Where the people who disappear go

We don’t talk about the ones who never come back. Not in my house, not at school, not anywhere in my town. But not talking about them doesn’t bring them back, and it doesn’t stop more people from disappearing, so I’m going to tell you everything I know.

The first disappearance I remember is Julie Wilkins in the 3rd grade. She had blonde pigtails and always wore a bright red sweater even in the summer. I didn’t think anything of it the first day she was gone, but I asked my teacher about her by the second day.

“Julie? She’s sitting right over there in her usual spot,” Mrs. Peterson replied.

The girl sitting in Julie’s spot wore the same bright red sweater, but she had black hair and a mean face and didn’t look anything like Julie. I tried to explain that to the teacher, but Mrs. Peterson wouldn’t listen.

I kept insisting, louder and louder, growing red in the face and screaming when the teacher wouldn’t listen. I ran over to the imposter and pulled her hair, demanding with all single-minded fury of a 9 year old girl to know what happened to Julie’s pigtails. She cried and started pulling my hair back, and soon both of us were sent home early.

I watched the mean-faced girl get picked up by Mrs. Wilkins, Julie’s mom. The woman hugged the girl and helped her into the backseat, and they drove away together. And every day after that the girl with the black hair would sit in Julie’s chair and chat with Julie’s friends, until after about a month I finally let it go and started calling her Julie too.

Kate Bennet in the sixth grade. Steve Oshaki in the eighth. Lisa Wellington, junior year. There was never a fuss about it, so there were probably more that I didn’t notice. I actually liked the new Lisa considerably more than the old one who used to stick gum everywhere, but that didn’t make it okay.

Because every time it happened, I couldn’t stop thinking what it would be like if I was next. I didn’t like the idea of someone else sleeping in my bed or hugging my mother. I liked the idea of what might have happened to the original people even less.

As I got older, I started thinking there was something wrong with me. If their closest friends and family didn’t notice the change, then maybe there was no change at all. Maybe I misremembered or hallucinated. Maybe there was something wrong with my eyes, or my brain—some unseen tumor quietly swelling until the day I won’t know anyone and no one will know me.   

I still lived in the same small town during college though, and I didn’t forget the lesson I learned in the 3rd grade: I kept my mouth shut and pretended not to notice. But it was a lot harder to pretend when I woke one morning to find a stranger sleeping next to me where my fiancé used to be.

I didn’t wake him. I just watched him sleep, trying to imagine what would come of us. The new Robert wasn’t unhandsome. He was in better shape than my fiancé had been. If the other replacements were any indication, then he’d still know who I was and what I meant to him.

I tried to go along with it, but couldn’t even make it through the first morning. I flinched when he kissed me, and just watching him getting dressed in Robert’s clothes was enough to make me miss my real fiancé.

I lay in bed pretending I was sick until he left for work, then I jumped up and started packing my things. I was gone before he got back. No message, no letter, no explanation—why should I try to mend a stranger’s broken heart when I had no one to mend mine?

The new Robert didn’t let me go that easy. I blocked his number, but messages kept slipping through. Social media—email—he even renamed our shared Netflix account to say he misses me. I finally confronted him when he found out which friend I was staying with and knocked on the door.

It’s not you, it’s me. Weeks of suffering from an invisible wound, and that’s the best I could come up with. I tried to convince him that I was sick and needed to be alone, and he tried to convince me that he would help me get better. I’d almost gotten rid of him when my stupid friend started crying and thanking the stranger for not giving up on me.

I guess that’s when I gave up on myself. I let the man take me back to the place that used to be my home. I stood stiff as a board when he hugged me, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end when he stroked my head and told me we would get through this together. Then I lay beside him in the bed we shared and wondered how the warmth of his body felt so much colder than love.

I didn’t sleep that night. I guess that’s why I was the only one to hear the knock on the door after midnight. A burst of tentative taps, almost like someone wanted to be heard and was afraid to be noticed at the same time. I thought about waking the stranger in my bed, but I decided that I felt safer when he was asleep.

I lay in bed for several long seconds before I heard the knocking again. It was faster this time—more urgent. I slipped out of bed and crept down stairs, not turning on any of the lights. Checking that the door was still locked—then up to the peephole—

“It’s cold out here, and I can’t find my key,” Robert said through the door. I stared at my real fiancé through the peephole. “Are you in there? Hello?” Then rapid knocking once more.

How could I open the door? How could I invite him into our home with another man upstairs in the bed? But how could I not, and risk losing him again? I stood frozen at the peephole, watching him huddling under his jacket for warmth.

“Let me in,” he said again, louder this time. The other Robert would wake soon, if he hadn’t already. “Let me in, let me in!” Suddenly he leapt at the door and started hammering on it with his fist.

I jumped away from the shuddering wood in surprise, tripping over myself and collapsing onto my ass. The original Robert fell instantly quiet, no doubt hearing me.

“I know you’re there. Don’t do this to me. Let me in—let me in!” And the hammering returned, stronger than ever. The whole door was trembling in its frame. The first light turned on upstairs, and shortly later the creak of wood from the steps.

I unlocked the door and flung it open.

I clenched my eyes and braced for impact, expecting the real Robert to come flying into the room from his momentum.

“Honey? What’s going on down there?” the stranger’s voice.

“I don’t know. I thought I heard something,” I said, my voice ringing hollow in my own ears as I stared at the empty darkness. I took a step outside and welcomed the freezing air enveloping my skin.

“You’re already sick—don’t make it worse.”

I took another step in defiance. “I’m not sick,” I told him, my voice more level than it had ever been. “I just don’t love you, that’s all.”

His snarl lasted less than a second, but it was enough so that I couldn’t see his face without remembering it.

“Don’t you dare follow him,” the stranger said.

“Follow who?” I asked innocently, taking another step into the freezing night.

The snarl returned, and this time it took several seconds to fade. He half-turned away from me, then apparently changing his mind, he lunged through the door after me. I was already running as fast as I could, the icy concrete driveway stinging my feet as though some of the skin was left behind with every step.

“Don’t go out there!” he shouted behind me. “You’ll disappear too!”

I wouldn’t have minded disappearing though. I could disappear with Robert. The other ones can have the house. They can get dressed in our clothes and laugh with our friends and eat Christmas dinner with my family, but they won’t have us. So I just kept running, calling for Robert and hoping that he’d find me before my lungs froze stiff. Before the stranger caught me and dragged me back and fussed over me until I believed that I was sick too.

I ran for as long and hard as I could, screaming until my throat was raw, but I didn’t find Robert. The stranger had given up hours ago, but I kept going until morning when my fingers and toes were black and blue and my blood felt like ice in my veins. And by the first touch of light I found myself back at the house that had been my home, back to wondering whether I really was sick, and whether it would be the death of me.

Only it wasn’t my home anymore. The stranger who had replaced Robert was kissing his new fiancé who had replaced me. And there was our neighbor, greeting them good morning as though he’d known them both for years. And life goes on for the rest of the world who don’t talk about the ones who never come back.

As for me? Without friends, or family, or a home to call my own? I finally know where the ones who disappear go. They can go anywhere, because there’s nothing left to hold them back.