The Elementals Read Online Free

because?”
    “I’m at school here,” I said.
    He nodded. “It’s been a year,” he repeated.
    Those were the words I’d been dreading. Why hadn’t I come here sooner? I thought of myself at home—going to school, running, eating, sleeping—how could I have done anything except look for her?
    “We’ve done everything we could. Search parties, investigations. The case is still open, though. We’re always open to new information.”
    I nodded and looked at the ovoid of his face, not knowing what to say. My cup rattled in the wet saucer when I set it down and some liquid spilled onto the table. I tried to wipe it up with my napkin.
    “Is there anything you can tell me about it?” I asked.
    He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Miss Silverman. Since you’re not immediate family there’s nothing more we can disclose. But rest assured this is being handled by experts. We’ll continue to do all we can.”
    He paid for my tea and suggested grief counseling. That was the worst part, somehow; I took it as a sign that he had given up.
    *   *   *
    So I continued to carry the flyers with me, stapling them to the ragged, splintering wood of telephone poles and plastering them on construction-site walls. As if they would help, as if it wasn’t too late.
    *   *   *
    When my eighteenth birthday came in October I could literally taste the despair on my tongue like the residue of the pistachio frozen yogurt I had for dinner that night. I’d received a card and a bunch of red and white roses from my parents. They were always giving me flowers; every birthday and holiday I got an oversized bouquet. I loved flowers but a part of me wished my parents would stop, because it made me aware of how no one else had ever even given me a single wildflower (except for Jeni—which made it even worse) but I couldn’t tell them about my ambivalence. Besides, at least I could pretend the flowers were from a boy.
    “What are you doing tonight?” my mom asked.
    “I’m kind of tired.”
    “Do you have a friend to celebrate with? Maybe your roommate?”
    Yeah right. “I might go to this dorm party.” I just wanted to get her to stop asking.
    But when we got off the phone I decided I really would go to the party in the lounge in case she asked. Even if it was just to try to wash away the taste in my mouth with some free, cheap gin, and to hand out flyers.
    Tommy Leeds was there. I’d overheard Lauren say he played bass in a punk band—not that it was hard to guess. Skinny jeans and old-school platform suede creepers that made him appear taller than he was. His almost metallic hair stood straight up in an electric shock and his eyes were always a little red. The plugs stretching out his earlobes gave me a wincing feeling but I also found myself fascinated by them.
    Tommy was in my psych class, where I was sure he would recognize me throughout the pages of the DSM (paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal, antisocial, histrionic, avoidant, dependent and obsessive-compulsive) if he even knew I existed. This thought confirmed the paranoia at least.
    That night he was with a group of guys dressed just like him. They all looked bored.
    “Hey,” I said. “I heard you’re in a band.”
    He blinked his red eyes at me. “Yeah.”
    “What’s your name? The name?” Lame.
    “Intrepid.”
    “Cool.” I paused, not intrepid at all. “You’re in my psych class.”
    “Aw, yeah. Cool. I hate that class. I keep thinking I have all those disorder thingies.”
    I felt better then. “Yeah, me, too! I’m totally paranoid, obsessive-compulsive and dependent.”
    “Wow,” he said. “For real?”
    I realized I’d blown it. “No. I mean it’s just funny how so much of it kind of feels relevant like Ludkin says.”
    “Yeah. Whatever. Everyone’s kind of fucked up. Especially in No Cal, man.”
    I wondered what it would be like to kiss him. He smelled like gin, clove cigarettes and hairspray—we were close enough, it was hot enough, for me