The boy on my porch looked like someone had taken an old photograph of me and brought it to life. Then he told me his mother’s name, and suddenly the disappearance that had haunted me since high school stopped being a mystery and became something much more personal.
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My name is Danny, and 16 years ago I lost my first love.
I was 17 then, and her loss affected me in a way I never fully talked about afterward.
Susan disappeared.
There was no body, no goodbye, and no note.
One day, she was there, and then she was gone.
The police searched. Her parents cried on television.
Flyers went up all over town.
Her picture was taped inside grocery store windows and pinned to bulletin boards at gas stations.
People whispered.
Some said she had run away.
Some said she had been kidnapped.
Some said teenagers did impulsive things and she would come home when she got tired of wherever she had gone.
She never came home. At least, not as far as I knew.
It happened three weeks before our senior prom.
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Susan and I had been together since we were 15.
I know people laugh when teenagers call something love, but I loved her.
I still believe that.
She was funny in a way that sneaked up on you.
She would sit quietly through an entire conversation, then say one thing that made everyone laugh harder than anything else said all night.
She had a small gap between her front teeth.
She hated when people pointed it out. I loved it.
I kept exactly one picture of her after she disappeared.
It was taken the summer before our junior year at the lake.
Susan was 16, sunburned across the nose, her wet hair stuck to her cheeks.
She was laughing at whoever held the camera.
Me, probably.
I kept the picture in an old jewelry box.