Chapter 14
Back home, I click between internet searches about Xander Pomers and the Penango County Police Department’s public records.
But the results for Xander keep me locked in place. A few articles from the same southwestern Pennsylvania news source rehash the details of the day he went missing like a script.
He was seventeen years old.
A rising senior at Stillwell Trail High School.
The son of Margaret and Richard Pomers.
An animal lover and volunteer at the Four Paws Animal Hospital.
The veterinarian spoke with him as he left his volunteer shift at seven p.m.
He called his mom around seven thirty p.m. and said he was skipping dinner to go for a drive.
That was the last time anyone heard from him.
His black Honda Civic was found at Pinehurst Swim Club the following morning.
His car keys were found on a lounge chair.
The articles were updated every month until July 2016. Then the case went cold. Their last piece was titled: What We Know on the One-Year Anniversary of Xander Pomers’s Disappearance.
I skim it quickly, already knowing the answer.
They knew nothing.
But something about this article feels different. The wording of its final sentence isn’t open-ended like the others. No more calls for tips, no new searches, no false hope. Just a flat statement:
Xander Pomers has never been found.
Every article uses the same yearbook photo.
Xander wears an unbuttoned blue-checkered shirt over a white undershirt with a frayed neckline.
Black stud earrings gleam from his ears.
Three chains hang around his neck—one with a cross, another with a shark tooth, and the third with a pendant too worn to make out.
But it’s his face that keeps pulling me closer to the screen.
Every feature is exactly as it is now. His sharp jawline, his fuzzy sideburns. It’s all so defined it makes me self-conscious about my own baby-faced senior portraits.
I rub my smooth cheeks as I try to figure out the color of his eyes. Light brown would be an easy guess. But that would be a disservice. Hazel is too ordinary. Amber too dark. Orange too bright. I decide they’re gold because, like the jewelry in a store window on Main Street, I can’t look away.
He’s the kind of boy who would build a thirsty following if he went missing today. And I’d probably be found at the police station raising awareness about his case in a custom T-shirt and waving a Find Xander poster.
But without me leading the charge, he was just forgotten.
I split my computer screen, snapping my internet search to the left and Xander’s photo to the right. Scrolling through the third page of results, I stop. There’s a different source. One I haven’t seen before—Philadelphia Gay News.
The headline stops me cold:
A Missing Teen’s LGBT Identity Might Hold Clues Related to Disappearance.
My fingers tremble as I click the link. A pdf file loads, revealing a scanned newspaper from 2016. The pages are crooked, their edges tinged yellow with time. I start reading.
A small community in southwest Pennsylvania continues its efforts to find Xander Pomers after he disappeared nearly a year ago on July 16, 2015.
“The Penango County Police Department is still actively investigating his disappearance,” according to the chief of police.
“Detectives have followed a number of leads but have not determined what happened to Xander at that pool.”
Nothing new. But then, a mention of his mom.
Xander’s mother, Margaret, recently discovered personal items in Xander’s room that might reveal he was struggling with his identity.
Among them were drawings, books, and photos with LGBTQ themes.
“I never knew anything about this,” his mother said in an interview with PGN.
“I want to hug him and let him know that whatever he needs to say, it will all be okay. If he’s hiding because of this, or ran away, he doesn’t need to.
I want to share this story so other parents make sure their child knows they don’t need to be afraid. ”
I clamp a hand over my mouth and stare at the wall as my eyes start to burn. I squeeze them shut but that only makes it worse when Xander’s face flickers in the darkness behind my eyelids.
My life didn’t really begin until I came out. No matter how well I scored on a calculus test or how fast I ran a cross-country meet, none of it felt like it mattered. On paper, I was doing everything right. But at home? I felt like a failure.
In middle school, I stood stiff with my hands clasped at my wrists, smile tight, and earbuds in to put as many layers as possible between me and the world. Letting people see the real me meant exposing the cracks, and I wasn’t ready for that.
I’ve known I was gay since I was twelve. But I didn’t know what it meant to live until I told the world. Xander never got that chance. Maybe that’s why he keeps mentioning our “firsts.” He vanished here in Penango’s valley, trapped by hills too steep for him to climb.
Margaret Pomers asked that the following statement be provided on behalf of the family: “Xander’s family and friends miss him very much and want nothing but his safe return home.
Xander, if you are reading this, I love you and miss you dearly, just as you are.
If you can reach out and contact us, please do.
We want to make sure you are safe. Love, Mom. ”
All evidence points to Pinehurst Swim Club as Xander’s last known location. And in a way he’s still there, just not as the person he once was. So, what happened?
A lightning strike is possible. Accidental drowning is also possible.
But if he died there, where did his body go?
Even if a bear got him—like he claims—there would’ve been something left behind.
Or pieces of it. Bones. Or blood. Unless Smokey Bear moonlights as a crime scene cleaner, there’s no way an animal scrubbed the pool deck with bleach.
I’ve thought about running away from home every day for the past year, so it makes sense if Xander wanted to ditch his things at the pool and do the same. But he couldn’t have gotten far without his car. There were no car shares, trains, or taxis to easily take him out of Penango.
None of it adds up. My brain goes haywire trying to make sense of it all. A dull ache creeps across my temples, and I press my fingers against them trying to force the pieces of his story to fit together.
Maybe it’s time I start that Find Xander online community. Better late than never, just like coming out.
He didn’t vanish into thin air.
Unless . . . he wasn’t alone.
And if he wasn’t alone, then maybe he didn’t just die.
Maybe Xander was killed.