Dead To You

18. bridgette rosenbloom missing

It took the whole drive home to convince her—and several reiterated apologies and confirmations that I knew sneaking out of the house was wrong, that I wouldn't do it again, which was given an unearned look of skepticism, but I didn't bother to mention that it would never happen again because no one invited me to parties, not even that one—but I managed to get my phone back a few days early.

Once we were back at the bookstore, I mumbled some excuse about homework while Mom went back behind the counter and reached for her apron, tying the strings behind her back as I ran up the stairs to the apartment, calling out that she knew I was really just going to go on my phone. It was technically true, but not for the reason she suspected. I dropped my backpack in the kitchen and shrugged off my blazer, tossing it on the counter next to the bowl with various keys, junk mail my mom thought she might be interested in later, and loose change before heading into the bathroom and looking the door behind me.

I perched myself on the edge of the tub, breathing in the scent of my apple matcha shampoo, slowly in and out in an unsuccessful attempt to calm my heart rate, as thundering as the bass from that one car minutes earlier, the Google search engine on my screen.

I started to type in her name. Brid—

Whatever it is, it's probably just a rumor.

—gette—

If we were friends, we would probably laugh at how much I'm overreacting.

—Rosen—

I couldn't even finish typing in her last name before the suggested search results appeared on my screen, and the first one beneath her unfinished name was Bridgette Rosenbloom missing. It felt like my heart flinched at the words, nestled there so casually next to Bridgette Rosenbloom luv u album, Bridgette Rosenbloom YouTube, Bridgette Rosenbloom boyfriend, like it made sense there. I stared at the word, missing, until my eyes burned, and my phone screen went dark, my wide-eyed and pale expression left reflected where the very suggestion that Bridgette Rosenbloom could be missing just was. It couldn't have been right. It was too jarring to even consider, not for real, not when there were rumors at school that she with Blane Harding at his place while his parents were out of town.

Maybe it was clickbait that started trending, like when Victoria posted that one video of Bridgette in the doctor's office with shocked thumbnail and titled it SURGERY ON MY TEEN DAUGHTER! when she was just getting an ingrown nail clipped. Technically true, but an overreaction and a little exploitive. That had to be what this was. She couldn't really be missing. Not the serious kind of missing. Not the kind of missing with storefront signs, full voicemails, police officers that couldn't bring her home a few days later to be lectured by frazzled parents. It had to be like when my mom woke up on Friday night and realized I wasn't home, that I had snuck out and she didn't know where I was. Sort of missing, but not like for real.

I clicked on Bridgette Rosenbloom missing.

Trending news articles filled the screen, the thumbnails various photographs of Bridgette throughout her career—one picture I recognized from her Instagram at her album release party, another of her taken in the studio where she recorded with headphones around her neck and a sly smile on her lips as she looked somewhere off camera, but the most common picture was from her one performance of one of her singles at an award show at the beginning of the summer, grasping the microphone on a stand in front of her, her dress shimmering against the dark background. I read each headline, scrolling until they all blurred together because there had to be one that wasn't just trying to get me to click on the article. There had to be one not composed of buzz words. There had to be one that didn't go like—