It was the queer sadness of the setting sun that made me get out of the house. I didn't want to be alone in the house. I wanted to share my grief with the sun.
Mom was out again with David, taking Aaron with them. I couldn't blame her for doing any of this. She was enjoying her new life, with her new husband. I adjusted my checkered scarf around my neck. And I kept walking down the street.
The scent of Coffee and vanilla filled my nostrils, as I entered the Café' 7. I walked in, and closed the door behind me, locking the coldness of the evening outside. It was warmer and a lot more cheerful environment inside. I saw a familiar face at the mahogany counter, busy with the coffee machine.
I walked towards the counter.
"Hello Emily."
The brown haired little girl looked up, and smiled.
"Hey there. How're you, Lily?"
Emily lived in my neighborhood. She was a single mother, just a few years elder than me. But she had helped me a lot to get over my mother's new wedding as well as my breakup with Chase. I had talked to her about my family matters, when I had no one else to talk to.
Though I had Marie, but still I sometimes preferred talking to Emily instead.
"I'm good."
"You seem upset? Everything's alright?" She asked handing me my coffee.
"Just school and stuff."
I placed my hands in my pocket to take out the money.
"Make it two, and here's the money."
I looked around, it was Chase. Emily looked at me meaningfully.
"No, no need, Chase."
He placed the money at the counter, and took the other coffee cup from Emily.
"I need to talk to you, Lily."
He held my arm softly. I looked around; there were too many people in the café right now.
"Chase, please. I don't want to create a scene here.I don't want to talk about anything."
"Please. Just give me a minute,Lily."
I looked at him, and he motioned me to sit down.
I dragged the chair and sat at the corner table. He happily joined me.
"How did you know that I'll be here?" I asked, taking a sip of the coffee.
"I know, you always come here when you feel sad."
"I'm not sad, Chase."
"You are. I want to apologize on Sabrina's behalf. She wanted to host the party, so I couldn't stop her. She wanted to make you jealous, but I told her, we were over...."
"I DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT SABRINA OR YOU."
I picked up my coffee cup, and stood up.
"Lily, I miss you. You can come back to me, if you want." He held my hand and squeezed it gently. "I'm still the same Chase. Nothing has changed."
"You know what Chase?"
"What?"
"You can go to hell."
I started walking towards the door. My mind was like boiled water in a closed container. I couldn't take another sip of the coffee, so I placed it near the counter. The door of the café opened, and Adrian walked in. He was wearing a brown long coat, and a large hat.
The hat confirmed me that he was the same man I saw at the end of the 'Rafner Street'. I hid behind the side curtains, watching him. He seemed in hurry. He quickly ordered the coffee, and gave Emily the money. He didn't even wait to take the change back.
Somebody tapped my shoulder.
"What are you doing, Lily?"
"Not now, Chase."
"LILY!"
Adrian's hand was on the door knob, but he stopped. He turned around, and stared at the curtains where I was hiding. I was sure that he would see Chase, so I pulled him behind me. Adrian looked around for a minute, shook his head and went out of the café.
I looked around angrily at Chase.
"What was that?" He whispered.
"I have some doubts regarding him."I said.
"That was the new Music teacher, wasn't he?"
"Yes, he was." I said without taking my eyes off the door.
Chase peeked out of the window, and said.
"His car is still out there. If you want, we could follow him."He offered.
I looked at him, and he nodded.
"But..." I tried to speak but Chase interrupted me.
"No, But's or If's. Let's go." He said enthusiastically.
We waited for Adrian to start the engine, and then we got out of the cafe.
There was something suspicuous about Adrian that I was not being able to understand yet. But I had to know what was his connection with me. I had seen him twice before he entered into my School. Both of those times, somebody died.
Chase started following Adrian's Car. We were good at doing this. I remembered all the times, when we had literally stalked people. When we were about 11-12; we had our imagination Secret society called "The Dark knights". Some of the prominent members included Chase, Marie besides few other peope that we no longer talk to.
When the people grow up, they suddenly change. It was more like mixing impurities in something too pure. Childhood was the time when we didn't care about anything else but us.
Chase took a silent left turn, keeping a safe distance between our cars.
He saw my face and smiled.
"Thinking about 'The dark knights'?" He asked.
"How do you know?" I gaped.
"Lily, I have spent my entire life with you."
"17 isn't an entire life." I commented.
"Come on!" He laughed.
Adrian's Car stopped at the main door of a tall apartment building. We parked our car few cars behind his and kept watching Adrian. He came out of the car, and looked around to make sure nobody followed him.
He went inside the building.
I asked ," Should we follow him inside?"
"May be, he lives in this building."
"Yeah, you're right. But I think, we should go inside."
We got out of our car, and started walking towards the door. There was a security counter where 2 guards were sitting. They didn't notice us, and continued talking to eachother.
The white marble floor and cream coloured walls of the reception gave the apparent impression of an empty room. At the end of the room, were three metallic double doors.
"Let's take the elevator." I said.
"But which floor?" Chase looked around.
"I don't know. May be, every floor."
All the elevators were stuck at floor 4.
I smiled," Let's go to floor 4, first."
We waited for some time for the elevator to return to the Ground floor. As the door opened, we entered the elevator. I didn't know why Chase was doing this for me. May be, he wanted to make up to me for dating Sabrina. But wasn't it strange, even after breaking up myself, I still expected him to think about me not himself. That was too selfish of me.
We pressed the button '4' together and our hands touched eachother.
He looked at me, and I kept staring at my reflection on the metallic walls of the elevator.
It was literally my first 'normal' elevator ride with Chase. We used to make out in every single ride before this one. I knew, what he was thinking about. But I stood as firm as I could, staring at my reflection.
The elevator stopped at floor 4.
It was a long corridor, with rooms on both sides.
"Now what?" He asked.
But before we could say anything, we heard loud crying from a nearby room. It was a woman,crying loudly. We heard a man's voice asking her to shut up. I recognized it at once.
I pointed towards the door. "Adrian!"
Chase held me from my arm and pulled me towards him.
"Lily, let's go. We can't stay here. If he came out, there will be no place to hide. Besides, it may be something personal."
"But, I have to find out more about this. There's something wrong with that guy, and I need to know."
"Listen to me. We can return here tomorrow, or some other day."
He almost dragged me to the elevator, and then out of the building.
I sat in Chase's car angrily.
"What was the use of following him if we didn't find the reason?"
"Atleast, we know about the building, floor and the room number." He tried to reason with me. "That's alot for one night."
Suddenly, something fell on the car parked ahead of ours. I looked into the frosted eyes of a blood stained body.
I screamed at the top of my voice. But Chase placed his hand on my mouth and hugged me tightly.
I tried to look up to the room from where the woman had fell. The light of a room at the 4th floor was still on.
"She's that crying woman... oh God.. she's that woman." I kept repeating.
Chase drove his car away from the building. As we drove passed the building'd door, I noticed that Adrian's car was already gone. It was not possible. We were watching the door, this whole time.
Chase took me straight home. He stopped the car and looked at me.
"Listen very carefully. We are the sole witnesses of that death. It could be a suicide or a murder. So, don't even think about mentioning our little adventure to anyone."
"But,..."
"We'll get into a lot of trouble. Thank God, those two guards haven't noticed us."
I nodded, and got out of my car.
Chase drove away, and I kept standing at the end of the street, outside my house.
Suddenly, I saw a man standing at the other end. He took off his hat and smiled.
"Adrian."
I whispered silently and rushed inside my house.