She’d been keeping count of the days since she reported Petra missing on the back of an old grocery list. She knew that there were more pressing matters, like being let go from her job due to excessive missed shifts, but she couldn't help it. How was she meant to go on as normal when her best friend had disappeared? None of this seemed right.
With a grunt, she shoved the comically large door to the building open and walked inside. To her left were the mailboxes of all the units, filled to the brim with old bills and junk mail. Her eyes drifted to the mailbox for apartment number 307. Clara didn't know what she was looking for. Piled up mail? Some secret letter Petra had left behind for her? She leaned down and peered into the mailbox. It was empty.
Petra and Clara had been best friends since they were nine. As children, they argued and fought incessantly. But at the end of the day, they would always find each other again. They’d been girls together. They laughed together when they ended up at the same high school, and cried together when they finally graduated from college. Petra was the only constant in Clara's life as an adult. It had been years since she’d last heard from her older brother, and their parents lived overseas. Petra herself seemed to have it all. Clara had met her parents in high school; they were a younger couple fitted with clothing that reeked of money. Why, then, was their only daughter living in such a shabby building? Clara herself wasn’t very well-off, but Petra’s housing arrangements didn't add up with her parents’ status. It was the one thing her friend never talked about. Clara had pushed and pried for ages, but Petra kept quiet. She’d always been good at keeping secrets.