All the things weve done, p.1
All the Things We've Done, page 1
Paperback Prints, LLC
All the Things We’ve Done
Copyright © 2023 by A.L. Kent
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For more information visit:
www.alkentwrites.com
Book and Cover design by Qamber Designs
ISBN: 979-8-9878585-1-6
First Edition: May 2023
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book contains material that may be triggering for some readers. Reader discretion is advised. For a complete list of trigger warnings, please visit
www.alkentwrites.com
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Then
Chapter 2
Then
Chapter 3
Then
Chapter 4
Then
Chapter 5
Then
Chapter 6
Then
Chapter 7
Then
Chapter 8
Then
Chapter 9
Gone
Chapter 10
Then
Chapter 11
Then
Chapter 12
Then
Chapter 13
Then
Chapter 14
Then
Chapter 15
Gone
Chapter 16
Then
Chapter 17
Then
Chapter 18
Then
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Prologue
Archford Township Residents Urged to be Vigilant
The family of David Woods is appealing to residents of Archford Township and surrounding suburbs to aid in search of the missing teenager.
18-year-old David “Davey” Woods disappeared in the early morning of May 16th. His last known location was his parent’s Archford Township home. He did not take his cell phone or identification and has not used any debit or credit cards since his disappearance. He was last seen wearing black sweatpants and a red t-shirt.
David is described as a gentle boy and loyal friend. He is 6’2” with light brown hair, green eyes, and of medium build. His sudden disappearance is entirely out of character.
“We encourage any peers who may have seen him or knew his whereabouts that night to come forward with any information.”
Police urge anyone who sees David to contact them immediately and advise that this is an emergency.
Please contact the Archford Township police with any further information.
Chapter One
Now
The Michigan air is hot, muggy, and I already miss Boston. It’s still May, not technically summer yet, but the air has already turned warm. I’d left Boston in a flurry of last-minute packing after burnout from final exams. My parents drove to pick me up, and I’d mostly slept on the ride back, much to their dismay. They wanted to know how their only child’s first year of college had been.
I sprint out of the car the second my parents pull up to our house, fumbling with my keys in the lock. The familiar smell of home hits me as I bound inside. It’s just as cozy as I remember, with dark wood, heavy rugs, and light curtains to add airiness.
I originally wasn’t going to come home for the summer after my first year of college—too many memories. But having to find a place to stay for the summer outside of the dorms seemed like an overly daunting task. The promise of no rent and the idea of seeing my parents again were much more enticing.
My parents and I lug my bags upstairs. I managed to cram all my things into two suitcases, along with a duffel bag and my backpack. Everything else, like my mini fridge, I stored in the dorm basement until my eventual return in August.
I chug a glass of water in front of the kitchen sink as my parents sit at the counter behind me.
“Barbecue this weekend, don’t forget,” my dad says. “Before you and Sorrel make plans with your little friends and leave us behind.”
“Dad,” I say in a teasing tone. He was right, though. I used to spend more time with my friends, Sorrel included. We’ve been best friends since we were in kindergarten. My parents never minded; they had their friends too.
“Laine, honey, Sorrel’s mom wants you to teach Eden lessons again,” my mom says to me. Eden, Sorrel’s little sister, has been playing piano since she was little. She never practices, but she’s not bad. His mom always wants me to teach her, and I don’t really mind.
I head back upstairs to unpack. I tried not to bring too much, as I don’t want to drag it all back when the time comes to leave again.
My bedroom still feels like home, even after months spent living away. The walls are filled with posters and pictures from high school, some of me and some of my old friends. Most of them are from Davey—he always took pictures and gave them to us as presents. I stare at the one of all of us positioned in a frame on my desk. It features me, Arthur, Mackenzie, Sorrel, and Davey, taken homecoming of our senior year.
There should have been one from prom too, but we never made it there together. I turn the frame facedown.
Books and piano trophies still line my shelves. They’re dust free, so one of my parents must have cleaned them for me.
I text Sorrel. Our parents are close friends too, and he’s lived down the street from me for years.
Laine: Hey, are you back yet?
He responds within a minute.
Sorrel: Yeah, I got in a couple days ago. You?
Laine: Just got home. Wanna come over?
He sends a thumbs up emoji, and five minutes later the doorbell rings. Sorrel stands outside wearing basketball shorts and a t-shirt, his bike propped up against the side of our garage. His hair is in short twists, and his dark skin glows in the early afternoon sunlight. He lifts me off my feet in a hug. He’s always towered over me.
“Missed you, Lainey-bear.”
I smile at the nickname, a leftover from childhood. Only my closest, oldest, friends call me that.
We’d met when Sorrel’s family had moved into the same subdivision as mine, made up entirely of Black families.
Sorrel is the closest thing I have to a sibling. We’d always been together, especially since he lived so close to me. Even after everything with Davey happened senior year, and our friend group became four instead of five.
“You smell like incense,” I say, wrinkling my nose. I take another sniff. “It’s not bad but it’s like...really strong.”
He rolls his eyes hard. “My mom’s cleansing the house. The smell is everywhere.”
“Sorrel!” My dad claps him on the back. “Haven’t seen you here for a while. How’s college?”
“All good. You know me, pops. Been busy.”
I leave them to get a glass of water from the kitchen and go to my room to finish unpacking. My drawers are half empty, and the things I left behind are scattered all over my room. I pull open my bottom dresser drawer, and I’m startled by something that isn’t mine. Davey’s sweatshirt, his favorite, lucky one that he used to wear on game days. I push it to the back of the drawer and try to push him to the back of my mind.
I’m done with one suitcase by the time Sorrel comes up to join me. He flops on my bed, his feet dangling over the edge.
“You staying for the whole summer?” he asks.
“Yeah. How’ve you been? Do anything fun?”
“Nah. Got a girlfriend though.”
“Ooh, what’s she look like?” I lie down next to him.
He pulls his phone from his pocket and shows me a picture of the two of them. She’s dark skinned with long dreads and a big smile. “Her name’s Kara.”
“She’s pretty. You know I gotta tease you about her, right?” I flick his arm.
He elbows me but smiles softly. “She’s coming to visit in a couple months, you can tease both of us then. I think you’ll like her.”
Hopefully I will. Sorrel didn’t have the best track record with girlfriends; the last one he’d had in high school hadn’t liked how close our friendship was.
He helps me unpack the rest of my suitcase and the handful of books I brought home with me. I hadn’t had the time or energy to read during college, but I have hope for this summer.
“You going to read all these?” He flips over a book to glance at the back cover.
“I actually have time to read now, without all the crap they made us do in high school.” We’d both gone to Constance Briar Preparatory School. Rigor breeds excellence is their motto, and they worked us to the bone.
“You need to relax, Lainey. Really.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I don’t say anything. He isn’t wrong. I’d only signed up for a couple clubs at college and had a small commitment to play piano in one of the musicals. A huge change from the overload I’d had in high school with
Instead, I ask him if he wants to get food.
“Thought you’d never ask, Lainey. I’m starving,” he says.
I roll my eyes. “I’ll drive.”
We drive to the downtown area of our suburb, Woodland Hills. It’s not far away, and it only takes us ten minutes for me to drive down. I didn’t drive in the city and I missed my car, my dad’s old white Ford SUV.
It’s not a proper downtown area, just a small suburban one with a few restaurants, a movie theater, some boutique stores, and hair salons. We go to Maria’s, the twenty-four-hour diner that we frequented the most in high school.
The streets are empty enough that I find a parking space right out front. The food is standard cheap diner food. It’s early enough that the diner isn’t crowded and full of people from Constance Briar. Luckily, that only happens until after school gets out at three.
We slide into the same booth we’ve always used, the one in the corner with a view of the street out of the front window. We order jumbo sized fries and a large milkshake to split.
Sorrel is the person I’ve kept in contact with the most after high school ended. Thanks to final exams and projects piling up at the end of the year, neither of us have had much time to talk in the past few weeks. It feels good to catch up again. I’d forgotten what it was like to talk to someone who knows all the parts of you and always has. I don’t have to explain anything. I don’t have to guard my past, telling what my life was like before but leaving out Davey.
We stay until just after three o’clock, when the first few Constance Briar kids start to trickle in. The red and blue plaid skirts, blazers, ties, and untucked white shirts, along with expensive cars and backpacks set them apart from everyone else. It feels strange, to see what I used to look like from the outside. It wasn’t that long ago, but it’s hard to imagine myself as that now.
Sorrel needs to pick up Eden from school, so I drop him off in his driveway on the way back home. “I’ll pick my bike up tomorrow,” he yells from his front door.
Back home, I watch some dumb teen drama on Netflix and scroll mindlessly through social media for an hour while sprawled in bed. I close my eyes against the afternoon sun, and I wake up to the tinges of dusk on the horizon.
My parents pick up pizza for dinner, and we eat in the living room together while Blue Planet plays on the TV. My dad loves of nature docs, and it rubbed off on all of us. My parents pepper me with questions about finals and the end of the school year.
“I’m sure you did great,” my dad says.
I’d done well, but I don’t want to talk about school anymore. Finals had been stressful enough.
I told my parents mostly everything. As an only child, I’m lucky to have always been close to my parents. We’d talk almost every Sunday when I was away, so there wasn’t much new that they didn’t already know. Or that I wanted to tell them—I’d kept some of my wilder party antics a secret.
We watch TV and eat pizza until my parents go to bed. My sleep schedule has gotten a bit out of control, and I stay up watching more until two before I’m tired enough to go to sleep.
That night, I dream of Davey. That it was the two of us again, going on a late-night drive to nowhere because neither of us could sleep. I wake up to the ghost of his laugh echoing in my ears.
***
The next day I drive around aimlessly, wandering through my old haunts from high school. I don’t start at Musically Inclined, the music store I’m working at this summer, until next week, and I’m unsure how to fill my time. Sorrel is busy doing small coding projects at his dad’s business, and I don’t want to stay in my house.
I’m getting used to being behind the wheel again after months of not driving at college. I don’t notice I’m following a familiar route until I pass by the lake where Davey lived. Beautiful mansions line the water, docks in the back leading down to small beaches and boats. The neighborhood has the serene calm that comes with obscene wealth. No gates, no locked doors, but security cameras everywhere, stickers on the front doors broadcasting one alarm company or another to warn off intruders.
Davey’s house sits in the middle of a cul-de-sac, a monstrous modern farmhouse style building, styled all white inside by an interior designer.
I have a fleeting thought to stop and ring the doorbell. But I can’t think of what I would begin to say to his mother. Ever since he disappeared near the end of senior year, nothing’s been the same. I’d managed to stop obsessing over it, but I feel anxiety rising in my chest at the thought. I take one hand from the steering wheel and snap a hair tie against my wrist. You need something to pull yourself back, my therapist had told me. This was the best way I could think of to do that, to stop the dread that rises in my chest when I think about him.
I’d promised his mom I would stop by right after he went missing, but I had never managed to visit.
In the end, I drive back the way I came.
I want to be happy to be back in Michigan. Boston had its own problems, but I felt like I could finally breathe with the anonymity of a city. I was on the verge of losing it by the time I left Michigan last summer. I take deep breaths against the rising anxiety and focus on the road, pushing the feelings down.
I do nothing but watch movies and read for the rest of the week. My parents are back at work, business as usual. I scroll through my phone, finger hesitating over the old group chat I had with my four best friends. Now down to three. Me, Mackenzie, Arthur, Sorrel, and Davey. It had always been the five of us, ever since we came together in kindergarten. We fractured under the weight of Davey’s disappearance and hadn’t been able to repair our broken pieces.
***
On Sunday, I get an email about my job at Musically Inclined. They don’t open until ten in the morning, but I’m due there at 9 to learn how to open the store and for orientation. I started taking piano lessons there when I was five, and I’ve been playing ever since. It was part of my decision to be a music major. When I got older, I taught Sorrel’s little sister Eden and some of the younger kids in the neighborhood. It started as a way to make some extra cash, but I stick with it now because I enjoy it.
Musically Inclined said I’d be welcome back anytime, and they’d hired me for the summer when I’d reached out a few months ago about possible teaching positions.
On Monday morning, I roll out of bed at eight, throw myself into the shower, and am dressed and on the way out of the door by eight thirty. My head feels heavy—I’m not really a morning person. I grab a vanilla latte on the way. I stifle a yawn as I walk through the door.
Gretchen works at the front desk. She’s seventy years old, with white hair, pale skin, large black plastic framed glasses, red lipstick, and pearls, always pearls. I’ve never seen her without a brightly colored dress. She’s sweet, and I love the chocolate chip cookies she often brings in for the staff and customers. According to her, she’s been playing piano all her life.
“Hi Laine, dear,” she says when I walk in.
“Hi Gretchen. I’m here for my first day.” I take a long sip of coffee, trying to wake myself up more.
“Oh, that’s right honey, I forgot you’re working here now. I remember when you just started here. Jonas is in the back.” She smiles and gestures behind her.
I make my way to the back of the store, behind the door marked Employees Only. Jonas owns Musically Inclined. He’s a luthier, a string instrument maker, who’d moved here from Austria years ago with his wife. He’d bought the instrument store from his cousin. He plays piano, but cello is his favorite instrument. I think he’s the coolest person. He’s living my dream life, getting to work with musicians all day.
“Ah, Laine, there you are. How is your summer going?” His Austrian accent has faded somewhat over the years, though it’s still faintly there. His wiry brown hair sticks up from his head, his brown eyes bright.
“Good. How are you, Jonas?”
“I’m wonderful, as always. Come.” He gestures for me to follow him. He hands me a stack of papers from his desk. “Here is the list of all the instruments out on the floor. Memorize as best you can, but don’t be afraid to come back and reference what you need. I had you start early. There should be fewer people here this morning. I’m going to start you on the floor this week, and you’ll start lessons later in the summer.”
