THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MOLLY HOLFMAN

The school hallway was crowded with chattering students who were either gossiping, playing or gisting or making fun of one another. Bethany Holland rolled her eyes as she slammed her locker shut and turned around to do a short survey. They were a group of wannabe popular, all of them dressed in turtlenecks, miniskirts and knee high boots all giggling to one another in one corner, in another corner a group of jocks hollered and high-fived each other and a group of Goths in their depressing makeup strolled past her, eyeing her as they did. She'd always had a secret fear of Goths and their icy stares sent shivers down her spine.

Why did she have to be here? She hated high school and had tried unsuccessfully to convince her parents to let her get home schooled. But her Mom had refused saying that the entire experience would be good for her and her Dad always went along with her Mom's decisions. She hated the different colognes that invaded her nostrils the minute she walked in the front door every morning, the sound of the teacher teaching even though she got perfect grades, the cafeteria food tasted gross and the odors that filled the classroom after lunch break was unbearable. If only there was a way to escape this place without enraging her parents.

"Hey bestie." The grin on Paige's face made her look weird like one of those funny cartoons where their expressions are always over exaggerated. "What's up?" Said Bethany with zero emotion. Paige blinked taken aback by her unusual gloominess. "Okay, what's wrong?" She asked curiously. Bethany sighed. "Nothing's wrong Paige I'm just feeling a bit down that's all."

Paige raised an eyebrow. "Is there any reason for this?" Bethany shook her head. "Just woke up like this." There was a few seconds of silence and Bethany noticed the way Paige shuffled her feet uncomfortably. She was obviously dying to tell her something.

Bethany smiled a little, amused by her friend's character. "Okay, what is it?" Paige's face lit up and she immediately began filling Bethany in on the latest gossip. "Did you watch the news Saturday night?" She asked quite excitedly. "Do you want to tell me about the old guy who they found dead in the park? If so, then yes." Bethany replied simply. Paige looked aghast at Bethany's statement. "Bethany!" She gasped. "Don't you know who that was?"

It was Bethany's turn to look surprised. "Am I supposed to know who that was?" Paige looked like Bethany had just said something completely unbelievable. "Bethany that's your chauffeur Andrew Furton." She exclaimed. Bethany who had been heading towards her history classroom stopped short in her tracks. "They announced it on the news this morning." Paige continued. Bethany whirled around. "That can't be right. Andrew is handsome and in his mid-thirties, the guy in the news looked like he had only seen the worse of life." Bethany argued. "Besides Andrew drove me home Friday night. Even if he died later that day there's no way he would look that bad by the next day."

Paige gave Bethany a look of pity as she said in a gentler tone. "They carried out a DNA test Beth, it matches Andrew's perfectly."

Bethany felt her heart throb with pain and her eyes watered a little but she forced the tears off. There was no way she was going to cry in school and draw unnecessary attention to herself. "Well that's really sad, may his soul rest in peace." She lied and whirled around continuing her journey towards class. Paige was a little surprised, she hadn't expected her to take the news so well. Realizing that Bethany was way ahead of her, she ran over to her side and went on talking. "Amen to that. The police are still trying to figure out if it's suicide or murder. When people die abnormally here it's usually a suicide."

Bethany only nodded acknowledging what she had said with no verbal response. "That's by the way." Said Paige. "Did you hear about Patricia?"

Bethany's interest was picked and she shook her head no. Paige appeared satisfied and chirped on. "She's gone missing. She disappeared on Saturday and Sheriff Cole spent the entire day yesterday going from house to house asking if anyone knows her whereabouts."

Bethany snorted. "I don't know whether to be sad for poor Patricia or happy for us since we don't have to see her ugly face anymore. If she got kidnapped, then the kidnapper did us all a favor."

"Or maybe she realized she doesn't belong here and decided to live in the woods where she does belong."

Both girls burst out laughing at their own cruel joke. "Well if it isn't the girl who stole my heart and kept it." Their conversation was interrupted by Joey who jumped in front of them, picked Bethany up and twirled her in the air causing her to shriek with laughter before placing her gently on the ground and planting a kiss on her lips. "There's the boy who snatched my heart." Smiled Bethany. "Look at you two. Trying to make me feel jealous that I don't have a boyfriend." Teased Paige playfully. "You should be happy that you don't have a boyfriend who gets jealous the minute you talk to a different guy." Bethany flicked Joey's nose playfully. "What can I say, I like protecting what's mine." Shrugged Joey kissing her one more time. "How about you come over to my house today? We could watch movies and play spin the bottle. My parents aren't going to be home for the next couple days."

Bethany hissed. "Sorry babe. We have our tests coming and my parents will let me do anything but get bad grades. The only reason they let me buy whatever I want and go wherever I want is because of my perfect grades. I have to study."

Joey didn't hide his disappointment but he forced a smile. "Fine. Wouldn't want you to get in trouble with your parents." He said. Bethany felt a pang of guilt at how sad he looked. "Awn! Babe don't look so sad, once we're done with the tests I promise I'm yours." She wrapped her arms around his neck, stood on her tiptoes and gave him a long kiss. "Well." He said when they finally pulled away from each other. "See you later."

"Bye." Bethany watched him walk off and Paige snuck over whispering mischievously into her ear. "You two are too cute. He looked like a puppy who's been denied his favorite treat."

Bethany laughed. "Well I do have the perfect boyfriend, not to brag." Paige rolled her eyes playfully. "Sure, you're not bragging."

They soon arrived at class and seated at their respective seats, Bethany and Paige always sat at the front next to each other. That way she could ignore the rest of the class and if she needed to talk to someone Paige was seated next to her. It was when she was sat down she suddenly got the feeling that something was wrong, something was missing but she couldn't exactly pin down what it was. The noise in the classroom died down as Miss Green strutted in.

"Good morning class."

"Morning Miss Green." Came the reply from the entire class. "Nice to see you all looking nice and healthy, that's a good sign." Said Miss Green with a small smile. "I have an announcement to make. As you all may or may have not noticed Miss Patricia Burns isn't with us today and that's because since Saturday she's... been missing."

There was a lot of murmuring from the class as some students noticed for the first time the empty seat in their classroom. "So if any of you have any information on where she might be, please, let us know. You can come to me or you can go to the police station and report to them." Miss Green gave her students a pleading look. "Her mom is very worried so please, I'm begging, it is important you do this okay."

There was a nod and murmur of agreement from the class. Miss Green smiled. "Thank you. Now where were we in our last class?"

There was a lot of shuffling from the students as some retrieved their textbooks from their bags while others opened the pages of theirs. There was a small beeping sound from Paige's shoulder bag and she reached into it to get her phone. Bethany gave her a questioning look to which she mouthed. "Text."

She snuck her cell phone underneath her desk so she could read the text without the teacher noticing. It was from Joey.

Meet me in the janitor's closet during lunch.

GRIIING!!!

Lunchtime, finally. There was a lot of chattering as students quickly shoved their books back in their bags and hurried towards the cafeteria. Bethany got up. "You coming." She asked Paige who had seemed to be having some trouble zipping up her bag. "Nah!" Replied Paige cheerfully. "I have some important stuff to do but I'll catch up with you later."

With that she slung her bag over her shoulder and hurried out of the classroom. Bethany felt a small pang of disappointment but decided to ignore it. With her head held up high, she flounced out of the classroom slamming right into someone immediately she did. She'd made contact with someone's really hard chest and the force knocked her right to the floor.

"Hey watch where you're go..." She froze mid-sentence as dreamy blue eyes filled with concern stared down at her. Drake pushed some of his long pale blonde hair behind his right ear and reached out to help Bethany up. "Are you okay?" He asked as he did. Those beautiful eyes, that perfectly sculpted nose, those lovely lips that she was dying to kiss, those strong arms that pulled her up so effortlessly like she weighed nothing, she was so entranced by his beauty that she hadn't even noticed that he had been speaking to her till somehow her brain registered that he was leaving and she snapped back to reality.

"Wait!" She shouted desperately cringing at the sound of her own desperation. He stopped and turned around looking puzzled. "Aren't you going to apologize for knocking me down?" She said once she had gotten close to him. "I did." He stated. "Like three times. Didn't you hear me? I guess you looked like you zoned out a little. Also, I didn't knock you down, you ran into me and fell. But if an apology is what you want then sorry."

Bethany flinched. It wasn't the first time Drake had been cold to her since he transferred to Silkfall High earlier that semester, in-fact she wasn't the only girl he was cold to. Well he wasn't exactly cold, he was polite enough to answer questions when he was asked so you couldn't hate him and was cold enough to send the message that you weren't getting anything more than politeness from him. Yet even though she had gotten this message a hundred times from him it didn't stop her from falling for him. He was extremely handsome, he was so athletic and joined the football team almost after he transferred. Coach James gave him the nickname SW {Secret weapon} because he looked so calm that the rest of the team had underestimated him when he tried out. She also heard from Trisha who was the principal's assistant and had gotten a peek at his grades from his old school that he was a straight A's student. Gorgeous, athletic and smart, he was her dream guy. There was no way she was letting a few cold replies stop her from getting him.

"Sorry isn't enough." She said earning a slight look of exasperation from him which she ignored. "How about you come eat lunch at my table."

"And get into an unnecessary fight with your boyfriend, no thanks." The coldness in his tone evident as he added. "Besides my friend Patricia, she's missing. Not that you care, since you don't have to see her ugly face anymore, right?"

Bethany winced, had he been in the hallway when she had been telling Paige that. Before she could come up with a good enough lie to tell him he turned around and walked off leaving her dumbfounded and hurt. She couldn't help feeling a little jealous, the only person he wasn't just polite to in the entire school was Patricia. Ugly, unattractive Patricia who the only boy that ever dated her did so because of a dare. What did she have that she didn't possess a hundred times better? She was smart, beautiful and a gymnast so why wouldn't he like her. Her hands squeezed tightly into angry fists and she stomped off towards the cafeteria.

Lunch was incredibly boring. She sat all alone at her lunch table her aura radiating so much anger that whoever seemed to be considering sitting with her immediately reconsidered the thought and found a different lunch table. Usually she sat with Paige, Joey and Paige's cousin... Molly. That was what was missing or who rather. Molly always hung around with Paige, that's how they got to meet and become friends. Whenever Paige wasn't around, Molly always kept Bethany company. She wasn't as much as a conversationalist as Paige but it was still nice to have her around. It was also unlike her to miss single day of school, she only did when she was extremely sick.

"I better call and see if she's okay." Bethany muttered dialing Molly's number into her phone. "This is Molly Holfman." Came the voicemail after a few rings. "I'm not available at the moment but please drop a message and I promise to get back to you."

After a few calls with no reply she decided to leave a voice message before calling her mom instead. Mrs. Holfman picked up almost immediately. "Hi Mrs. Holfman." She said. "Hello Bethany. How are you?" Mrs. Holfman asked from the other end. "Great thanks." Replied Bethany before going straight to the point. "I was actually calling to ask why Molly isn't in school today. Is she sick?"

There was a long pause and Bethany had to stare at the screen of her cell phone to confirm that Mrs. Holfman hadn't hung up. But finally she spoke. "What are you talking about Bethany? Molly said she was spending the weekend at your place. She said she would come home Monday afternoon after school. Did she not spend the weekend at your place?"

Bethany shook her head as though Mrs. Holfman would see her. "No, only Paige did." Suddenly realization dawned. "Wait does that mean Molly hasn't been home the whole weekend?"

"Lemme trying calling her." Said Mrs. Holfman not answering her previous question. "I actually tried calling her and she didn't pick up that's why I called you." Bethany informed her. She could already feel the woman's growing panic on the other side of the phone. "How about asking Paige maybe she knows where she might be. Is she with you?" Mrs. Holfman asked hopefully. "I doubt it but no Paige isn't with me." Replied Bethany. "I'll ask her once I see her."

"Thank you." Mrs. Holfman said hanging up immediately. Bethany sighed tapping her feet uncomfortably. "Where the f*** are you Paige?" She kept having an uneasy feeling that something was seriously wrong and she didn't like it.

🌚🌚🌚🌚

Paige walked down the hallway whistling idly, she made sure no one was watching before venturing towards the janitor's closet. When she was safely inside, she shut the door behind her and was instantly enveloped by darkness except for the little light that streamed in through the space at the bottom of the door. There was a dark figure standing in there. "Joey?"

"Hey beautiful." Came the familiar voice and in a split second his lips had crashed on hers sucking hungrily on them. She felt his strong arms grab her by the waist and he lifted her up, his lips never leaving hers so she could wrap her legs around his waist. Paige returned every one of his kisses just as hungrily and they were soon out of breath. "That was quite the act you put up today with Bethany." She breathed out as he planted hot kisses down her neck to her chest. "And that was a bit dangerous what if she had actually agreed to spend the night."

Joey stopped with a grin on his face. "She wouldn't have. I know because I've dated her for more than a year. She always gets extra studious when tests are coming up. You're her best friend shouldn't you know that."

Paige gave Joey a small and playful slap on the cheek. "Are you trying to call me a bad friend?" She teased undoing the buttons on his trousers. "No." He winked. "I'm calling you a bad girl."

It was 7:20pm and after enquiring from everyone she knew on Molly's whereabouts to no avail, Diana Holfman decided it was time to report to the station that her daughter was missing.