The one-worded reply, a simple answer, weighed down on my lips as it exited with a breath.
Silence; the room was covered in silence once again.
I added. "They didn't find him, the boy who went missing."
I could see Ink-man and Coffee searching for words in their minds, my eyes looking towards them, yet my mind was fixed somewhere far away, on that small island that used to seem so big. Bigger than the small town I once grew up in, and with an ocean so vast. My eyes were fixed in that faraway dock plastered in my mind.
"Nobody cares about some island kid," I was almost speaking to myself. "Not the papers, or the guys with badges…or the ones without 'em."
The wind flushed my face; a breeze I never knew was there.
The smell of the lake wrapping around us, the stench of cold water burning beneath the sun; sweet musk of water weeds and the faint smell of something foul lurking beneath us despite the water looking clear.
My hair flapped behind my head as I looked head-on, I clacked my hands on the metal seat that wasn't burning as much with the on-pour of splashing waves.
Arlo was holding on to a metal pole, standing up near the drivers box, his body slightly slouched.
He was never good on boats, I always had to drag him in order to come do something in the city with me and my mom. He usually declined though, this time he was the one who dragged me on that boat.
Not that I didn't wanna go to the city, it was for a good reason. But perhaps I felt it back then, the fear of figuring something out. That was before my craze for finding out answers to things better left untouched, but that feeling always lurked somewhere.
Sometimes the answer was scarier than the question.
The city smelt different that night, not in a bad way, but in the way the air smells after rainfall on an already humid day. The city had been breathing in smoke for decades, now it seemed to be letting go of all that from the moment I stepped down from the boat with a slight hop.
I smoothed over my dress that was wet to the touch, I frowned slightly.
Walking towards Arlo who was a couple steps ahead, I puckered up my voice after the bout of silence. "We should've told someone first."
Arlo gulped, it wasn't audible, but I saw the tension swelling down his throat.
"You think she cares?" His eyebrows furrowed. "She hasn't even said anything about him yet, I don't think she even knows he's gone."
I nodded; just once downwards.
He exhaled, looked away, and we began walking.
As we stepped more and more into the darkness of a bright city, Arlo put a smile on his face.
He fiddled with the bottom of his shirt, he'd point out random things in the city, like a pigeon that was walking weird, a couple out on the streets being too lovey-dovey, some weird joke he remembered.
I laughed, but the sound almost felt wrong, swallowed up by the heavy air.
We walked down the usual streets, the streets that seemed so much bigger than us. The same streets we figured we'd owned only a little while after.
Ink cut in after a beat, he didn't speak to make himself seem better than he was, nor was he asking me to understand him.
"We can't choose what job lands on our desks." His voice wandered a bit, like he was choosing his words carefully. "When a body turns up, people start talking, paperwork, evidence and all that stuff follows. For some missing kid—I mean, we got a bunch of those, but nobody is filing reports. It's no case, it's a…rumor."
"We notice a whole lot. We just don't have the manpower to chase everything." He added on.
Coffee looked back at the shut door, like he spotted a shadow in the bright gaping hole underneath. In the quiet room, he spoke one more line.
"This city is full of people that nobody is looking for."