See You Later

by Tara Tevald

When they got to the front steps of the house, they could still see the remains of the police tape that had been covering the door. The investigation had wrapped up just days ago; the cause of death was ruled as an accidental self-poisoning. The funeral had been small and brief, as the woman didn’t have any family besides her son. 

They knew that Hudson hadn’t been taking the death of his mother very well. He’d hardly said a word to any of them in the past few days, barely even leaving the house anymore. 

“...I’m gonna be honest with you, I don’t want to go in there alone,” Eileen said.  

“We’ve been in there before?” Julius gave her a look. “We went there two days ago and you were fine.” 

“I don’t know. It just gives off a weird energy- it’s like a tomb.” 

“Well, yeah, a woman died in there,” Julius said. 

“Should we..?” Joseph asked. “Should we… all go in there, then?” 

The other two nodded. 

The door opened at the slightest touch, unlocked.  

As they crossed the threshold, Julius clinging to his sister’s hand, they felt a chill in the air. It was November, and the house was easily a few degrees colder inside than it was outside. Eileen flicked on the lights, half-expecting there to be a chalk tracing of a body on the floor like in Law and Order, but the floors had been wiped clean. 

“It’s quiet,” Julius said. “Maybe he’s not here.” 

“Hudson..? Joseph tried, addressing the house as a whole. “We’re inside. If you’re here, you should come out.” 

“Try calling him?” Julius suggested. “I know he hasn’t picked up when we tried before, but maybe we’ll hear his phone ringing?” 

Eileen pulled out her cell and dialed. Everyone stopped and listened. 

A faint noise, barely distinguishable from the sound of the anxiety beating in Eileen’s ears, buzzed faintly in the distance, somewhere in the house. 

“Hud, we’re worried about you!” Eileen called up the stairs, listening for the buzzing to grow louder. It stopped after a few rings, and she dialed again. “We haven’t seen you in days, we just want to make sure you’re okay!” 

The faint buzzing continued. 

“If you don’t answer, we’re gonna come upstairs,” Joseph warned. 

They paused again, straining their ears for an answer, a creaking floorboard, anything. 

“Hudson?” Julius called his name again. 

Nobody came. They started up the stairs, Eileen leading the charge with her brother and Joseph in tow. 

Hudson’s bedroom was on the top floor, in what was probably an attic space before he and his mother had moved in. There were three locks on the door. 

“...They’re all facing the wrong way. The latches are on the outside.” Eileen knocked on the door. “Hud, either come out, or we’re breaking in.” 

The buzzing was louder now, but there was no other noise on the other side of the door. Eileen opened it. 

Eileen had only met Hudson’s mother once, while the other two had met her a handful of times, but one time was enough for her. It had been years ago, she had a hard time remembering how long ago exactly, but it was the end of either freshman or sophomore year. 

She’d bolted awake with the sound of someone banging on their door, hard enough that it sounded like someone was trying to break it off of the hinges. Her bedroom window faced the street. It had been open that night, since the weather had been sticky and hot recently. 

“I know he’s in there!” rang out a woman’s voice from the street below. “Let me in!” 

She heard her dad’s heavy footsteps stomp down the stairs, and the creak of the front door opening. She could hear a muffled argument taking place on the floor below. She turned to look at the digital clock on her nightstand. The display read 4:29 a.m. 

The door to her bedroom opened. Julius was still in the slightly-ratty sweatpants and band t-shirt he used as pajamas. 

“Come on.” He motioned for his sister to follow him.

“What’s going on down there?” she asked.  

“No idea, come on.” 

She followed her twin down the stairs, where the argument grew louder and louder. 

“...I told you, lady, Hudson’s not here,” their father said in a firm voice. He was talking to her through the outer screen door, barring the woman from entering. 

She was younger than their father, probably in her early forties. Unlike her son, she was pale, with knotted red hair that stuck out in every direction. She stared their father down with cold eyes, managing to look menacing even in her fluffy bathrobe and slippers. 

“I know he’s here,” she seethed, looking seconds away from ripping through the screen that separated them and tearing his throat out. 

She looked behind their father and noticed the twins standing at the foot of the stairs, watching the exchange take place. Their father turned around, following her glare. He shot his kids a look, jerking his head towards the stairs. Julius shook his head. 

“You have ten seconds to tell me where he is, or I’m calling the police!” Hudson’s mother screeched. No wonder Hudson hated her. The woman was batshit. 

“He’s not here,” Julius said sternly, trying to imitate his father’s tone. “Go home.” 

“Like I’d listen to you, delinquent,” the woman spat. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me where he is!” 

Their father bristled at her talking about his son like that. He crossed his arms, staring her down. He was at least a foot taller than her, and both of his kids knew that he could snap her like a twig if he wanted to. The fact that he was a retired cop cemented that fact in even further. 

“Listen here, lady,” he said, his voice devoid of any emotion. His children knew the boiling rage behind that voice, counting down the seconds to it bubbling over. “You have ten seconds to leave my property and never talk to me or any of my kids like that again, or I’ll be the one that’s calling the police, not you.” 

“Tell my son not to bother coming home.” With that, the woman left in a huff, muttering to herself. 

As soon as she was out of earshot, all of the tension left their father’s body, and he let his shoulders go slack. He turned back to them. “You should call Hudson. Tell him that wherever he’s at, he has a place to stay here for as long as he needs.” 

Julius nodded and ran up the stairs to get his phone. Eileen gave her dad a hug. “Are you going to call the police?” 

“One of you needs to find him and ask him what’s going on, make sure he’s alright. I’ll make a call as soon as I can.” 

Hudson hadn’t slept over that night, and they didn’t see him again for almost two weeks. 

When they eventually did, his face was covered in bruises.

“What happened?” Joseph asked, instinctively moving to touch his friend’s face. Hudson flinched away from him, raising his arms up to shield himself. 

Joseph pulled his hand away and Hudson dropped the defensive stance, shaking his head as if he was trying to clear it. 

“...I fell,” he mumbled, looking down at his feet. “Went up to the roof and slipped. Fell face-first.”

“Hud…” Joseph tried to reach out again, but pulled himself back. 

“Stupid, right?” Hudson asked in a shaky voice, smiling with all teeth. “It wasn’t that bad. I’ll be okay.” 

“You know if there’s anything going on… you can talk to us, right?” Julius asked. “We’re not going to judge you, or get you in trouble.” 

“I’m fine.” Hudson insisted, voice steadier. “It was just a stupid mistake that I made, and I got scraped up for it. It’s not a big deal.” 

Eileen opened her mouth to speak, but Hudson immediately talked over her.

“Can we please stop talking about it?” he pleaded, before repeating it quietly, “Please.” 

“Just… next time something happens like that, call us, okay? You can always stay at our place or at Joseph’s if you need to,” Eileen said. 

It looked like a bomb had gone off in the middle of the room. 

Bookshelves were toppled over. A mattress was ripped and spilling out stuffing, stripped bare of any sheets or blankets. A dresser had been reduced to splinters, spilling out old t-shirts and ripped jeans from the smashed drawers. A hole had been punched in the drywall. 

There was no Hudson to be found. 

Only Julius dared to venture further in than the doorframe. 

The only light illuminating the room was what was spilling in from the hallway, as there were no windows up here. 

In their four years of friendship, none of them had ever been in Hudson’s room. They knew that he hated being in there, hated being in the house in general, always sneaking out when he could. They’d always hang out either at the twins’ house or at Joseph’s or around town. 

Something on the floor reflected the light from the hallway. Julius made his way over to it and stooped over to get a better look. Mirror shards were scattered across the wood floor, realizing all too late as one crunched under his shoe. He picked up a particularly large shard, before noticing that it was smeared with dried blood. He recoiled at the sight of it and sent the shard clattering back down to the floor, breaking into even smaller pieces. He wiped his dirtied hand on his pants. 

“If you cut yourself from doing that, I’m not taking you to the hospital.” Eileen made her way into the room, careful of the glass. She crossed over to Hudson’s cluttered desk and found the source of the buzzing. 

Hudson’s cell phone was in bad shape. The screen was shattered, and the home button had come completely off. It was a miracle that it still turned on when she picked it up. 

On the lock screen was a picture of the four of them from last summer, sitting on the beach. Eileen was in her sunhat and the tie-dyed bandana she’d worn for the entire summer, Julius was in his favorite sunglasses, with one arm wrapped around Joseph and the other pulling Hudson into the frame. Hudson was actually smiling. She’d almost forgotten what that looked like.  

The notification banner read “Eileen - 12 Missed Calls”. 

She remembered how they’d fallen over each other after the shot had been taken; Joseph had decided that the best way to get out of the middle was to duck while people were still hanging onto him, sending them all to crash forward into the sand. 

“What do you think happened here?” Joseph asked, moving to stand next to Julius and squeeze his boyfriend’s hand. 

“I don’t know…” Eileen looked over the damage done to the room before returning her eyes to the small desk. “Do you think he would have left a note?” 

Julius stepped over the broken glass to join his sister at the desk, shaking hand still holding onto Joseph’s. He started pulling drawers open. There were crumpled papers, an assortment of pens and pencils, spare ink cartridges, empty soda cans. There was a stack of paper on his desk, but every page was blank. Joseph gently pulled away to start searching a different area. 

He looked over at his sister. “Anything? 

She shook her head. “...I think he’s just… gone.” 

“Guys?” Joseph motioned them over. “I think I found something…” 

He handed Eileen a crumpled piece of paper with her name printed in shaky handwriting at the top. Joseph produced two similar papers, with his and Julius’s names on them. It looked like the words on each of them had been crossed out and rewritten multiple times. 

Eileen, 

I’m sorry, but I’m leaving. 

Eileen, I’m sorry. I don’t know when I’ll give this to you, or if I ever will. 

I can’t tell you why, but I’m leaving. I’m sorry. I want to tell you everything. 

I have to. My mother was 

I’ll be okay. Don’t look for me. I need to figure things out for a while. I don’t know where I’m going, or when I’ll be back. I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m not going to give you an excuse, because all of you deserve more than that. 

The rest was scribbled out beyond recognition. Some parts were torn up beyond recognition. 

Eileen couldn’t help but recall back to the last time she’d talked to him. 

“Jules said I’d find you out here,” she’d said as she stepped out onto the porch. It was the night after the funeral, and Hudson had been staying here with her and Julius and their father while the house was being investigated. 

Hudson turned to her. “I swear to God, if you came out here to ask me if I’m okay…” 

She’d shaken her head, and sat down next to him. “I didn’t think I needed to ask.” 

Neither of them spoke for a moment. 

“I just wanted to say…” She fidgeted with the cuff of her sleeve. “You’re really brave, y'know? Being able to do all of this.” 

“I’m not brave,” he said. “You’d be surprised by how much scares me nowadays.” 

“Hud, you’re brave because you are scared, and you’re still able to get up every morning and face a new day. That’s brave, Hudson.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “Even if you need a push to actually get up sometimes. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t want to get out of bed, no matter what anybody told me. But you went through all of this, and you still got back up.” 

The dark-haired boy stared down at his boots. 

“I mean it.” Eileen said, elbowing him. “You’re the bravest person I know.” 

“How do you do it?” he asked in a soft voice. 

“How do I do what?”

“How do you seem to always have something insightful to say?” He shook his head. “How do you look at someone and know exactly what you need to tell them?” 

“It takes a lot of work,” she said. “You spend enough time around someone, you can kind of just tell from their face how they’re feeling. You spend enough time talking to someone, and you figure out what kind of stuff works.” 

“I guess that makes sense.”

“Everyone’s asking how you’re feeling, when it’s the most obvious answer in the world.” She shook her head. “It really is. I know you’re tired, Hud, and anyone in your position would be scared right now.” 

He didn’t say anything. 

“Talking through things is brave, too,” she said. “There’s plenty of people here that would listen to you, you just have to reach out.” 

“...Sometimes, it feels like she’s still here,” he said, not making eye contact. “I hate it.” 

“At least she can’t hurt you anymore.” She pulled him into a hug. 

After she pulled away, she stood up. “I’m going back inside, if you want to come with me.”

“I think I’m going to stay out here for a little while.” 

“They were in his wastebasket. I guess he decided not to send them,” Joseph said, folding his letter up. 

“...So he really is just gone.” Julius sat on the old mattress, rereading the letter addressed to him. 

“Do either of yours make any sense?” Eileen asked them. 

Joseph shook his head and looked over at Julius. 

“I don’t think he plans on coming back,” Julius said. 

“What makes you say that?” 

“I don’t know, it’s just a feeling.” He shrugged. 

“Should we call the police?” Joseph asked. “Report him as a missing person? It’s been over 24 hours, they have to be able to do something.” 

Eileen looked over at her brother, not knowing what to do. Julius reached over and squeezed her hand. 

“What if he doesn’t want to be found?” Eileen asked. “He said in my letter not to look for him.” 

“Bullshit!” Julius said. “I don’t care if he doesn’t want us to look for him. He’s our friend and he’s obviously hurting, we can’t just sit here and do nothing about it.” 

“There has to be a way to find him without getting the police involved,” Eileen said. 

“What if we do find him?” Joseph asked. “What if we do find him, and he really doesn’t want us to? What if he just wants to be left alone?” 

“...I’d be fine just knowing that he’s okay,” Julius said. “And, y’know, still breathing?” 

“If he’s dead, I’m going to dig him back up, bring him back to life, and kill him again,” Eileen fumed. 

“Why would he be dead?” Joseph asked. 

“Let’s see…” She started counting on her fingers. “One, he’s on his own. Two, he’s eighteen. Teenagers are stupid.”

“...El, we’re eighteen,” Julius said. 

“And we’re idiots- we’ve been over this,” she said. “Three, he has depression, and four, oh, I don’t know, maybe because his mother killed herself?” 

“Joseph’s right- we should definitely go to the police.” 

The investigation dragged on for months. 

And months. 

New leads would come up every now and again before eventually going cold. 

It was a year later. 

It was the seventh of October. Eileen and Julius were nineteen, and Joseph was just two weeks shy of turning twenty when they heard the news. 

The case had been closed. There hadn’t been a new lead in six months. 

He was gone. 

“Well, to getting through a whole year.” Joseph raised his solo cup of stolen liquor. 

They all lifted their cups. Tonight wasn’t a night of celebration, but it was one worth drinking to. 

“...I don’t think we can keep doing this,” Eileen said. “It doesn’t feel like we should be out drinking tonight.” 

“...Yeah.” Julius agreed, taking a drink anyways. 

“I mean, do you even think he’d want us to be doing this?” she asked. 

“El, this isn’t just drinking for the sake of drinking,” Joseph said. “You know that.” 

“I know, but it just doesn’t sit right with me.” 

“...I don’t think he’d want us to be moping around.” Joseph said, voice catching on the lump in his throat. “I just hope that… if he’s still out there, he’s okay, y’know? So this isn’t… This isn’t like, a memorial service or an anniversary or anything. This is just three people, having a few drinks and remembering somebody. I don’t think we’re at fault for that.” 

“You’re probably right,” Eileen said with a shaky voice. 

“This is the hardest part of it, isn’t it?” Julius asked, taking another sip from his cup. “Feeling like we ought to move on, but still holding out hope that we won’t have to?” 

Nobody made eye contact. 

“I miss him, too.” He stared into his drink. 

The years went by. Eventually, everyone moved on and stopped looking for him. One day Hudson was there, the next, he was just gone without a trace. 

Tara Tevald is an aspiring writer whose pieces are heavily inspired by fantasy settings such as the works of J.R.R Tolkien and Dungeons & Dragons. Her short story, "See You Later" is a spinoff piece from a series of stories that she has been writing for the past five years.