The Secret of Ella and Micha(3)

"Micha." My hands tremble, unable to answer, yet powerless to silence it.

"Aren't you going to answer that?" Lila enters the room, her face twisted in confusion. "What's up? You look like you just saw a ghost or something."

The phone stops ringing and I tuck it into the back pocket of my shorts. "We should get going. We have a long trip ahead of us."

Lila salutes me. "Yes, ma'am."

She links arms with me and we head out to the parking lot. When we reach the car, my phone beeps.

Voicemail.

Micha

"Why is Ella Daniels such a common name," Ethan grunts from the computer chair. His legs are kicked up on the desk as he lazily scrolls the internet. "The list is freaking endless, man. I can't even see straight anymore." He rubs his eyes. "Can I take a break?"

Shaking my head, I pace my room with the phone to my ear, kicking the clothes and other shit on my floor out of the way. I'm on hold with the main office at Indiana University, waiting for answers that probably aren't there. But I have to try - I've been trying ever since the day Ella vanished from my life. The day I promised myself that I'd find her no matter what.

"Are you sure her dad doesn't know where she is?" Ethan flops his head back against the headrest of the office chair. "I swear that old man knows more than he's letting on."

"If he does, he's not telling me," I say. "Or his trashed mind has misplaced the information."

Ethan swivels the chair around. "Have you ever considered that maybe she doesn't want to be found?"

"Every single day," I mutter. "Which makes me even more determined to find her."

Ethan refocuses his attention to the computer and continues his search through the endless amount of Ella Daniels in the country. But I'm not even sure if she's still in the country.

The secretary returns to the phone and gives me the answer I was expecting. This isn't the Ella Daniels I'm looking for.

I hang up and throw my phone onto the bed. "God Dammit!"

Ethan glances over his shoulder. "No luck?"

I sink down on my bed and let my head fall into my hands. "It was another dead end."

"Look, I know you miss her and everything," he says, typing on the keyboard. "But you need to get your crap together. All this whining is giving me a headache."

He's right. I shake my pity party off, slip on a black hoodie, and a pair of black boots. "I've got to go down to the shop to pick up a part. You staying or going?"

He drops his feet to the floor and gratefully shoves away from the desk. "Yeah, but can we stop by my house. I need to pick up my drums for tonight's practice. Are you going to that or are you still on strike?"

Pulling my hood over my head, I head for the door. "Nah, I got some stuff to do tonight."

"That's bull." He reaches to shut off the computer screen. "Everyone knows the only reason you don't play anymore is because of Ella. But you need to quit being a * and get over her."

"I think I'm going to... " I smack his hand away from the off button and squint at a picture of a girl on the screen. She has the same dark green eyes and long auburn hair as Ella. But she has on a dress and there isn't any heavy black liner around her eyes. She also looks fake, like she's pretending to be happy. The Ella I knew never pretended.

But it has to be her.

"Dude, what are you doing?" Ethan complains as I snatch my phone off my bed. "I thought we were giving up for the day."

I tap the screen and call information. "Yeah, can I get a number for Ella Daniels in Las Vegas, Nevada." I wait, worried she's not going to be listed.

"She's been down in Vegas." Ethan peers at the photo on the screen of Ella standing next to a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes in front of the UNLV campus. "She looks weird, but kinda hot. So is the girl she's with."

"Yeah, but she's not your type."

"Everyone's my type. Besides, she could be a stripper and that's definitely my type."

The operator comes back on and she gives me a few numbers listed, one of the numbers belongs to a girl living on the campus. I dial that number and walk out into the hall to get some privacy. It rings and rings and rings and then Ella's voice comes on the voicemail. She still sounds the same, only a little unemotional, like she's pretending to be happy, but can't quite get there.

When it beeps, I take a deep breath and pour my heart out to the voicemail.




Ella

"I swear to God if we don't find a bathroom soon, I'm going to piss in my pants." Lila bounces up and down in the driver's seat. The air conditioner is turned up as high as it will go and "Shake it Out" by Florence + The Machine plays from the speakers. There's a long road of highway stretched out in front of us, weaving over the hills spotted with trees, sage brush, and the pale pink glow of the sunset.

My cell phone is in my pocket, heavy like it weighs a hundred pounds. "You can always pull over and pee behind a bush." I prop my bare feet up on the dash and pull my white lacy tank top away from my skin to get air flowing. "Besides, we're like five minutes away from the off-ramp."

"I can't hold it for five more minutes." She shoots me a dirty look and squeezes her legs together. "You're not going to think it's so funny when the car smells like piss."