“Christian was on his paper route early in the morning when he disappeared and was never found again. They never found his body, just the outfit he was wearing and some DNA on a knife they found by a river.”

Krista started to break down. I could see her jaw wobble from across the circle.

“I’ve spent the last six years basically sitting in my house, crying every night about Christian. Just thinking about what happened to him, recreating it in my head, over and over again, until I almost want to kill myself.”

Krista broke down for a few seconds, sobbed into her drink which only I knew was spiked.

“And I just wanted to share my story and meet some other women, and men, potentially, like me,” Krista barely got her last statement out before sobbing some more and taking a big swig of her drink.

The group responded a flurry of sobs from around the whole circle, myself included.

I anticipated the group engulfing Krista as soon as the meeting was over, so I picked off the last of the cheap cookies and waited out in front of the church with the plan to smoke cigarettes until Krista came out. I was fully aware that my strategy was like that of some kind of 50s greaser punk looking to get sweet with a young coed, but I didn’t care. I wanted to talk to Krista one-on-one and didn’t want to risk her slipping away.

I couldn’t have killed my smoke faster when I saw Krista walk out of the front doors of the church. There could have been a baby at my feet and I still would have let that burning ash fall right down on its bonnet.

“Krista,” I blurted out her name before we even came face-to-face.

Krista jumped back in fright as soon as she heard my voice. I grabbed my heart and apologized. I put an arm around her and walked with her towards the parking lot.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just wanted to touch base with you before we both went home. I just think we have so much in common.”

“It’s okay and I couldn’t agree more,” Krista responded and stopped at the driver’s side door of a filthy Ford Focus.

I watched Krista unlock her car and take her cell phone out of her clutch.

“Let’s exchange numbers,” Krista suggested and my heart fluttered.

The exchanging of numbers went smoothly and within less than a minute, I was standing in the parking lot watching the taillights of Krista’s Ford pull out onto the road.

After catching my breath, I turned around to hustle back to my car parked on the other side of the church, but didn’t make it far.

I tumbled down to the hard asphalt, having tripped on something that had been resting just behind my feet. It was Krista’s black clutch.

“Hi Krista, it’s Holly. Already, I know…but, I found your clutch in the parking lot outside your car. You must have dropped it when we traded numbers. Anyway. I’ll wait here for about 20 minutes, but then I gotta hit the road back down to Forsyth. Maybe we can meet up for coffee or a drink or something tomorrow if we can’t connect tonight. Alright. Bye.”