'Fine.' I say, stepping off my porch and onto the lawn. I glance towards Libby's house and wonder if she's watching out of her lounge window. I can't see any movement, so I suppose she's probably busy somewhere else.
'Good.' She grins, 'Can we...talk?'
'Sure.' I nod and lead her round into the back yard. She sits down on one of the chairs and I stay standing.
'These last three weeks apart,' she says licking her lips, 'it's given me a lot of time to think.'
'I know, me too.' I say.
'And what I've been thinking is that I was stupid,' she looks up at me, 'can you sit down please?'
'I'd rather stay standing.' I reply.
'Ok,' she sucks in a breath, 'well like I said, I think that breaking up with you was a stupid, impulsive decision, and I'm sorry that I hurt you.'
'Apology accepted.'
'That's not all.' She giggles, 'Charles,' she smiles sweetly but something about it feels like she's acting. How is it I never saw that before? ' I'm ready to take you back. I was stupid before, and I needed a little time to breathe, but now that's done and I'm ready to be your girlfriend again.'
'Julie,' I don't want to hurt her so I need to tread carefully here, 'I've had a lot of time to think as well, and I don't think that it's a good idea.'
'What isn't?' She looks baffled, but she isn't stupid by any mean. I know that she knows what I'm talking about.
'I don't think it's a good idea that we get back together.' I reply.
'But...Charles, I know that I hurt you, but I'm sorry about that and I'm willing to put it behind us. I'm willing to be your girlfriend again.'
'Willing?' I ask with a raised eyebrow. 'Julie, I don't want someone who's willing to be my girlfriend. I want someone who actually loves me. Who wants to be with me, and isn't just willing to be with me.'
'I could love you.'
'Could,' I shake my head, 'Julie we were together for eight months and through that time you told me that you did love me, and now it's just a could? I can't do that. I loved you...'
'Loved?' She blinks rapidly. I sigh and sit down across from her.
'Yeah.' I say quietly, 'I did love you, but now...'
'You can't have gotten over me. You love me, you adore me.'
'Julie,' I shake my head, 'I did, but this time apart has allowed me to think and I've...'
'No.' Julie shouts, 'no I was supposed to come over here and we were supposed to get back together.'
'I just don't feel the same way about you as I did at the start of summer. You were right to end things, we weren't as happy as we were at the start. I thought I was but I wasn't. You need to find someone that you're happy with.'
'I was...'
'No,' I shake my head again, 'you weren't. If you were happy with me, then you wouldn't have tried to change me.'
'Is that was this is about?' She laughs, 'I was trying to make you better.'
'That's the thing,' I say with more confidence than I feel like I hold, 'I like the way I am, and I don't want to be with someone who feels I need to be made better. I'd like to find someone who will love me for who I am.'
'You won't find someone as good as me, trust me you were dating above your league with me.'
'Julie don't.' I get up. 'Someday you'll find someone, and you'll fall in love with them exactly as they are, and I don't want to see you mess it up by acting like this.'
'Like what?'
'Like you're superior.' I reply.
'But I a...'
'Julie you have money and opportunities in life that people like me won't ever have, but that doesn't make you a better person. It just makes you more fortunate.' I say. 'I hope you can see that before you push too many people away.'
'Why are you doing this?'
'Because I care about you.' I reply, 'You've always been one of my closest friends, and even if that can't last. I don't want to see you get hurt.'
'Why would I get hurt?' She snaps, 'It's not like I love you. You turning me down is nothing.'
'No,' I laugh quietly, 'I don't suppose it is anything to you, but one day you will love someone, and if you act like this, then maybe they won't love you back.'
'Have you fallen for someone else? Is that why you won't take me back?' Julie asks. 'Because whoever it is, they're not better than me.'
'No, there's nobody else.' I reply, 'But someday there will be, someday we'll both meet people who we can love for who they are, and we won't want to change them or feel we have to change because of them.'
'Did I really make you that miserable?' She gets up now as well, crossing her arms over her chest and looking far from impressed.
'I wasn't miserable. That's the thing, I didn't realize how bad our relationship was until it was over.' I shrug, 'I'm sorry Julie, but I can't start over with you. I'd like to remain friends, we've been friends for such a long time, but I can't go back to anything more than that, ok?'
'Do I have much of a choice?' She sulks.
'I have to get back inside.' I look towards the house. 'There's a laundry basket full of stuff I've been ignoring for three days now.'
'Fine, whatever.' She turns on her heels and stomps around the side of my house. I think at first that she'll go straight to Libby's and ask her to back her up, or yell at her about how unreasonable I'm being. She doesn't though, and a minute later I hear her engine switch on and she pulls away a little faster than she should.
I pull out my phone, scroll to Libby's number and hit dial. It rings several times before the line connects.
'Libby's phone, Pippa speaking.' Pippa's clear, bright voice speaks up.
'Hey Pippa, where's your sister?' I ask looking towards their house.
'Wrist deep in bread dough.' Pippa laughs, 'One second, I'll put you on speaker.'
'Hey Char.' Libby's voice sounds slightly far away on speaker.
'Hey, I would have come over, but I'm tackling housework that seems to be never ending. I just wanted to let you know that Julie was just here.'
'Yeah?' Libby sounds just a little hesitant.
'The thing you asked me about this morning, about what my reaction would be if she asked me a certain thing.' I say, aware that Pippa is probably listening in on the conversation.
'Yeah.'
'Well she came over and said that stuff.'
'I figured she probably would.' Libby replies, 'You ok?'
'I'm actually surprisingly good.' I say as I separate a stack of clothes into darks and lights, having moved inside. 'I think it was a long time overdue.'
'Perhaps,' Libby replies, 'I'm glad you're ok. How did she react?'
'Defensive, angry, straying into insulting.' I drop the first load of laundry into the machine, 'Pretty much exactly how she reacts when she doesn't get what she wants.'
'You know you two could make this easier for me to follow.' Pippa pipes up.
'And you could not listen in on my conversations.' Libby replies.
'It's on speaker.' Pippa defends.
'Sorry Char.'
'It's fine.' I laugh, putting my own phone on speaker so that I can get the detergent into the machine, without dropping my cell phone in as well. 'Pippa, we're talking about how Julie asked me to restart our relationship.'
'Oh my goodness.' Pippa gasps, 'I hope you said no, because if you didn't I'm coming over right now to slap you.'
'Pippa.' Libby shouts.
'What? Charles is a smart guy, but Julie makes him stupid.'
'I turned her down, so you don't have to slap me.' I laugh. 'I'm done with that part of my life.'
'Thank goodness.' Pippa replies, 'You're better off without her.'
'We'll see.' I say starting up the machine. 'Of course right now I'd be better off if there wasn't a weird smell coming from the fridge, and the lounge didn't look like a clothing factory exploded inside it.'
'So you need me to let you go?'
'Uh...no actually, it's fine.' I walk over to the sink and turn on the water. 'I have to tackle the dishes from this m
orning, and last night and yesterday lunchtime. So if you want to talk, I can keep my phone on speaker while I do the dishes, and you can keep yours on while you cook.'
'And I'll get bored in five minutes.' Pippa speaks up, 'Is Katie home?'
'She's at the beach with Georgia and Sean. Give her a call, I'm sure she'd be happy to have your company.'
'I will thanks. Bye Charles.' Pippa says happily, and then I hear footsteps.
'So,' Libby draws the word out, 'are you really ok?'
'About Julie, yes.' I reply.
'About other things?' Libby asks.
'Better than I have been.' I answer honestly. I keep talking to her as I make my way through the mountain of dishes in the sink. Only ringing off when my mom calls me needing help with something.
Thirty Six – Julie
The first week of July comes to an end and I've managed to avoid seeing Charles the entire time. It wasn't intentional at first, I was just angry and so I wasn't calling him to arrange a time to hang out, and he wasn't calling me either. So it became pretty simple to actually not see him. This has had a knock on effect though, because it seems like Libby is always busy with him these days. She says that he needs help with his mom, but I think she's using him as an excuse. It's obvious that she's still angry at me, and I don't want to leave town having no boyfriend and no best friend. It's just too lame. So I need to work extra hard to find her dad. I've sort of been slacking recently, and that needs to stop.
I've got caught up working out plans for getting my parents to let me go to France, and then once they said yes, I was spending a lot of time actually thinking about going to France. So I've been neglecting the whole search for a while now. I've done the odd thing or two, but as far as progress goes, I haven't really made any.
I want to buckle down and find him, because that way she'll have no option except to forgive me. Not that she should be mad at me anyway, because so what if I wanted to get back together with Charles, even though I didn't technically love him. I don't want to show up to my end of summer party without a boyfriend, and she got mad at me, and that's without even telling her that I didn't want to be alone at the party. I feel like recently, she's finding our friendship to be more of a hassle than anything else.
She's not going to ditch me though, our friendship will only be over when I say it is, and right now, I don't want to cut that tie.
I do however want to make sense of who she is, and why she never talks about her dad, because it's just so weird. She never talks about him, and that's just strange. He can't have hurt her that badly, right? She's probably overreacting to something small, just like she's doing with me right now.
I'm meeting Carly at her place now to do a bit more research. She's been loving working on this project, so when I called her this morning, she was really excited about getting the chance to start searching again. Over the past couple of days, the only progress I have made, is to figure out that Libby started travelling around when she was twelve, which means that she's only been moving around for about five years, and yet in that time she's lived in nine different states, and several places within those states. Apparently they really didn't want to stay in one place. Again, weird.
I pull up at Carly's house and walk around back to the pool house, which is her bedroom. She's already inside, sitting on her couch with her laptop out.
'Finally.' She says as I walk in. I check the time on my phone.
'I'm only five minutes late. For me, that's an amazing accomplishment.' I laugh. 'Sorry.'
'It's ok, I'm just eager to get going again. This whole detective thing is fun. So,' Carly replies, 'we know that she was born in Oregon right?'
'Yeah.'
'And from the work we've already done,' Carly opens up the file on her computer, which I sent to her last night, 'we know that all of the other places she's lived in, have been with just her mom and sister.'
'Right.' I nod.
'So at some point while she was living in Oregon, her dad left or they left him. So all we need to do is figure out where in Oregon they lived, and then maybe we'll be able to find out what her dad's name is. From there it really shouldn't be all that difficult to track him down.'
'Great, so I guess we just start searching for where in Oregon she came from.' I pull open a google page, and start typing Libby's name, followed by Oregon. I trawl through page after page of search results. Click on link after link hoping to find something, but after an hour of going through internet pages. I haven't found a single thing.
While I've been doing this, Carly has been searching under Libby's mom's name, but she hasn't found anything under that either.
I get up and walk over to the kitchen, opening up the fridge and picking out two bottles of orange juice.
'Vine.' Carly suddenly shrieks. I jump and almost drop the bottles to the floor. 'Julie come here.'
'What's wrong?' I press a hand to my quickly beating heart as I hurry over to the couch. I drop down beside her and put the two bottles on the coffee table, beside where my laptop is sitting, screen open with a list of unhelpful search items listed.
'Elizabeth Vine.' Carly grins at me.
'Who?'
'Libby's last name is Reid, right?'
'Yeah.' I nod.
'Well, I figured, her mom's last name is Reid right?'
'Uh, yeah.' I nod uncertainly. 'So?'
'So we only found that article about Pippa because the term Reid came up along with Pippa, but they never said her last name was Reid. They didn't give hers, they did say that her mom was about to marry a local guy called Matthew Reid. That's why putting in Pippa Reid found that article. Libby must have taken on Matt's last name after her mom got married.'
'But...he didn't adopt them.'
'No, but they must have changed their names.' Carly replies, and then points at an article on the screen. I read the headline on the newspaper's site.
Police chiefs eleven year old daughter, Elizabeth Vine, involved in a home invasion, leaving her in the hospital.
I stare at the headline and then look at Carly. Her eyes are wide with excitement, and there's a grin on her face.
'You think this girl, Elizabeth Vine, is Libby Reid?'
'It adds up.' Carly says. 'Both of them are called Elizabeth, this girl would have been the same age that Libby was when she lived in Oregon, and this girl lives in Oregon.'
'But...oh my goodness,' I grab the laptop and start reading the article.
In a shocking attack on police chief Duncan Vine's house late yesterday night, Vine's eleven year old daughter, who woke during the invasion while her mother and younger sister slept soundly, was brutally attacked.
Police chief Vine, who was travelling home from work at the time of the attack, arrived home to find his daughter unconscious at the bottom of the stairs. His wife and younger daughter were both still sleeping. It is believed that since their rooms were on the third floor of the town house, while Elizabeth's was on the second floor, that it was only Elizabeth who was roused by the sound of the intruders.
Several items were taken from the Vine household, including almost $2,000 in cash from a safe in Duncan Vine's office. Classified police documents, and other valuables were also taken. However the devastating effect of the invasion, was not in what was lost, but in what Duncan Vine found.
In a statement given to the local press by Duncan Vine himself, he stated tearfully that it was a horrific sight. He came home, and almost immediately saw his young daughter lying at the bottom of the stairs. He sobbed as he told the press about the amount of blood surrounding his beaten daughter.
Elizabeth was rushed to the nearest hospital, where she remains in a critical condition today. The latest information tells us that although her injuries are extensive, she will almost definitely survive the horrific attack.
It is suspected that this hateful crime was carried out by one of the many enemy's that Duncan Vine has made over the course of his career. Since being named as chief of Poplar Hills Pol
ice Department almost seven years ago, Duncan Vine has been responsible for the arrest and following imprisonment of countless criminals.
The police department has no firm suspects at this time, but they are diligently working to find out who is responsible for this terrible attack.
I breathe heavily as I stare at the screen. It has to be her. Carly's right, there are too many coincidences for it not to be her. I feel chills running up and down my arms.
'It's her, isn't it?' Carly says just above a whisper. I nod silently.
'She was almost killed in a home invasion.' I feel light headed as I say it. 'That's why they moved and kept running.'
'Her dad must have realized that he was a risk to them, because of his job. He must have sent them away, divorced her mom and told them to leave.'
'Someone was targeting his family, as revenge for being put in jail.' I shake my head. We'd joked about her being on the run, but I'd never truly believed that she was, not deep down. Now, though, the proof is staring me right in the face.
'That's why she doesn't talk about him, she's scared if people know who she really is, then the people looking for his family, may find her.' Carly is still whispering. I feel like I should be as well, even though nobody is around to hear us.
'He lost his family to try and protect them.' I keep my eyes on the screen. 'He must miss them so much.'
'So...what do we do?' Carly asks.
'I...' I keep my eyes focussed on his name on the screen, 'We know his name now, and where he lives or lived.'
'You want to contact him?'
'I think he deserves to know where his daughters are.'
'But...what if it isn't safe?'
'He's a police chief, right?' I say biting my lower lip.
'Yeah.'
'So if there's still a threat, then he won't contact them and he'll keep it quiet about where they are. But maybe the threat is gone, and he's been trying to find them, but they moved around too much and changed their names. I'm sure that after all these years, the people who attacked Libby aren't still wanting to hurt her.'
'Well then, ' Carly takes her computer, 'I guess we find a phone number for that police station.'
Between Now and Goodbye Page 21