was wrong?”

  Jordan shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. But then the black sedan pulled up outside and she closed her laptop and left it on the table along with her coffee, like she was planning on coming back in.”

  “She left her laptop?” I asked sitting straight up.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you know where it is now?”

  The corners of his mouth twitched into a half smile. “In my dorm,” he said. “I'm just trying to keep it safe till she turns up. And the police don't need to be going through her personal stuff, ya know?”

  I nodded with a smile. “Sorry I called you a little punk earlier,” I said.

  “You didn't.”

  “Not to your face.”

  Jordan and I left the coffee shop shortly after and headed for the campus. Being only a few blocks away, I left my car at there and we walked. I could tell when we were nearing the college when I started seeing more and more younger people sitting on benches writing on their laptops or sprawled across lawns. Sure enough, we rounded a corner and there stood the Art Institute of Portland. Great, I was going to be walking through these halls surrounded by the dramatic, deep and huge egos of art majors. I had dealt with plenty of those back in college in New York City.

  “So what are you doing here?” I asked Jordan as we made our way down the path to the dorm rooms.

  “I'm trying to get my degree in computer animation,” he replied. “I want to design video games.”

  “Hmm.” We made it into the building his dorm was in and down a few halls. “So is this like a co-ed dorm with shared showers?” I asked.

  “Uh, no. Not this one.”

  “Really? At a Portland art school?”

  “Do you just assume we're all radical liberals over here?” Jordan asked me.

  “I was just hoping you guys were fun,” I mumbled to myself.

  Before he could answer, we had stopped in front of his door and he started fishing around in his pocket for his key. Once inside, I stopped in the doorway to look around. It wasn't anything special with two twin beds, a desk and a closet. Drawings of characters and buildings covered the walls though on the side of the room that Jordan went over to.

  “Did you do these?” I asked him walking over to take a closer look.

  “Yeah. They're nothing special,” he said, crouching down and reaching under his bed. “Just sketches for a game idea I have.”

  Most of the drawings were of one person. A blonde spiky haired guy in dark red armor. He held two giant blades down at his sides and had two more crisscrossed on his back. “This guy is sick,” I finally said. “It's just a sketch?”

  “Yeah, hey I found the laptop,” Jordan said setting it down on the desk in front of me.

  I sat down in the chair and opened the laptop up. It was weird touching something that belonged to a girl I had only ever talked to over the internet. I think it was really beginning to feel like she was a real person. My shoulders sagged. “It's password protected.”

  “Crap,” Jordan said under his breath.

  “Any ideas?”

  “You apparently talk to her more than I do. Do you have any ideas?”

  I bit the inside of my cheek and tapped on the keys lightly. As far as I could remember Emily had never mentioned anything that would hint at a password.

  “What about her birthday?” Jordan asked, sitting on his bed.

  “We could try it,” I replied and typed in what she had told me was her birthday one time when we were talking about my upcoming birthday.

  Emily says: What day is it?

  Tyler says: Monday the thirteenth.

  Emily says: How old will you be?

  Tyler says: Too old.

  Emily says: Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.

  Tyler says: ?

  Emily says: Twain :)

  Tyler says: Oh so you're one of those who try and bring philosophical quotes into everyday situations.

  Emily says: You caught me.

  Tyler says: Well, oh wise one, what day did you come into this world?

  “Access denied,” Jordan muttered then rolled over so his face was buried in his pillow. “Any other ideas?�
��

  I sat back in the chair and stared at the blue log-in screen. Hovering my mouse over the little question mark next to the password box, a small bubble appeared that read: Hint: Thank you.

  “Thank you?” I read aloud.

  “You're welcome,” Jordan replied from under his pillow.

  “Does that mean anything to you?” I asked ignoring the sarcastic reply.

  “Does it mean anything anymore?”

  I rolled my eyes. “How about we stop being a comedian and work at saving our friend's life, huh?”

  Jordan sat up. “Alright, alright,” he whispered. “Uh... oh, I got it,” he said straightening up. “I think I remember she mentioned one time that she's part Italian or something. What's 'thank you' in Italian?”

  I typed grazie into the text box and hit enter. “Access denied,” I muttered. “If we do this too many times, it's going to lock us out of her account.”

  “Well what do you expect us to do?” Jordan asked frustrated.

  “I say we think hard before just typing in random things.”

  Just then a guy, who I could only assume was Jordan's roommate, halted in front of the door. “Uh hi,” he said leaning against the door frame.

  “Hey,” Jordan sighed falling back on his bed again. “Tyler, Simon, Simon, Tyler.”

  “Hi,” Simon held a hand up in a lazy wave.

  “Hey.”

  “So what are we kids up to?”

  I looked to Jordan. “Just trying to hack into Emily's computer,” he said still staring up at the ceiling.

  “Is that the girl that went missing last week?” Simon asked coming over to stand behind me. “Did you try her birthday?”

  “Simon, who actually uses their birthday anymore these days?” Jordan asked sitting up. “And yes, we did.”

  I was feeling a bit weird having this guy leaning over my shoulder. “What's the hint?”

  “Thank you,” I replied leaning away as discreetly as possible. This kid needed to take a shower, or at least wash his clothes once in a while.

  Simon straightened back up. “Isn't she part Italian?”

  Jordan and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes. “You walked in about five seconds too late,” I said.

  Jordan's roommate sat on his bed on the other side of me and scratched behind his ear. “Hmm...” then he snapped his fingers. “She was in my french class,” he said.

  I typed in merci and pressed enter. “Access denied,” I muttered then turned around and looked at both guys. “Can you think of anyone else that might know her password?” I asked.

  Simon shrugged and I looked at Jordan. “She has a couple friends in art right now that might know something.”

  “Well then,” I said getting up and grabbing Emily's laptop. “Looks like it's time to go to class.”

  The art building was on the other side of campus so it was going to take a few minutes to walk there. This was the type of place TV shows base their teenage dramas off of. Walking down the path, to my left was a small group of people playing guitars while another small group next to them sat against a tree or lounged on blankets and wrote in notebooks or on their laptops. On the other side of the path, a game of Frisbee was starting.

  “Thank God I only went to community college,” I muttered to myself.

  “You say something, Tyler?” Simon asked me.

  I looked over at him. “So, Simon, are you doing computer animation too or is that just Jordan's thing?”

  “Nah, we're kind of working together on our final project though,” he replied. “I'm more into music and media development. I'm working on a score for the game he's been designing.”

  “Like a soundtrack?” I asked. “That's cool.”

  “Yeah, I hope so,” Simon said ruffling his shaggy hair. “I just hope Jordan here is saying it's good because it's actually good and not because he's my friend.”

  “Oh believe me,” Jordan said. “I'm not worried about ruining our friendship. I tell it like it is.”

  “Love you too, dude.”

  Jordan chuckled. “Seriously I keep it real, I don’t sugar coat, I don’t lie and I don’t hold back what I have to say. If everyone did this, the world would be a much better place. But because people don’t, everyone is living in a fantasy world, and they don’t know the truth.”

  We stopped in front of the art building. “Time to step off your soapbox, kid,” I said. “We're here.”

  Once outside the right classroom, we sneaked in through the door to find ourselves in an amphitheater. The professor was standing up in front of a projector and talking about the old man pictured on the screen. We took seats in the back row.

  I leaned into Simon. “I thought you said art class,” I whispered.

  “I did.”

  “Well, where are the naked girls? Don't art students paint naked people?” I asked.

  “This is art history,” he replied. “The naked girls are two doors down.”

  I snapped my fingers dramatically causing Jordan and Simon to snicker. “So, which ones are Emily's friends?”

  Jordan pointed a few rows down. “Those two down in the third row.”

  I followed his finger to a couple of dark haired heads. One of them seemed to be bored out of her mind with one hand holding her head up and the other doodling on a piece of paper. The other girl was taking notes religiously, looking up every so often for a few seconds, then back down at her notebook. As we sat waiting for the class to be done, I tried to imagine Emily sitting in the empty seat on either side of the two girls. Would she have been doodling in her notebook along with the one or seemingly interested like the other? When it was finally over, the three of us got up and watched as the two girls came up the aisle. The paler one smiled at Jordan and Simon.

  “Hey guys,” she said with a hint of sadness in her voice. After all, her best friend was missing.

  “So, this is Tyler,” Jordan said motioning to me with his hands. “He's one of Emily's friends.”

  I gave a small smile and wave. “Hi.”

  “This is Kelly and Savannah,” he introduced me first to the paler one and then the darker skinned girl.

  I gave a nod.

  “Tyler,” Kelly repeated like she was remembering. “She's mentioned you before.”

  “Yeah,” Savannah joined in. Her voice showed just a hint of something foreign. “You're right. She mentioned you not long before she disappeared.”

  “What did she say?” I asked them trying not to sound too anxious. “Anything important?”

  Kelly and Savannah looked at each other. “Just that she was really starting to like you,” Kelly said after a couple seconds. “Which is weird because earlier this year she'd sworn off guys and said she wanted to only focus on her studies.”

  “Awe, she really likes you. Feeling the butterflies yet?” Jordan asked nudging my ribs jokingly. “Butterflies are a sure sign of love.”

  “Or a sign you swallowed a couple caterpillars,” I muttered turning my attention back to Emily's friends. “Has she been acting strange recently? Upset at all?” I asked remembering how she had looked on the surveillance tape.

  Again Savannah and Kelly shared a look. “Maybe we should talk somewhere else,” Savannah finally said.

  I nodded. “Right.”

  We ended up taking them back to Jordan and Simon's dorm. The two girls sat on Jordan's bed while I sat at the desk and Simon and Jordan sat on the other bed, probably thinking how cool it was to have girls in their room.

  “So has she seemed scared or anything lately? I asked the girls again. “Paranoid or kind of closed off?”

  “Well,” Kelly started. “She has been really quiet lately. “She wasn't coming out with us at night.”

  “Yeah,” Savannah agreed. “After class she would just go to her dorm and stay there for the rest of the night. We were kind of thinking it had to do with you since you were the only one she seemed to be talking to.”

  I sat back, really noticing their suspicious
stares. “Hey, I had no idea anything was going on,” I said. “I didn't even know about the guy she was meeting up with until I saw it on the surveillance tape.”

  “Surveillance tape?” Kelly repeated. “And what guy?”

  Savannah turned to her. “Do you think he could be talking about that man we saw Emily talking to a few weeks ago?”

  “What was going on when you saw them?” I asked finally feeling like I was getting somewhere.

  The two looked at me again. “The three of us were headed to lunch one day at the coffee shop and this guy approached us while we were still here on campus.”

  “What did he look like?” Jordan finally chimed in.

  “I don't know.” Kelly shook her head. “Older, maybe late 40s. He had kind of shaggy hair and a bit of a beard. And he was tall.”

  “Like freakishly tall?” Simon asked from behind me. I swiveled around to look at him. “What?” he asked. “I was just curious what tall means to them.”

  “He was just normal tall,” Kelly replied.

  I turned back around to face the girls. “Do you remember what he said to Emily?”

  “Emily told us to go ahead and she'd catch up,” Savannah explained. “We stopped when we had crossed the street so we could keep an eye on her but we couldn't really hear what they were talking about.”

  “Did they look like they were arguing?” I asked.

  She looked up at the ceiling like she was trying to remember. “I think the guy was doing most of the talking. Emily just looked like she was getting really stressed. She didn't seem like she'd wanted to see him in the first place but then when he was talking, she didn't want to hear what he had to say.”

  “Do you think he had something to do with her disappearance?” Kelly asked interrupting.