-2014- | The Missing

“I’m Leo,” he said.

“No,” he admitted.

Years later, he’d tell people that 2014 was the summer he fell in love for the first time. And the summer he learned that some people aren't missing—they’ve just already left before you could ask them to stay. the missing -2014-

The house was empty. No porch chairs, no curtain flicker, no Mira. The For Sale sign was gone. In its place, a single sheet of notebook paper taped to the front door, weighed down by a flat gray stone. “I’m Leo,” he said

Mira was seventeen. She wore a leather jacket even in the heat and sat on her porch steps smoking thin cigarettes, blowing the smoke up at the sky like she was sending messages. Leo had never spoken to her, but he’d memorized the way she tucked her hair behind one ear, the way she laughed at her phone with her whole body. And the summer he learned that some people