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On the third day, a young woman staying under one of the underpasses told them she thought she’d seen Rachel the night after she’d left home.
“She was getting into a car,” she said. “You know.” She glanced at Savannah, who raised her chin slightly and nodded.
Rosalie frowned.“What?”
“With a guy?” the girl said. “It happens. I mean, how else would she get by?”
All the sound got sucked away from the world, the street receding to white. Rosalie swallowed and wanting to shake away the notion, but she couldn’t find the words.
Savannah asked for details and the young woman thought the car was maybe white or maybe gray. The man was white, older, maybe brown hair, maybe blonde. What was Rachel wearing? A dress. A great one.
“That wasn’t her,” Rosalie said and Savannah pressed her lips together tightly and didn’t say a thing.
That night they slipped out together and covered all the same territory in the dark. They went further afield, to where people slipped into cars every night, but no one admitted to seeing her.
A week went by. The school rang her parents and after a screaming match her dad began driving Rosalie to school each morning. She sat in class like a zombie, desperate to hear from Savannah, sure that today would be the day she’d get home and find the two of them sitting on her bed, Rachel wide-eyed with a story they wouldn’t believe. At lunch, she sat alone, Travis giving her an awkward nod before going and sitting with the guys from his soccer team.
Another week went by and Rosalie marched grimly into the living room to find her parents. They sat in silence, none of the usual TV blaring, no books or newspapers, nothing but their worry. Good. Rosalie hated them.
“I think it’s time we went to the police, don’t you?” Rosalie said. Her mother started weeping hysterically, while her father blustered about runaways and wasting resources. Rosalie stood entirely still in the center of it all, desperate for someone to be an adult and do something. Then she returned to her room and paced.
The next day her father filed a police report and Rosalie was struck with a terrible thought.
“How did you describe her?” she asked. Her father gave her a hard look then looked away, avoiding her eyes. Rosalie knew the answer.
She and Savannah went and sat outside the downtown police station for a long time. Finally, Rosalie went in with a real photo of her sister to explain to the cop behind the desk everything her father did not. She came out weeping.
“Did I just make it all worse?” Rosalie wept, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Will they stop caring to look for her now?”
Savannah didn’t have an answer for her, but she held her hand all the way home.
The next week, Rosalie turned seventeen. There was no party, no cake, no presents. She told Savannah about it just before they fell asleep and Savannah took her hand in the dark.
“Happy birthday,” she whispered. It was the first time anyone had acknowledged it all day.
Three weeks after Rachel went missing, Rosalie made a weird kind of peace with it. Wherever Rachel was, it wasn’t in Nashville, of that she was sure. Her sister would have come back to see them, snuck in through the trees and tapped on the window. But when Rachel did something, she really did something. Rosalie imagined her in LA or New York, finding a new crew of beautiful misfits, wearing gorgeous dresses and having the kind of freedom and adventure she’d never have had at home. She’d call her little sister, one day, when she could.
“It’s okay,” Savannah said late one night, watching her face as they lay in bed in the low lamp light. “It’s going to be okay.”
“I know,” Rosalie said, but Savannah pulled her in close anyway and hugged her. They’d hugged like this a lot, in the last three weeks. Savannah’s body was warm and soft and Rosalie lay in her arms feeling like she was sinking. She turned her head to get comfortable and her lips lightly brushed Savannah where her shoulder met her neck. The softest of sounds escaped Savannah and Rosalie froze. Slowly, curiously, she leaned in and did it again. Savannah’s breath stuttered in a tiny gasp.
She pulled back and searched Savannah’s face, trying to understand what was happening. Suddenly, instead of two friends hugging for comfort it felt different, Rosalie acutely aware of everywhere their bodies were touching. Savannah stared back, her blue eyes slightly wide, her breath a little short. When Rosalie didn’t shift back even an inch, Savannah leaned in even closer, very, very softly pressing a kiss against her mouth and just like that, Rosalie realized what kind of hot a person would have to be to make her want her friend’s tongue in her mouth.
They were kissing. Oh shit, they were kissing. Savannah’s lips were gentle and her face soft and everything that was wrong with Travis was so right with Savannah. Rosalie felt like the jumbled puzzle pieces inside her had finally locked into place.
Her lips parted in a gasp against Savannah’s mouth and she pressed closer, their bare legs intertwining, hips pressing into hips. Savannah pulled away from her mouth and kissed down Rosalie’s throat and suddenly there was too much clothing in the way because all she wanted was more of Savannah’s hot mouth on her skin. Rosalie reached down and peeled off her own t-shirt.
The sound that escaped Savannah was nothing compared to the look on her face. Lips parted, eyes wide, Savannah looked awestruck. Being stared at had never felt like this before, and for the first time ever in her life Rosalie felt fucking good in her own skin. Savannah unfroze and started to kiss her again, pulling her own t-shirt over her head, heated skin against skin and Rosalie wanted to die from how good it felt.
Savannah was kissing her chest now, her face flushed red with desire and Rosalie couldn’t stop the choked out moans escaping her mouth, or the movement of her hips. Savannah’s pelvis pressed back hard against her, both of them gasping, when Savannah pulled back.
“Do you… want to stop?” she asked, her chest heaving.
“I think I might die if you do,” Rosalie murmured so low she could barely hear herself.
Savannah’s hands slid down to Rosalie’s hips. “Me too,” she breathed.
Rosalie slipped her fingers inside Savannah’s underwear and every coherent thought she’d ever had in her life disappeared.