Heartstrings (Prequel) Forbidden Heart Series

52| Three Minutes

Raising my fist, I banged on the large wood door again.

No answer.

So, I did it a third time. And then a fourth.

Finally, Mike opened the door. And I didn't care that he was pissed. "Bro, what the hell is your problem? You're lucky my parents aren't home right now."

"Where is she?"

"Where's who?"

"Who do you think, genius? Karma. Where the fuck is Karma."

He blinked once. Twice. Then a third time. "What do you mean? I haven't talked to her today."

Fuck. I fucking knew she wasn't telling me the truth. After the whole almost-roofied thing at that Halloween party a few weeks ago, Karma and I both have been a little on edge. Mainly because was no idea who tried to drug her. My first thought was Brian, Trish's brother. But according to multiple people and our coach, he had been out of town.

Things had finally started getting back to normal after that. Until the past few days. Karma started making excuses not to see me. Cancelling for some reason or another. Dodging my calls. Responding to my texts with one-word replies.

Now this. And this, today, was the final fucking straw. I was going to find out what the fuck as going on.

"You haven't talked to her today?" I asked with an edge in my voice. "Funny, because she said she was hanging out with you when I texted her thirty minutes ago."

Mike's eyes widened and his expression told me he his brain registered what I was saying. "Uh, what I meant was, she was here, you know, earlier--"

"Save it. Do you know where she is or not?"

Mike cursed under his breath and shook his head. "Shit. I don't know, man. She hasn't said anything to me. I swear." Slight hesitation from my girl's best friend. "Did something happen between you guys?"

I scoffed and shrugged my shoulders. "That's what I wanna know."

And I also wanted to know where the hell she was. It wasn't that I thought she was with another guy or something like that. I knew she would never do that to me. But something was up. It either had to be an issue with her mom, or something else that I didn't know about.

"Seriously, Mike, do you know somewhere she would go if she was really upset? Some place to be alone?"

Mike ran a hand through his hair as he thought about my question. I was hoping and praying that he had an answer for me. I tried Lanie and Harper, but they were at the damn movies and turned their phones off. And I knew Karma wasn't with them.

"There's one place," Mike said softly. "One place is might be."

"Where?"

"There's a park not far from here. We used to go there a lot in middle school when Karma got into it with her mom. She said it was peaceful and helped clear her head. We haven't gone back in a while, though. At least, I haven't. You should try there."

After Mike gave me the directions to the park, I raced back to my jeep and hauled ass. When I finally got there, it wasn't anything like I was expecting. I thought there was going to be people here. Lots of people and kids. But it looked like no one had been here in a couple years.

Weeds and vines were wrapped around the monkey bars and swings. The grass was way overgrown. And right there in the middle of all of it, was Karma. She was sitting on a bench, facing away from me. I don't even think she knew I was there.

"Hey, gorgeous."

Just like that day where I found her by the pool in the gym, her shoulders tensed at the sound of my voice. And she didn't turn around to face me. With slow, cautious steps, I made my way towards her. Then when I finally got to the bench, I sat down next to her.