Chrono Codex (in sickness and in health)

02:00 - EDEN

Thursday 24th May

"Pulled out of class for POLICE QUESTIONING?!" was the first thing I was asked ever-so-kindly  by my dear, not at all enraged mother as I arrived at home. It made it worse that I hadn't told her about it since it happened.
"I can explai-"
"Mejor creerse que NO irás a ninguna parte hasta que escucho un explicación!"
I sighed - hardly two minutes at home and this conversation had drained out the remainder of energy I had. Fatigued, I at least attempted to reassure her that I wasn't the only one being questioned. What I knew I was never about to admit was the mere fact that I so happened to be the most prominent 'potentially guilty' suspect on the case. Believe me, if you were also dodging disownership, you'dve skipped some details too.
"You swear you had nothing to do with it?" she asked in corroboration, her neatly done eyebrows slanting in uncertainty, highlighting the suspicion in her gaze.
I retorted with an unspeaking, austere look, only longing to get the lady to breathe profoundly. I even raised my hands in capitulation, hoping my mum would notice at the very least a spark of sincerity.
She sighed in relief, but I could somehow taste the vivid, underlying doubt in her closed demeanour while she retreated from the living room.
I stood there, fidgeting with my necklaces as the room singled me out.
I heard an indistinct mumble in what id call spanglish,
"No es una sorpresa que my daughter se mete con the policía."

Those language-defying words of sheer disappointment thrashed me like a tidal wave. She was numb to my anti accomplishments. She said she wasn't surprised.
I was just seconds away from turning to fight back, just blurt out meaningless words that would disshape my main point into nothing other than an unintentional miserable blur, failing and bringing shame upon myself. Instead I asked myself what it even meant if she thought I couldn't hear her, or would it have been worse if she was self aware? I felt as though sometimes she was determined to humble me to the point where I'd eventually reduce myself to zero - ofcourse I never sent her that satisfaction, but then there was also that flicker of hope, the one slight possibility that maybe, my mother pitied me in a way - a tender feeling of sympathy, although it would've been maliciously backhanded,  I always preferred that she'd toss me into a shallow firepit of condescending pity rather than drown me in a gaping pool of her foul disappointment.

"Can I at least still go to Music Channel after school next next monday?" I asked, distancing myself from standing face to face with my thoughts. There was a rough silence on my mother's behalf. I heard a distinct sigh coming from her room.
"Fine." She must've known I would just end up going either way.

What a way to conclude - and it's only just Thursday, I scoffed to myself while making my way to my bedroom. My mind constantly ruminated back to the earlier this week police interrogation I was scolded about..
"I SWEAR!! It wasn't me!!"
"Don't make it difficult for me to do my job." Replied the officer in a sharp rejoinder.
The truth is, it was so agitating since this was my second questioning, a week since the incident. The night of Mrs Chettle's death, each staff member of the restaurant was interrogated in the same instant when she was escorted to a hospital. Me, I was just a lousy waitress with little to no desire for anything the job had to offer beside it's absolutely brutal pay - serving that filthy rich couple is what I was being paid in almost crumbs for.
The questions were all repetitive and irksome,
"Can you recall what time it was when you served the Chettles?"
"Not really, sorry."
Then came the inevitable awkward silence, where I challenged myself to a one sided staring contest, testing myself on how long I could glare at an officer for.
"You're sure you're unable to reca-"
"I wasn't wearing a watch."
"Was there a clock in the res-"
"I don't know how to read analogue."
And there it was again, a rootless, unsettled officer left with no comeback - second time in a row. Whatever this was, I definitely came into sight as a winner. Although, I probably should've learned to read analogue.
"What did you serve Richard and Agnes Chettle?"
"The wine they ordered, what kind of question is that?"

"Listen, we have reason to believe you had some involvement in this crime. You work there, you served them, and you were seen shortly after Mrs Chettle's death running from the police with two others. Either tell us what you know, or this isn't going to end well for you."
That was when it got serious, and confusing to say the least. You'd think you know your own actions and whereabouts at a certain time, until you're told something about yourself that you have zero memory of.
It seemed easy to get past though - with no evidence, it mattered as little as nothing to me until i noticed the way my name never stopped coming out of people's mouths over the coming days - how they cook up some of the most obscure accounts on me, lies that were just so painfully, obviously far from reality yet I constantly found myself surrounded by an overwhelming pile of rumours that even a toddler could infer weren't true.

Exhibit A, four days after I was interrogated, a guy, Will - who was vaguely popular - loudly and proudly howled at lunch about me being some alleged secret society's assassin, seriously? That's the most creative they could get? Pathetic. I judged the boy from not very far, only to fortuitously be met briefly by the gaze of his friend, whom I'd sworn I heard mention my name. I observed his unruly hazel hair that gently fell onto his pale face. Someone who appeared more reserved, and hopefully as internally judgemental as I was in that moment. He chuckled with a soft grin and moved on with his conversation. That day, It did momentarily stand out to me that he always had a clear disinterest in the Agnes Chettle case. Unlike him though, I was constantly thinking about it. I thought of how there was something so indefinitely strange about this case, it was so random, yet so, planned? A rich woman's death - flooding the news, and no one questions her husband - in fact, not a word had been heard from him since the incident. Something about it seemed too fitting. Like fingers fitting in gloves.
It was in those moments of thought that I'd been hit by a wave of incomplete familiarity. Like, deja vu? Gloves... gloves... I wondered why they stuck in my head in relation to the case, and something about it, like an earworm, drove me insane. One moment I was between tuning my guitar, escaping the overwhelming feelings of it all - the next I was looking around my poster-filled bedroom for any indication of gloves.
Still a week later, nothing seemed to be the right piece to my puzzle; it was just another thing to confuse me, piling on top of me allegedly being seen running from the police?