Unthinkable

Unthinkable ~ Chapter 9

"You know what? We're going to find out about your family situation, okay?"

"What?" Was she crazy? One of my eyebrows raised as I tilted my head at her, trying to suppress a grin. "You really don't need to do that. This is my problem, not yours."

Maybelle propped a hand on her hip and stared at me for a bit. "You're my friend. Your problems become my problems." I was about to refuse her offer, when her elbow nudged me excitedly and her excited grin softened to a nurturing smile. "We'll go through this together."

This time around, I didn't hide the grin that splayed across my face.

~~~

"Hey, Jade," I chirped as Maybelle and I strolled into the house. "This is my friend from the hospital. I met her over some therapy sessions." Maybelle put on her most polite face and kindly shook Jade's hand, her head bowing just slightly.

"Hi there, Maybelle. I've heard so much about you," Jade said, the corners of her lips curling upwards. Her eyes seemed tired, though, as they had looked after I first told her my test results. She seemed constantly on edge, and I wished I could ease that in some way, although I had no clue how. I snapped myself out of my jumble of thoughts and focused on the issue at hand.

"Likewise," Maybelle replied. I don't think I had ever heard her being this mannerly before. It was almost laughable how strange of a personality change it was. My thoughts were interrupted as my eyes trailed over to a laptop sitting upon a table nearby. I nudged Maybelle and jerked my head towards that direction. She nodded discreetly and gave Jade a small goodbye before rushing off with me.

"Here it is," I whispered, glancing back at Jade as she started to walk away, muttering about something she had lost. "Her personal files and everything. She seems pretty occupied right now so we should start right away. Are you sure you want to do this?"

Maybelle cracked her knuckles in one swift motion. "I am if you are."

We clicked through numerous pages of history in her browsers, and scanned through a good amount of documents in her personal folders. We didn't find much, and were starting to look around randomly with very little purpose after a good hour or two flew by.

"I guess the sneaky approach didn't really do much good," I replied with my chin resting in the palm of my hand. "Maybe we should just ask her?"

A sigh escaped from Maybelle's lips as she started to glance at some photos. "Yeah, I guess we should--"

"Wait, who are they?" I pointed to a small thumbnail of two young women standing next to each other. Maybelle clicked it quickly, and with the enlargement I realized that one of the two women was Jade. I had never seen the other girl before, and the image wasn't triggering any memories.

But something about her eyes drew me in, and I was sure she had some sort of tie to my family, whether she was a part of it or not.

"I think we may be on to something," I stated, starting to stand from my chair. "Go ahead and print that picture out. We have some questioning to do."

Maybelle nodded, but as soon as I started to turn away from my chair, she grabbed my arm. "Wait, take a look at this."

I leaned forward towards the screen and watched as the Maybelle's cursor scrolled over to a website that was bookmarked long ago. It opened up a Mapquest page, with two addresses already typed in the Starting and Destination sections.

"What's that address for?" I asked Maybelle, pointing towards the destination slot. I took the mouse from her as she shrugged, and quickly copied and pasted the address into the search bar for Google. Soon enough, links of a location piled in as my jaw dropped slightly.