the replacement project :: c.h.

epilogue

a/n - im really in love with how this turned out :-))

this is the last of cara and cal for now, but dont leave yet okay omh keep an eye out for my authors note bc i have some things to address and a possible sequel 8-)

i love you guys, thank you for everything.

stay happy,

x bri.

-

[ cara - a year later, december 25th of 2017. ]

"She's missing, it's happening again!"

I pressed my foot down harshly and abruptly on the brakes of the car, my entire body swerving forward. I flinched at the simultaneous honks of all the cars in the lanes surrounding me, but to be fair, it was the most minor factor as to why my blood pressure was spiking at the moment, "She's what?!"

"She's missing, okay!" Emma screamed into the phone. You could almost hear the panic in the labored breaths she was taking, and if I wasn't feeling as terrified as I was in that moment, I probably would have laughed. "I-I don't know what to do! We've looked everywhere! She's not in her room or in the bathroom or in the kitchen or basement or garage or-"

I groaned loudly and slammed my hand against the steering wheel as Emma proceeded to list off all of the places she'd already checked, thankful that I was situated at a red light so that I had some time to recompose myself, or at least reorganize my thoughts. How was this happening again? On Christmas day?!

The recognizable feeling of panic, that I'd so damn successfully gone a pretty long time without up until today, was beginning to stir in my gut until I felt physically sick - I was supposed to be picking Calum up from the airport, how the hell was I supposed to deal with this right now?

"C-Check again, she can't be gone, Emma, check everywhere." I choked out, stepping down on the gas forcefully once the stoplight flickered from a red glow to a green.

"Cara, I would be an idiot to have not looked everywhere by now, alright, I'm telling you, she's missing!"

"Well did you think to tell your parents? My parents? Did you guys even call the police?!"

"They're still looking even though there's literally nowhere else to look! We've legitimately turned this entire house upside down and we cannot find her and I'm about to-"

A couple second sof silence took over the line as I made an turn on the intersect leading to the airport, and then a long, unsurprising, thread of profanities. I knit both of my eyebrows together, "Em? You good?"

"We found her."

"What?"

"We. Found. Her." Emma repeated, each word coming out slowly and each syllable dripping with aggravation.

"Well where the hell was she?!"

"She was outside. Feeding birds."

I locked my jaw in irritation and groaned loudly at how badly my heart rate had just surged all for a false alarm. I pulled into a thankfully empty space in the airport parking lot, grabbed ahold of my bag from the passenger seat and stepped out of the car, still clutching the phone tightly in my fist out of aggravation and still-in-the-process-of-dying-panic. "Put her on the phone. Now."

There was the sound of shuffling on the other end of the line until eventually my ears were eventually met with the familiar, tiny, pubescent voice, "Auntie Car?"