To Hell With Your New Shit

“What the hell are you doing, Abby?” I yelped, pushing the petite girl away from me.

“Kissing you, silly,” she giggled, batting her mascara-coated eyelashes at me.

“I don’t want you to kiss me!” I told her angrily, snapping my head up to glance around the crowded room. I had not seen Lindsay since my awkward performance, when she was folded into a back corner of the room, half-hidden from my view.

“Well, why not?” she asked.

“Because you’re not Lindsay!” I found myself blurting out.

“Lindsay?” she asked, apparently offended. “Who the hell is Lindsay?”

“Not you!” I repeated harshly, before storming off to search the rest of the house for the only girl I really did want to kiss.

“Garrett, have you seen Lindsay?” I asked as I stumbled upon one fourth of my drunken bandmates.

“Erm, nope,” he replied, his attention split (rather unevenly, might I add) between me and the cute blonde girl clinging to his arm. “Not since your lovely little performance, anyway.”

“You are of absolutely no use when you’re drunk, did you know that?” I told him, beyond frustrated, before stalking away to find someone else.

As I pushed my way through the rest of the house, I heard a crack of thunder sound from outside. Not thinking much of it, I climbed up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

“Lindsay?” I called out through every door, accompanying my calls with a few raps on each door. At each one, I got responses of either, “Go away,” or a few moans. I shook my head and rushed back down the stairs.

After making a second and third round through the house, I bombarded Garrett with questions once more.

“Did Lindsay come here with you?” I asked him, trying to get his attention, waving my hands in front of his smiling face.

“Y-yes, she did,” he stated.

“In your car?” I confirmed.

“Mmmhmmmm,” he responded. I glanced out the window, through the now pouring rain, to see his bright yellow car parked a few spaces away from my truck.

“Shit shit shit,” I muttered repetitively. I turned away from Garrett and made my way to the front door, bursting onto the porch and into the rain. Of the few times that it rains in Arizona, it just had to be tonight, I thought bitterly to myself. Once I had made it to the dry safety of my truck, I pulled out my phone and called Lindsay’s house.

It rang several times before the answering machine picked up, and I cursed angrily under my breath before hanging up. Next, I dialed my parents’ house and sighed gratefully when my dad picked up.

“Dad? Did you notice if Lindsay showed up at home in the past half hour or so?” I asked, worry taking over my voice. This had morphed into a greater problem than I had ever imagined it to. Half an hour ago, I just wanted to find Lindsay and talk to her. Now, I needed to find Lindsay and make sure she wasn’t lost in the thunderstorm.

“Uh, no, not that I noticed,” my dad replied, before asking my mother the same question.

“No, I don’t think so,” I heard her respond in the background.

“Dammit!” I swore, pounding my fist against the steering wheel.

“Is everything okay, John?” my dad asked, sounding quite confused.

“No!” I practically screamed. “We were at this party, and now she’s not, and I don’t know where she is…” I trailed off helplessly.

“Is there anything we can do?” he asked eagerly.

“Just… Just keep an eye out for her if she comes home, and keep trying to call her parents. I just got their answering machine,” I suggested.

“I’m afraid her parents are out for the evening,” my dad told me. “Out at a play, I think.” I swore once again and leaned my head against the wheel, trying to formulate some sort of plan.

“Just call me if you see her or anything,” I told him with finality. “I’m going to drive around and look for her.”

Through the crackling of the phone line, my parents agreed and I hung up hastily before starting the engine and speeding down the street.

I started driving around the nearby neighborhood, figuring that Lindsay couldn’t have gotten very far in the short amount of time that she’d been gone. After another half hour or so, I’d begun driving through the center of town, peering through the rain for any sign of Lindsay. The party had been clear across town from our neighborhood, and my parents hadn’t called to say they saw her, so I figured she was still wandering somewhere and my stomach dropped every time I thought of her shivering in the rain.

As I pulled to a stop sign, my phone began buzzing on the seat next to me. I looked down at it; a number I didn’t recognize blazed across the screen. In most other situations, I avoided unknown numbers at all costs, but this time I hit ‘answer’ and held the phone to my ear.

“Hello?” I asked quickly, waiting desperately for a response.

“John?” He voice came through the static, quivering and barely audible.

“Lindsay?” I breathed, pulling to the side of the road and pressing the phone closer to my ear. “Are you okay?”

“John,” she spoke again, this time the slightest bit louder, her small voice competing with the pelting rain. “John, I’m scared.”