A part of me begins to tingle to an uncertain degree. The part of me that wants to scream, that wants to cry, that wants to do anything but watch on in awe. I feel afraid, but the confusion outweighs it. I can’t be scared of something that I know nothing about.
“She can’t go back to C,” Pastor says. “It’s too much of a risk. Placing her back there was a mistake. Despite the research, we will have to make adjustments.”
“That was my mistake and I take full responsibility for that. I should have had her checked over physically before administrating her release.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he says, observing me thoughtfully. “The triggers brought her back, as I thought. It isn’t her physical state I’m interested in, it’s her mental state. As much as I want and need, to prove the theory; I just can’t risk it.”
The woman takes a breath in sudden shock. “What are you suggesting? Group D?”
“Of course not,” he says, offended by her accusation. “I’m suggesting something much better.”
I take small, hollow breaths as he crouches back down to me.
“Do you know who you are?”
I shake my head.
“Your name is Grace.”
“Grace,” I say. “My name is Grace.”
“Yes,” he says, grinning. “And you’re in a special club. A club where you get to work for God, the powerful being that lives above us. That watches everything we do and judges us for everything we are.”
“Really?” I say, the thought of that makes a giddy laugh escape from my lips.
“Mhm,” he says, nodding. “And your club is even more special, because it’s at the very top.”
“Why?” I ask. “What is it?”
His grin twists into a large smile. “Group A.”
Chapter 48
Nathan
I stare at the clock on the wall of my kitchen as I clutch the mug of coffee around my fingertips, each sip I take, leaves behind a bitter taste of something I don’t like. I perch my lips together and I rub them softly as the second-hand ticks away. It feels like I’ve been doing this all summer. No fun, no amusement, no living, just glaring at that clock and thinking how.
How could she just disappear without any kind of goodbye?
How could she be gone for so long without any kind of contact?
After the first week passed without her getting in touch, I just put that down to her parents finding out about the party and grounding her. And then, the second week came and still no phone call, no message, nothing. So, I took it upon myself to intervene, and I knocked on her door and I waited. And I met her parents for the first time.
“She’s gone away to a summer camp,” her mother told me. “She doesn’t want to speak to you.”
I stood there with a blank look on my face and then I tried to get more information but she slammed the door. And ever since, time is the only thing I notice. Summer is over now, she should be back. She might already be back. I pondered the possibility of her not wanting to speak to me for around a minute and then I realised that could never happen. I was being lied to. I’ve spent enough days wishing for things to be different, today, I will get answers.
Beth is eighteen now. Her parents can’t stop her from doing anything. They can’t legally intervene, they don’t have a damn leg to stand on. And that’s what I keep telling myself as I finally get up and start moving.
I leave the coffee and the bitterness behind me as I grab my jacket and storm out of the house. I don’t care who I wake when I slam the door, I don’t care who sees that I’m unlocking my car and driving it. I’ve been banned for eight months, but honestly, who the hell is going to go out of their way to report me?
Even if they do, I’ll be glad. Maybe talking to the police is something that I should have done weeks ago. There’s just something off about all of this. Beth is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, she would have found a way to get in touch with me, even if she didn’t have one. I know her.
I reverse out of my driveway and I spin the car around on the road, soaring it down the street as all the traffic lights remain on green. Her neighbourhood isn’t that far away, only a few blocks, but now it suddenly feels so much further.
I turn the car onto the opposite side of the road, the place I used to park when she would sneak out to meet me. I stare at her window, remembering that night all those weeks ago, when she took another gamble and climbed—well, fell—out of it. I’m starting to forget her face, her smile, her eyes, her charisma; and it’s scaring me to death.
I turn off the engine and I barge the car door open, stepping out into the cool light of morning. I slam it shut and I begin to walk towards her house, juggling the keys in my hand. I don’t stop walking until I’m standing at the porch, and I roll my hand into a fist and I thud against the wood.
I bang it over and over, knocking until I feel my knuckles crack. The deadly scowl remains on my face as I hear it begin to unlock. I clear my throat, waiting for it to open. When it does, I’m greeted with the same woman as before, Beth’s mother. Her knotted grey hair falls endlessly down the front of her shoulders and the bags under her eyes look like they’re threaded into her face. She stands in an old-fashioned, white gown with perfectly folded collars around her throat.
Her beady eyes grill into me with tiredness. “Yes?”
“Is she back yet?” I demand.
“Who?”
“Elizabeth,” I say. “Your daughter?”
“Why would she be here?”
“I’m not leaving until I see her,” I say. “It’s been six weeks and I haven’t heard a word from her. I want to know where she is.”
Her face slightly transforms into a calculated smirk and her fingers start tapping against the door frame in a rhythmical pattern. “She’s not here.”
“I don’t believe you,” I say and then I lean closer to shout through the gap. “Beth!”
“She’s not here,” she repeats, showing me her teeth. “She didn’t come home from the summer camp. She’s living with relatives in North Carolina.”
“What are you talking about? She wouldn’t just leave.”
“Well, she did. She’s eighteen now, she can do what she wants.”
“But her exam results, she’d—”
“They take longer for home-schooled students,” she says, smiling. “And she’s officially graduated. She’s happy now. She’s found the right path.”
“The right path,” I whisper. “Where is she staying? Can I have the number?”
“There’s no landline, she writes letters,” she says. “Face it, you were just a fling, a phase. You didn’t actually believe it was love, did you?”
I glance away, swallowing.
“Oh, you did,” she says quietly. “Elizabeth is three times as intelligent as you and yet, you thought you had a future? Elizabeth is meant for great things, important things. You just don’t fit. She realised that. The summer camp really… opened her eyes. She changed. She is not the girl you want to be waiting for you. She met someone else, someone better. And he is everything she could ever ask for.”
I snap my eyes up, staring into her dim, saggy eyes that are glaring back at me with so much detest that I want to stab my keys into them. It just doesn’t make sense. The Beth I know wouldn’t just leave me in the dark. She wouldn’t end things with silence. She wouldn’t just jump to someone else within such a short amount of time and she definitely wouldn’t let a proxy summer camp change her.
No. There’s something else going on. I refuse to believe that the girl I love would do that to me. The girl that I’ve been in love with since the day I met her. Since the day she opened this exact door and stood there with a frown so draining that I knew I had to cheer her up. I had no clue who she was or whose house I had accidentally knocked on, but her saddening face sparked something within me. Something that never burned out. I made her laugh. And ever since, I never stopped. The girl with the sad face was no more—and out popped this
fun, daring, courageous, beautiful, spirited girl that would be fascinated by something as simple as a water dispenser.
That girl is out there somewhere. I don’t know where and I don’t know in what condition, but this thing in front of me does.
“Right,” I say. “I see. Sorry for bothering you.”
“You weren’t bothering me,” she says, and then she steps back and slams it shut once again.
I shove my keys into my pocket and I slowly back up to the end of the driveway. I start to walk past it for a second, but then I pause and I spin back around. I glare up at the house, checking to make sure there are no faces in the windows and then I slowly lift up the flap on the mailbox. I stick my hand inside, feeling a stack of letters gathered inside.
I take them out and I quickly glance through them. Most of them are bills or bank letters, but there’s one with a first-class stamp on the front. I place that one into the inside of my jacket pocket and I put the others back into the mailbox.
If she is sending them letters, then this one could be it. And if not, I’m going to be here every morning after mail deliveries to beat them to it.
Beth is missing. And I’m the only one that knows it.
I’m going to find out what happened to her.
Chapter 49
I park my car at the side of the street around the corner from the police station. If I get caught, there’s a big chance I could probably go to prison, but that isn’t my main issue right now. I take out the envelope from my pocket and I lean back in the car seat as I stare at the scribbled details on the front of it. This is a hand-delivered letter, it isn’t professional, it looks as though whoever wrote it, has merely just learned how to write.
I prize my fingers between the sealed opening and I pull it open, gently taking out the light contents which is just one letter folded inside. I take a deep breath and I unfold it, my eyes reading over the words.
Dear Mum and Dad,
I am writing to inform you that I now see what you see Although, I am Confused and not quite sure why I am writing this I am happy. Progress has been made and I am been corrected. I see the light and I am very sorry for my behavior over the last eighteen years. I now know how hard that must of been for you, to see me like that. As parents, you were just trying to guide me, to purify me. You do not have to worry about me anymore, I am in the caring hands of incredibel people who have changed my life for the beter.
I have now somewhere I belong, somewhere I am needed and somewere I can continue growing. I will grow and grow until you can be proud. Finally proud.
Thank you for showing me the way.
Elizabeth
Once I’ve read it, I re-read it. My eyes squinting at all the obvious spelling and grammar mistakes that makes the letter look like a ten-year-old’s penmanship. I begin shaking my head, my hand tightening around the stirring wheel. This isn’t Elizabeth. This isn’t her hand writing, this isn’t her mind. Beth wouldn’t leave these kind of errors unless she was trying to send a message. This is either her being the highly-intelligent individual that I know, or it’s an impostor.
And between them both, I can’t decide which is worse. It just makes no sense. Why would she be writing a letter to those fertility donors instead of me? She knows my address. She can’t forget my address. Literally.
With the letter tight in my hand, I glance up at the police station, my eyes narrowing in a new-found anger. I turn the engine off and I open the car door, stepping out into the cool air that swoons around me fiercely.
I approach the police station with her laughter on my mind. Beth had a sinister laugh, it always sounded like she was plotting something whenever she went off on a giggle binge. But there was a cuteness to it occasionally, a tiny squeak that brought out the joy in her eyes. I hate knowing all of these little things about her, all these insignificant, yet, important things. Like how she has her tea, how she likes her toast buttering, how her libido would change in a second the moment I touched behind her neck, how she’d memorise an entire exam paper and then just spend an hour sitting there thinking about each question before she answered.
It’s all in my head. All of it. Every little detail, just going round and round with no escape route. I can’t even remember the last time I told her that that I loved her. Would she still know that? Would she still think the same? What if she thinks I’ve forgotten her?
And then, I question the one thing I’ve been trying hard not to focus on—what if someone has her?
I open the door to the police station, and without another thought, I charge towards the reception desk and I thump my hands down onto the counter.
“I need to report a missing person,” I say to the policeman behind the desk.
He glances up from his stack of paperwork, nudging his eye-glasses further down his nose as he stares at me. “Name?”
“Her name is Elizabeth Sanchez. She’s eighteen and—”
He holds a hand up to silence me. “Elizabeth Sanchez?”
“Yes, she’s my girlfriend and she’s missing. I have a letter to prove it.” I slide the envelope across the desk and the officer keeps a hand on his eye-glasses as he squints at it.
“I know this address,” he says, glaring into the air and then he looks back to me. “Dark hair, tan skin?”
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s… that’s Elizabeth. Why? Have you seen her?”
“No,” he says, he scratches his head for a moment, something begins to bug him. “I drove her home a couple of months back from a party.”
I lean closer to the counter, my hand sprawling out across it. “That was the last time I saw her. At the party. Her parents are hiding something, they said she’s been at some summer camp for all of summer but I’ve heard nothing from her. And then, this letter came and I know it’s not her, it’s not her hand-writing.”
He takes out the letter from inside and gawps at the contents, squinting at each word with the same reaction as I had. Once he reads it, his eyes gently lift to mine and I dive in before he gets the chance to speak.
“I’m not being paranoid,” I say. “It’s been nearly seven weeks. Her mother said that she was now living with relatives in North Carolina, but it’s not like her to stay away for so long or not get in contact. They either know something or they’re naive enough to believe whoever has been sending these letters.”
His eyes scroll sideways and he stares into the air again, blinking to himself. A mask of guilt shows on his face which leaves me confused, it’s as though he’s remembering some kind of tragedy from his past life.
“Can I file the report?” I demand. “Hello?”
He flinches out of his trance, trailing his face back to level with mine. “Wait here. I’ll see if anyone’s free.”
I move backwards with impatience as he slowly gets up from his chair and moves towards the far side of the room with such frailty that he almost limps. As he opens a door, a detective stands in the doorway on his way out and the two begin exchanging words—the policeman’s eyes glancing back to me.
The detective nods, his face glazing over with concern. I can’t stay still, I begin swinging my leg, letting my boot crash into the counter.
Suddenly, the detective starts approaching me and I gather myself together as I wait for him to reach me.
“My name is Detective Burns,” he says. “You say your girlfriend has been missing for six weeks?”
“Yes,” I say.
“And she was last known to be in North Carolina?”
“I think so,” I say.
The detective glares at me with a frown and the police officer flanks him, his face low and distracted.
“What is it?” I demand.
“Maybe we should—”
“No,” I say, interrupting his exit strategy. “Tell me now.”
“North Carolina police found an unidentified body six weeks ago.”
“Meaning?” I breathe out.
He swallows. “The body was a young female.”
&
nbsp; I shake my head. “It’s not her. I’d know. I’d know if it was her.”
“Please, let’s go somewhere more private. Follow me.”
The Detective turns, as a gesture for me to follow. But I just stand still. I listen to her laughter inside my mind again. It wasn’t sinister, it wasn’t sinister at all. It was warm, it was light, it was every story and every song.
It was home.
Chapter 50
I follow Detective Burns into a small office type room with seats against the window that show the busy police department. My face must be showing him some kind of ghostly feature because he takes one look at me and frowns.
“Take a seat,” he says, gesturing towards one of the seats.
I fall into it without an awareness of why I’m doing so. There’s not much that scares me in this world, but the conversation that is bouncing around the corner, coming closer second by second, makes the very top of the imaginary list.
Detective Burns leans against a desk with a notepad in one hand and a pen in the other. And just as he asks his first question, my mind is already wiped.
“To your knowledge, has Elizabeth ever run away from home before?”
I just stare at him and then I choke the word up. “No.”
“And when was the last time you saw her?”
“Uh… just over six weeks ago, maybe seven.”
“I’ll need you to be more specific.”
I scratch at my temple, leaning my head sideways. “The seventh of July. Maybe. I picked her up from her house to go to a party.”
“And what happened after the party?”
“I got arrested,” I say quietly. “An officer drove her home.”
He writes that down and then looks at me sharply. “So, you haven’t heard from her in seven weeks?”
“No.”
He holds the notepad in the air for a moment, glaring at me in confusion and I know what he’s thinking. “Can I ask why it’s taken you seven weeks to report her missing?”
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