Six

Chloe Hart was not precisely well-known for her discretion. Chris knew about Lena by Wednesday morning.

The grapevine garbled events--that was the problem with gossip. Stories circulated from the clique that customarily clustered around Chloe, and spread through the school like currents, picking up bits of informational debris as they went. Reasons and speculation over why she left were mumbled from behind cupped hands, traded as if they were currency. But the fundamentals of the story remained the same:

Lena Harrison had gone missing sometime between Sunday afternoon and evening and nobody had seen her since.



It was that timeline that disturbed Chris. It disturbed him more and more as he heard the story again and again. Lena Harrison had gone missing sometime between Sunday afternoon and evening and nobody had seen her since.

Was it possible that he was the only person on the planet that could narrow down the gap in which she had disappeared? Was it really possible that he was the last one to have seen Lena?

From that question sprang another, one too grizzly and horrific to consider:

Would he be the last one to ever see Lena alive?

And because he didn't know what else to do, Chris told nobody about the crying girl in the sub shop, and found himself unspeakably grateful that she'd paid with cash. It was sick, but it was true. He felt guilty about his thoughts on Monday, how he'd thought about talking to Lena about what had happened. Now it seemed unmentionable.

At his core, Chris Mathis was a good guy. He really was. He didn't do drugs, he didn't cheat on tests, he didn't drink, he didn't smoke, he didn't break curfew. He didn't break hearts. He didn't even break promises. And because he was such a good guy, he felt really sort of guilty about this whole Lena Harrison thing.

Really guilty. Really guilty.

As the days ticked on, the guilt of her being gone began to consume Chris. And that was something Lena hadn't ever thought about.