Mirrors

Chapter Twenty Eight

The next week at their meeting, Niall arrived early hoping to catch Edie before it started but she didn't show up.  At the break, he called her, her phone went straight to voicemail.  "Shit," he mumbled.

Another week went by with still no word from her.  And, once again, she wasn't at the meeting.  He tried to call her during the break, but her phone just rang.  He texted her, "Edie, I'm worried about you.  Please call me back.  Or text me back.  Something to let me know you're okay."

When a third week went by and she still hadn't shown up for their meetings, Niall was beyond worried about her.

"Charlie?"

"Yes?"

"Have you heard from Edie?"

"Well, sort of, a couple of weeks ago, I did. She said she'd be out of town for a bit to help her brother with something.  She didn't tell you?"

"Oh, yeah, she did.  I totally forgot.  I haven't spoken to her since she left.  Nevermind, then.  Brain fart." Niall let out a half-assed laugh to try to make it seem like he had simply forgotten.  Charlie just smiled at him.

When he got home that night, he immediately sat down in front of his computer and resumed his research on her case.  He had promised her. A few minutes in, his focus was gone.  He made himself some tea to help him calm down and concentrate, but that didn't work, a few minutes later he was pacing the floor of his dining room.

He had come to the conclusion that she was not out of town helping her brother.  He just didn't believe that her brother would interfere with her progress.  Not for this long of a time.  Of course, though, he had no way of finding this out for sure.  But she had to come back at some point, right?

He sat back down.  He looked at his computer.  He got back up.  He dumped his tea and grabbed a beer before heading to the shower.

As he stood there, letting the water beat down on his back, he ran his hand over his torso.  His fingers came to rest on the indentation in his skin below his lung.  He pressed down on it and winced, not expecting the pain. 

He finished, and as he dried himself off, he wrapped the towel around his waist.  Running his hand across the fogged up mirror, he stood back and looked at himself.  He hadn't done this in quite a while.  In fact, he hadn't done this since he had started opening up to Edie.  He ran his hand back over his chest and placed it next to the bullet hole by his heart.  Closing his eyes, he listened to the rhythm of his own drum.  He began tapping his chest to the beat.

"He looks into the mirror wishing someone could hear him so loud," he softly sang.

He shook his head.  When he opened his eyes, the person staring back at him was not him.  It was Edie.  He jumped and turned but there was no one there.  He peeked out the bathroom door and saw nothing.  He went around his entire house and looked outside.  No one was there.

"Now you're hallucinating, Horan, great," he mumbled as he made his way back upstairs to get dressed.

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Another week went by.  Niall spent most of it trying to find some sort of lead.  He remembered from his reading, seeing an address to where she had been found.  He decided to start there.

He found the location fairly easily.  It was located at the back of a club he had been to numerous times.  He tried to remember what it was that he had read and what she had offered up to him.  He attempted a strange retracing of her steps to the best of his ability from what he could remember.  He started in the alley way behind the club where she had been found.  A bouncer at the club had been the one to find her, according to a witness statement he had read.  The club wasn't open so he would have to come back. 

He faced the dumpster that she had been semi hidden behind when she was found.  From the two photos he had seen, he closed his eyes and pictured her there.  He had to open his eyes quickly because he once again got sick.  He slid down the brick wall to regain his composure.  He couldn't picture her that way.  He couldn't picture her lying against a dumpster, her dress torn, her legs awkwardly sprawled apart, blood washing away from her face as EMTs tried to cover her so no more evidence would be eliminated.

The thing that bothered him the most was her eyes.  In the first photo, he could only see her body illuminated by police lights from the direction above her head.  The second photo, was closer up of her face against the harsh lights.  Her eyes were wide open.  Had she not been in the next room when he saw those photos, or felt her breath or her body against his, he would've thought he was looking at a dead body.  That, or the girl in his house was a ghost haunting him.

As he sat there, he almost thought maybe he had been hallucinating this entire time.  Maybe she was a ghost.  But he shook his head.  If she was a ghost, then he too was dead because everyone around him knew her.  He stood back up and walked toward the street where her car had been parked.  He turned towards the main street and then turned again in the direction of the restaurant.

When he got there, he stood under the awning and turned back towards where he had come from.  He could easily picture the rain coming down and her making a dash for it the same way he had done.

When he turned to head into the restaurant he smacked into someone.  "Shit, I'm sorry," he said as he looked up into a familiar face.  "Benny?"