Chapter 2

Cold sweat instantly drenched my back.

I stared at the photo, my fingers rubbing the screen aggressively as if I could rub her back into existence.

"No... this is impossible!"

"Who photoshopped this? Who touched my phone?"

The old man’s anger turned into pity. He shuffled back a bit.

"Kid, your brain is fried. Go home and take your meds."

The door of 501 slammed shut. The hallway fell into a dead, suffocating silence, save for the buzzing of the cheap fluorescent light.

I leaned against the rusty railing, gasping for air, my heart hammering against my ribs.

The deactivated phone could be a coincidence. Her relatives denying her existence could be a conspiracy. But how did the photo explain itself?

My phone had never left my side. Only Maya and I knew the passcode.

Had some hacker breached my phone just to wipe Maya out of my life? What kind of insane vendetta would that require?

Maya was just an ordinary girl. How could she trigger someone that powerful?

Unless... that "oil prince" was the problem!

My brain was a chaotic mess. I knew I couldn't stay here.

I had to go home. My parents would definitely remember Maya!

Maya basically lived at our house growing up because her own parents didn’t give a crap about her. She was always over at our place, eating our food.

My mother, Helen, was a snob. She used to look down on Maya for being poor.

But the moment she heard Maya was going to Dubai to marry a billionaire, her attitude flipped instantly.

She even bought expensive glass mason jars just to pack organic jam for Maya to take with her.

I stumbled down the stairs, hailed another cab, and rushed to my parents' house.

The moment I burst through the door, I saw my mom lounging on the couch, eating sunflower seeds while watching TV, and my dad, Richard, tending to his plants on the balcony.

"Mom! Something terrible has happened!"

I rushed over and grabbed her arm.

"Maya is gone! Her phone is disconnected, her Snapchat is gone, and she’s literally vanished from our photos!"

My mom flinched, spilling her seeds all over the floor. She patted her hands clean, looking irritated.

"Chloe, did you go crazy just because you quit your job? Act your age."

"Mom, I’m serious! Maya said she was marrying a prince and would send us a million dollars each!"

"You even asked her to get you a limited-edition crocodile Birkin bag..."

My mom reached out and felt my forehead, her brow furrowing in confusion.

"No fever. Why are you talking nonsense? Who the hell is Maya? What Dubai prince?"

She turned and yelled toward the balcony, asking my dad if I had lost my mind over money.

My dad pushed up his reading glasses and walked in.

"Chloe, a job is just a job. You don’t need to make up stories to cope with losing it."

Looking at their familiar yet suddenly alien faces, a chill crept down my spine.

"Mom, Dad, stop playing! Maya was my high school roommate! We slept in the same bed!"

"Remember Thanksgiving two years ago? She accidentally ruined the gravy by putting chocolate syrup in it! You don't remember that?!"

I grabbed my mom’s shoulders, shaking her desperately.

My mom shoved me away with surprising force.

She stood up, pointing a finger angrily at my face.

"Chloe, have you been possessed?"

"You've been an awkward loner with zero friends since you were a kid! Where did this 'Maya' come from?"

"And that Thanksgiving incident? You were the one who ruined the gravy and blamed it on a make-believe friend!"

"Stop reading those trashy billionaire romance novels. They’ve rotted your brain!"

I collapsed onto the floor. The cold hardwood sent a shiver through me, instantly clearing my head.

A make-believe friend?

I looked up at the family portrait on the wall.

It was taken last Christmas. Maya had insisted on squeezing in, standing right between me and my mom.

Now, in the photo, there was a bizarre, empty space between us.

My posture in the photo looked incredibly unnatural. My arm was hovering in mid-air, as if wrapping around a ghost.

"This photo is wrong! If I wasn't holding someone, why is my arm raised like that?!"

I pointed at the wall, my finger shaking.

My mom let out a cold laugh. "You said your shoulder was stiff that day and wanted to stretch it out."

"Chloe, I'm taking you to see a therapist tomorrow. You’re having hallucinations."

Everyone was telling me it was a hallucination.

If this were before, I might have actually doubted my own sanity and believed I had conjured up a best friend in my mind.

But then, as my mom turned around to pour some water, I spotted something poking out from under the couch cushion.

An airline ticket stub.

Destination: Dubai. Passenger: Tyler. My deadbeat younger brother.

The date on the ticket: Yesterday!

Why did Tyler fly to Dubai on the exact same day Maya went missing?

My parents were lying. They were trying so hard to deny Maya's existence. What were they hiding?

While my mom was in the kitchen, I reached under the cushion, pulled out the ticket stub, and shoved it into my pocket.

The sharp edge of the paper sliced my palm. The sting kept me brutally sharp.

Maya was real.

Her "disappearance" was a meticulously planned crime. And my parents were accomplices.