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It had been a week since I had seen Darrick.

It was quiet and odd without my nearly constant companion with me. I found myself sitting and staring at walls a lot, thinking. The vision of him running off, and that haunting look on his face, played in my head on loop.

I was sitting in the living room, alone. The decorations from my party were all gone, and everything was still and silent except for the grandfather clock ticking away. My mood had been pretty miserable since it happened. I ended up locking myself in my room during my party. My parents tried to help, but it had just been too much for one day, and I needed to be alone. Now, I wanted nothing more than company.

My mom blamed herself, naturally. I tried explaining to her that it wasn't anything she did, and that Darrick had actually asked to live with us right before he left.

I just didn't understand. Why did he leave? Why was he avoiding me?

I was left with absolutely nothing. His phone was always off, and since I had never been to his house, I had no idea where he lived. He was just gone. Poof.

There was an emptiness inside of me that grew a little more every time I thought of him. I had run out of tears crying at night when my parents weren't around; I didn't want them knowing I was hurting so badly. The frustration in me was starting to turn to resentment. Was he punishing me? What did I do?

I closed my eyes and laid back on the couch. My paws rested on my chest and I felt them rise and lower with my steady breath. I just wanted to not feel this pain anymore. I had lived just fine without Darrick before, so why was it so hard to do it again now?

A sharp pang hit me as I realized that I might never see him again. I felt my heart beat faster, as I desperately tried to cling to the hope that there was some reason for him disappearing, and that he'd be back soon. But sometimes hope aches. I felt my eyes try to wet themselves in vain. God, it hurt so badly.

"Jude?" I heard a soft voice ask.

I opened my eyes and saw my mom walking into the living room holding something in her paw. I closed my eyes again. "Yes?"

"How are you feeling?" I heard the chair next to the couch creak as she sat down.

"Ok."

"I found something. Something that might help."

I opened my eyes again. She was holding out a paper booklet. I sat up and took it. It was the school directory. I looked up at her.

"That has the names, phone numbers and addresses of everyone at your school," she said.

I felt my pulse quicken again. This was it. My mind rushed as I realized that this could lead me to him.

"Unless," she added, "he opted out of being in it. Some families do that for privacy reasons." She watched me, trying to gauge how I was feeling. "I didn't know Darrick's last name, so I didn't check yet."

My paws trembled as I held the book, and I felt my throat tighten. God, I hope he was in there. I thumbed through the pages until I found the 'H' section. My eyes raced over the names, terrified that he wasn't there. The words were a blur with the adrenaline pumping through me, and I had to calm myself down and re-look.

'Heagle, Heed, Heff, Helm.' My fur stood on end as I read out loud: "Helm, Darrick R., 746-7734, 1652 Apple Blossom Ave."

I looked up at my mom, who had a warm smile on her face. I looked back down at the words, reading them over and over, committing them to memory.

"Do you want to go see him?" she asked, reaching out and touching my shaking paw.

I nodded, and she pulled her car keys out from her pocket.

We were out to the car before the house door even had a chance to close. I had to keep from bouncing I was so excited. I had a lot of pent up energy from withdrawals bubbling inside of me. I hadn't gone this long without seeing Darrick since I met him.

My mom was beaming as she drove. I watched the houses flash by, and I remembered that Darrick used to walk this when we first met. It seemed like a long walk. But, it also meant that we had to be close already.

And then the doubt hit me. If we were so close, why hadn't he come to see me? Why hadn't he called? I had been glued to my phone, jumping to answer any noise it had made for the last week. Was he mad at me? Maybe I had done something. Maybe he didn't want to see me. If he wanted to see me, he would have. What if he'd be angry that I showed up?

"Mom?" I asked. She glanced over, keeping her eyes on the road. "Do you think Darrick won't want to see me?"

She was quiet. "Well..." she started. I saw her grip the wheel. "People are complicated, sweetie. I would think he would want to see you."

"But what if he doesn't?"

"Well, then we go home and try again later. Who knows what's going on with him. Sometimes people just need alone time."

"Like me at the party?"

"Yeah. And it's important to let people get the time they need, but just as important that we don't give up on them."

"That makes sense."

The car pulled up to a dark brown house with a black door. We both stared at it. My paw moved to the door handle, but I couldn't get myself to pull it.

"We can always come back tomorrow, if you're not ready," she said in that calming tone only a mother could have.

"No," I said, feeling the door pop open. "We're here." I stepped out, and looked back at my mom who still had her paws on the wheel.

"Go on ahead. I'll be here if you need me." She shooed me away.

I closed the door and stiffly walked to the large black door. It was oddly quiet in the neighborhood. I stared at the gold doorbell, feeling a pit form in my stomach. I reached out and hit the little white button. A distant chime rang in the house. And I waited.

My ears strained to pick up any sound from in the house that they could. But it was quiet. After a minute of standing on the stoop, I rang the doorbell again. The chimes gave their little tune again, and everything went back to being quiet.

My knuckles rapped on the wooden door. Nothing. I hit a little harder. Still silence. I looked back at my mom, who was leaning down to see me. I gave a shrug. She motioned for me to check out back.

I hopped off the stoop and walked to the side of the house. There was a large fence. I walked up to it and peeked between the planks. It looked empty. I jumped up to see if I could get my eyes over the top, but I was too short. I walked over to the window, and tried to peer in, but the drapes were closed. I walked around to the other side, but only could see more closed windows and the other edge of the fence. I listened. Silence.

Defeated, I walked back to the car. As I closed the door, I felt my face swell, and tears ran down my cheeks.

"Oh sweetie!" my mom said, wrapping her arms around me. As I felt the first embrace I had gotten in a week, I couldn't keep it in anymore and I let it all out, burring my face in her shoulder, staining her blouse dark with my tears. "He's not gone forever. Maybe they're just on a vacation."

Her paws rubbed my back, but I couldn't be soothed. Not after another drop like that. I shouldn't have let my hopes up.

The drive home was quiet and rough.

"The important thing is that we know where his house is, so we can keep checking," my mom said, as we walked into the house. I headed straight for my room and closed the door without a word.

We did check back. It started daily. Then turned to weekly. When the 'For Sale' sign appeared in the lawn, I had to hold in my scream. I had lost him. He was gone forever. Without even a goodbye.

Summer was soon at an end, and the school year began. It was a welcome distraction from my thoughts, but the quiet nights alone stung the most; lying in my bed, holding a pillow close, wishing he was still there.

I had pinned the photo of us up from my birthday above my computer, the moment before our lives got complicated, when I was still his, and he was still mine, when we had our own world just for the two of us, but it felt like someone was stabbing me in the chest every time I looked at it, so it now existed under a pile of old notebooks in my desk drawer.

Slowly, as all lost things do, he started fading. The pajamas he had left behind that I kept in a special spot stopped smelling like him. I no longer felt comfort sitting under our tree, listening to the breeze without his antlers nudging my cheeks. It got harder and harder to remember the color of his eyes.

He was becoming just another painful memory in my past.