Free We Are Unprepared by Meg Little Reilly

facedown in the fall leaves. The feeling was unbearable, like no other concern I’d ever felt. That wasn’t even the word for it: concern . It was heartsickness and desperation—and I had known August for only a few months. I wondered how his parents were feeling at that moment. Desperation mixed with guilt. Those motherfuckers. I felt guilty now, too, for not seeing it all sooner. All of a sudden, I wanted to find them and push them into the forest floor, make them stay there all night. Whatever happens to them will be deserved, I thought. But August, we have to find August. Stay focused.
    â€œAsh? Ash!” Bev was right beside me, yelling to break through my nightmarish thoughts.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou look pale. Are you okay? I need you to stay with me here.”
    I rubbed my face with my hands. “Yeah, I’m okay. Should we be shouting his name? Let’s do that.”
    â€œYes, okay,” Bev said. She seemed at least as frightened as I was, but not as confused. Bev had seen families like this, cases like this, no doubt. She was probably fighting back her own images of what had become of August, but hers would be more vivid and plausible because she’d seen it all before, I imagined.
    We watched our feet as we walked along the uneven forest floor, veering close to each other and then back out again. I shouted August’s name, loud and hoarse. It hardly sounded like my own voice and I wondered if the boy would recognize me if he heard it from afar. As I walked, I had a strange realization that this was the longest I’d gone in weeks without thinking of The Storms. The weather seemed insignificant all of a sudden. And then it didn’t. What if the weather changed tomorrow, before we find August, and he’s trapped out here without a coat? What if the cloud cover gets so bad that he can’t use the sun for direction and time? This was fear compounded by fear.
    I wanted to ask Bev how this works. How long do we look and what clues can we search for and where were the police... But we just kept going. Step, step, shout. Step, step, shout. After an hour, I excused myself to pee behind a large tree and check my phone, hoping to see a message from Pia. I wanted to tell her what was going on and ask her to join me. This was too hard without her. She would be a help and a comfort. But she hadn’t called. As far as she knew, this was still a normal day in which she could stay mad for hours and wander back when the feeling faded.
    I sent her a text: August is missing. Please come home. I’m sorry for everything.
    Within seconds, she responded: I can be there in twenty. That’s horrible.
    I felt a small, unsatisfying flash of relief as I pushed my phone into the back pocket of my jeans, but then I was back in reality, looking for my lost seven-year-old friend. He was my friend. That was the word, I suppose. Or was I his mentor? His surrogate big brother? It wasn’t the sort of friendship I’d had before, but I wasn’t a parent, so what else could I have been?
    I looked up to find Bev talking to August’s parents. I wasn’t close enough to hear what they were saying, but she was moving her hands around, giving them instructions.
    When I approached them, Bev said, “These guys are going to go back to the house in case August shows up there. The police are moving toward us from the far end of this forest. Ash, if you’re up for it, you and I can just keep pressing forward until we meet the cops. Hopefully, one of us will find something before that happens.”
    Find something. It sounded like a compromise in expectations and it made my head hurt.
    â€œYes, of course. Let’s keep going.”
    I sent Pia one more text explaining that we were too deep into the woods for her to meet us and that I would be back when I could. I wanted to hear her voice, but the reception was too poor for anything more than that. I looked back up at Bev The