JUST TO FIND YOU

The sun always seemed to set too fast in the final months of senior year.

For Caleb, the ticking clock of high school graduation felt like an open door, a threshold into a future he had spent years mapping out. For Ashton, it was a closing vice.

They sat on the hood of Caleb’s battered sedan, parked at their usual spot overlooking the town reservoir. The sky was a bruised palette of deep purples and bleeding oranges. A year ago, this silence would have been filled with their laughter, with Ashton tossing French fries at Caleb’s head or arguing fiercely over music playlists.

Now, the silence was heavy, thick with things unsaid.

Caleb turned his head, watching the profile of his best friend. Ash—a name Caleb had shortened when they were seven and scraping their knees on the school playground—stared blankly at the water. He looked painfully thin. His collarbones cast sharp shadows beneath his faded flannel shirt, and the dark circles under his eyes looked like permanent bruises.

“You’re doing it again,” Caleb said softly, breaking the quiet.

Ash blinked, pulling his gaze from the reservoir. He forced a small, fragile smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Doing what?”

“Fading out on me. You’re physically here, but your mind is a million miles away.” Caleb reached out, his large, warm hand gripping Ash’s shoulder. He felt a sharp pang in his chest at how easily his fingers wrapped around the bone. “When was the last time you slept, Ash? Seriously.”

Ash shrugged, pulling his shoulder away under the guise of shifting his position. The loss of contact made Caleb’s hand twitch.

“I slept,” Ash lied quietly. “Just had a long shift at the diner last night. And the early morning stock-up at the grocery store. I’m just tired, Cale.”

“It’s more than just being tired, Ash,” Caleb said, his voice tightening with a mixture of worry and frustration. “You’re drowning yourself. Three part-time jobs? Four? I lose track. You’re barely keeping your eyes open in class.”

“I have to pay the rent, Caleb. You know how it is.” Ash’s voice was flat, devoid of the spark it used to carry.

Caleb sighed, looking down at his steering wheel. He thought he knew the reason. Six months ago, Ash’s parents had died in a sudden car accident. It had devastated Ash, leaving him entirely alone to handle the small, rundown house they rented on the edge of town. Caleb had tried to be there, his own parents offering to help, but Ash had slowly, systematically pushed everyone away, retreating into a shell of exhausting, endless work.

“I know,” Caleb said gently, softening his tone. “I know losing your mom and dad... it changed everything. But you don’t have to carry the grief by completely destroying yourself. My parents told you their door is always open. You could move into our spare room. You wouldn’t have to run yourself ragged just to keep a roof over your head.”

Ash’s hands tightened into fists in his lap. Caleb couldn’t see the terror in his eyes, the way his stomach violently churned at the mention of his parents. Caleb thought it was grief. Caleb thought it was just a tragic accident.

If only you knew, Ash thought, a bitter, choking taste rising in his throat. If only you knew what they left behind.

“I can’t do that, Cale,” Ash said aloud, his voice barely a whisper. “I have to take care of it myself. It’s my responsibility.”

“We’re best friends, Ash. Since we were seven,” Caleb argued, stepping closer, his shadow falling over Ash. “Your responsibilities are my responsibilities. We’re supposed to go to state college together next term. How are you going to do that if you’re working twenty hours a day?”

Ash finally looked up, his eyes glassy and devastatingly hollow. For a fleeting second, Caleb saw a flash of absolute, naked panic in them, but it vanished as quickly as it came, replaced by that dull, compliant mask.

“Things change, Caleb,” Ash whispered. “Sometimes... plans have to change.”

“Not ours,” Caleb said fiercely, grabbing Ash’s wrist. The skin was cold. “We promised. On graduation day, we leave this town behind. Together.”

Ash stared at Caleb’s hand on his wrist. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. He wanted to scream. He wanted to bury his face in Caleb’s chest, to wrap himself in the familiar, comforting scent of cedarwood and laundry detergent, and beg Caleb to hide him. But he couldn’t. If he dragged Caleb into his nightmare, the people knocking on his door at night would destroy Caleb too.

“Yeah,” Ash lied, his voice cracking slightly. “On graduation day.”

The next few weeks were a blur of agony for Caleb. Ash became a ghost. He missed classes, his phone went straight to voicemail half the time, and when Caleb did manage to catch him at the diner, Ash would barely look him in the eye, moving like a mechanical doll.

Then came graduation day.

The high school football field was a sea of bright blue caps and gowns. The air was thick with the scent of cut grass, cheap perfume, and the overwhelming excitement of hundreds of teenagers finally breaking free. Parents cheered, cameras flashed, and name after name was called over the crackling loudspeaker.

Caleb stood in the rows of graduates, his eyes frantically scanning the crowd. He had checked the ‘A’ section during the procession. Ash wasn’t there.

“Caleb, stop fidgeting,” his mother whispered from the front row of the bleachers, waving happily. Caleb barely nodded back. His chest felt tight, a heavy, suffocating dread settling in his gut.

When the ceremony ended and the caps were thrown into the air, Caleb didn’t celebrate. He tore his gown off, throwing it into the backseat of his car, and drove straight to the outskirts of town, ignoring his family’s calls.

He just overslept, Caleb told himself, his hands gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. He worked the night shift, he was exhausted, and he missed his alarm. That’s all.

But the knot in his stomach only grew tighter.

He pulled up to the small, dilapidated house Ash rented. The front yard was overgrown, weeds choking the walkway. But what made Caleb’s heart drop was the absolute stillness of the place. No lights were on. The rusted old sedan Ash’s parents used to drive was gone from the driveway.

Caleb slammed his car door shut and practically ran up the porch steps. He pounded heavily on the wooden front door.

“Ash! Ash, open up!”

Silence.

“Ashton! It’s me, Caleb! Open the damn door!”

He knocked again, louder this time, the wood rattling under his fist. He leaned his ear against the door, straining to hear any sound from inside—the creak of a floorboard, the shuffle of footsteps, the quiet sigh of his friend.

Nothing.

Frantic, Caleb moved to the front window. He cupped his hands around his eyes and pressed his face against the glass.

His breath hitched.

The living room was completely empty. The worn-out sofa, the small television, the cardboard boxes Ash had been living out of—all gone. There were faint circles in the dust on the hardwood floor where furniture used to stand. The house looked stripped bare, abandoned, like no one had lived there for weeks.

“No, no, no...” Caleb muttered, a cold sweat breaking out across his forehead. He ran back to the door, grabbing the brass knob and twisting it violently. To his shock, it clicked. The door swung inward with a long, agonizing creak.

Caleb stepped inside. The air was musty, smelling of old dust and emptiness.

“Ash?” Caleb’s voice echoed hollowly against the bare walls.

He walked through the house, his footsteps loud and mocking. The kitchen was empty; the refrigerator door was left cracked open, completely bare inside. He ran up the stairs, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He pushed open the door to Ash’s bedroom.

The mattress was gone. The closet doors stood wide open, showing nothing but a few discarded plastic hangers on the floor.

He was gone. Truly, completely gone.

“Looking for the boy?”

Caleb whirled around, his muscles coiling. Standing in the doorway of the house was Mrs. Gable, the elderly, sharp-tongued neighbor who lived in the house next door. She was wrapped in a faded cardigan, watching Caleb with a mixture of pity and annoyance.

Caleb rushed toward her, nearly stumbling over his own feet. “Mrs. Gable! Where is he? Where is Ashton? Where did all his stuff go?”

Mrs. Gable shook her head, letting out a sharp, clicking sound with her tongue. “Bless your heart, Caleb. You’re a good boy, but you were blind to what was happening under your nose.”

“What are you talking about?” Caleb demanded, his voice cracking with rising panic. He gripped the doorframe to steady himself. “Where did he go? Did he move? He didn’t say anything to me!”

“He didn’t move, honey. He ran,” Mrs. Gable said flatly. She leaned in a little closer, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “Two nights ago, in the middle of the night. A big, dark van pulled up into the driveway. A couple of men—nasty-looking characters, dressed in suits that cost more than this whole block—were throwing things around. I heard shouting.”

Caleb’s blood ran ice-cold. “Shouting? Did they hurt him? Who were they?”

“I don’t know who they were, but I know why they were here,” the old woman sighed, crossing her arms. “That boy’s father... he wasn’t a good man, Caleb. Before he and the mother died, he owed a lot of money to the wrong kind of people. Dangerous people from the city. Gambling debts, loan sharks, who knows. When the parents died, those debts didn’t just disappear.”

Caleb stared at her, the room spinning slightly. “No... Ash was working. He was working three jobs to pay the rent...”

“He wasn’t working for the rent, child,” Mrs. Gable said gently, her eyes softening with genuine sympathy. “He was working to pay off his father’s collectors. He was trying to keep them away. But a boy working minimum wage at a diner can’t pay off the kind of sharks his father swam with.”

The realization hit Caleb like a physical blow to the chest. The quietness. The depression. The endless shifts. The hollow, terrified look in Ash’s eyes when Caleb had offered him a place to stay. Ash wasn’t grieving his parents; he was being hunted because of them. He was protecting Caleb by keeping his distance.

“Where did they take him?” Caleb choked out, tears of anger and terror finally burning his eyes. He grabbed Mrs. Gable’s shoulders, his grip a little too tight. “Where did they go, Mrs. Gable? Please!”

“I don’t know, Caleb!” she said, pulling back slightly. “Like I said, the boy ran. Or they took him. From what I gathered from the shouting, he couldn’t pay the interest this month. The neighbors across the street saw them load a couple of boxes, and then they shoved the boy into the back of that van. The collectors got what they wanted, one way or another. They took the boy to settle the debt.”

Caleb let go of her, stumbling backward into the empty living room.

They took him.

The words echoed in his mind, tearing apart the naive, sheltered world he had lived in just hours ago. While he was walking across a stage accepting a diploma, Ash was being dragged away by monsters into a world Caleb didn’t understand.

Caleb looked down at his hands. They were trembling. He felt a profound, burning wave of helplessness wash over him, followed immediately by a toxic, blinding rage. He had been too weak. Too blind. Too useless to save his best friend.

“I’ll find him,” Caleb whispered into the empty, dusty room.

Mrs. Gable sighed from the doorway. “Caleb, those are dangerous men. The police won’t even touch people like that around here. You need to let it go. Move on to college.”

Caleb didn’t look at her. He clenched his fists until his short nails bit into his palms, drawing tiny beads of blood. The boy who had been smiling on the hood of a car a few weeks ago was gone. In his place, something dark and unyielding took root.

“I don’t care who they are,” Caleb said, his voice dropping to a terrifyingly cold, steady pitch. “I will find him. No matter what it takes. No matter how long it takes. I will find him.”