Buried: A Cainsville Story

Poppies and Missed Call Notifications

I jolt out of a nightmare I do not remember, gasping like I did when I awoke from nightmares of my time on the streets. But this feels different, older, somehow. Only one image remains burned behind my eyelids, the image of a woman, running across a field, her skirts trailing behind her, her hair whipping in the wind. It comes accompanied with a desperation, a need to get her back before she makes a mistake she is unable to reverse.

Back in reality, my phone is ringing. Again.

It has rang multiple times since Olivia's shift at the diner ended. I looked at the phone when it initially rang, but I chose not to answer. I looked at it again the next few times. And then, I tossed it across the room. It landed behind the stereo. I have been ignoring it ever since.

I refuse to answer. I didn't bother sending her things back. I planned to do it in the morning.

I do not wish to be comforted. I do not want apologies. I want to forget this ever happened. I want to be alone. It is safer there. I am instantly disgusted with myself for thinking that.

Frustrated, I untangle myself from my sweat-soaked sheets, which I have somehow managed to wrap completely around my ankles like a lasso. I stomp into the bathroom and shower, hoping to wash the grime away. The grime of the dream, of the evening, of the week. Nothing feels clean enough.

I leave the shower and get dressed in one of my good suits. If this is how early I will be waking, I might as well go into the office and get things started again. I am not one to wallow. I have already done enough of that in the last few hours.

I look in on every one of my stashes one more time to make sure they have gone untouched despite the destructive variable that shook my life up for the last couple of months.

They are exactly as they were left. They were exactly as they were left before I slept.

Then, despite myself, I go looking for my phone. I need it. For business.

A knock on the door actually makes me jump. It takes a lot to unnerve me, but nobody knocks on my apartment door and it's two in the morning. Only one person would have the audacity, and she is the one person I want to see even less than everyone else. I march to the door in disbelief. How dare she? I told her my wishes, specifically, and she ignored them. What could she possibly want from me?

I yank the door open. So much for survival instincts. But my expectations are incorrect, and I find myself staring into icy blue eyes instead of warm green ones.

"Rose?" I look behind her. "What are you doing here?"

"May I come in?" Her tone is as icy as her eyes. "What in the world is wrong with you? You don't answer your phone?"

"It is the middle of the night and I am not in the mood to socialize." I am a boulder in the doorway. I will not let anyone through these doors. Not again. "And you shouldn't be traveling at this hour."

"Gabriel..."

"No. You cannot change my mind. I refuse to play this game any longer. And if you insist on looping yourself in with Patrick and the Tylwyth Teg, I will begin to distance myself from you as-"

"Olivia is missing."

It takes me a second to gather myself, but I manage. "She is not missing." I scoff. "Things got a little too difficult for her and she went running home to her trust fund and the world of exotic fast cars and high society shoe designers."

"No. She didn't. And you don't even believe that." Rose purses her lips and crosses her arms over her chest. "Has she tried to call you?"

The string of phone calls I allowed to ring out to voicemail freezes my blood.