Something catches my eye as I turn down the little road to go into the library. A car on the mini roundabout just on the edge of the centre. I see the tail end as it twists into the adjacent road; the colour looks like faded mahogany. I know that car. I stop dead for a few moments, scared that I am imagining things. Why would that car be here? Why now? Was I supposed to see it? I turn down the small side road into the library, partly to be off the main street. I feel sick at the thought that I have been discovered already. I enter the library and go to the reference section to look at old copies of the local newspaper, The Echo, to look for names, faces and stories about all the people I have tried to forget, all the people I left behind. I need to figure out who to speak to about the missing girl. In the back of my mind I keep seeing the car disappearing around the corner; did that really happen or am I just seeing an apparition of the past? This place is already playing tricks on me.

I remember the headlines when she disappeared. I remember being grateful it wasn’t me and then feeling guilty for that. I go to the archive and look for the dates; now that I am here I am ready to start making my way down the rabbit hole. I am embarrassed that I don’t remember the exact dates – I should remember, shouldn’t I? That summer changed my life. That was the summer I met him, that was the summer I realised you couldn’t even trust your best friend not to stab you in the back. That whole summer was a lesson in why you should never trust anyone. People lie and twist things to suit their own agenda; people manipulate you to get what they want. Even the people who say they love you more than anything in the world.