If it wasn't a murderous alpha, an enigmatic father, or my own inconceivable darkness that killed me it would be English homework. What kind of a monster still reads Shakespeare? I was in the midst of scrolling through the SparkNotes webpage when the familiar rise of hair on the back of my neck began. My window opened and a new visitor climbed inside.
Ben grinned at me.
"I have a front door, you know."
"But then how would I sneak up on you?"
I rolled my eyes. "You don't sneak up on me now anyways."
He fell comfortably onto my bed and squeezed the pillow to his chest with a big sigh. I knew he had the same insane load of homework that I did and probably half the time to get it done, but he was nothing if not relaxed. I wondered if Tucker had told him to stay away from me like I'd been told to stay away from them.
"My brother's been around a lot more these last few days," Ben began and I continued scrolling through the internet, feigning disinterest.
"That's good."
Ben hummed and raised an eyebrow. "And I'm sure you had nothing to do with that, right?"
"Nothing," I agreed.
He climbed up off my bed and began to pace in my room before stopping at my desk. He leaned back against the desk and inspected my face. I swallowed and gave him my best innocent smile before turning back to my work.
"So, my neighbor who came to ask about the two kids she saw yelling in the street the other day...she must have imagined it all."
I lifted my eyes to meet his. He waited expectantly for my response and I groaned.
"To be fair," I started turning to fully face him, "I was the one doing most of the yelling. Tucker got yelled at."
He gave me an amused smile before letting out a loud laugh. It wasn't exactly the reaction that I was expecting, but it wasn't bad by any means. He ruffled my hair and then resumed his position back on my bed.
"Serves him right for trying to tell you what to do again."
So Tucker had told Ben what he'd asked of me. Obviously, Ben was ignoring his brother's wishes and I was grateful for it, but hoped that it didn't cause their family any more discord.
I shrugged. "I get why. I'm dangerous."
"Oh, yes," he replied dryly, "so very vicious."
I picked up a throw pillow and chucked it at him. He dodged it with ease and leaned back onto the bed with a thoughtful expression on his face. Following his line of sight, I noticed that he was looking at the boxes we'd taken from Owein's office stacked in the corner of the room.
"Are you hoarding now?" He asked, pushing off of the bed to go inspect the boxes.
I swallowed as he shuffled through the box. "Tilly and I went to Owein's office to find something- anything, I guess."
Ben picked up the portfolio off of the top of the stack and rifled through it curiously.
"Looking for what?"
"Anything that pointed toward your mother." He looked up sharply. "We didn't find anything, really. I would've told you if we did."
Ben put the portfolio down.
"Were you going to tell me that you went?"
I sighed and shook my head. "No, not unless we found something useful."
My best friend sat back down on the bed with a disgruntled sigh and I knew that he wasn't happy that we were on this subject again. His reaction was exactly why I didn't want to tell him anything until there was something he could hold on to. Instead, he looked resigned.
"Lou," he began, but I stood and cut him off.
"I know what you're going to say. I know you're going to try and talk me out of looking for her but I feel it, Ben."
He looked up at me, his light eyes sad.
"What do you feel?"
"She's out there somewhere. I know it."
Ben shook his head vigorously and scoffed.
"Please, why can't you just let it be?"
I narrowed my eyebrows. "Why are you so against the idea of her being alive?"
His explosion was not the reaction I expected to my question.
"Because, Lou! Do you know what that means? It means that she's been alive all this time suffering. Or it means that she left, Lou! Did you ever consider that as an option? Frankly, I'm not sure which option would hurt worse."
His face was red and his breathing was hard after the words tumbled out of his mouth. All I could do was stare at him in shock. He covered his face in his hands and I sat back into my desk chair and wondered how to comfort my best friend.
Before West Acres, I was never the one to comfort a friend. Touchy-feely stuff wasn't my thing because I was always afraid of what the skin to skin contact would show me. Here, with Ben, I shut that part of my head up.
"Whatever the reason, Ben, it's time for your family to see her again. It's time for her to come home."
I put my hand on top of his, pushing down the feelings that arose at the scent of his pain. His red eyes reached mine and I tried to disregard the similarities of these eyes and the ones I'd seen on that bathroom floor not so long ago.
He coughed a little and straightened up. "So, did you find anything interesting?"
I wished, more than anything, that I could say yes.
"Not really," I muttered and passed him the calendar, thinking of the dates that had the mysterious notes scrawled under them. "Not unless August 1st or September 9th mean something to you?"
Ben thought for a moment and I allowed myself the tiniest bit of hope.
"August 1st is right around when you moved in, right?"
I nodded and he smiled.
"Well, that's significant to me."
I gave him a playful shove, not stopping the smile that spread on my face. "You're such a sap."
He shot me a goofy looking face and settled onto my bed with the information we'd collected from Owein's office. I turned back to my English paper. Unfortunately, even though Shakespeare was super dead, I still had to write a paper guessing on his intentions for a play he'd written hundreds of years ago-
"Hang on," Ben interjected. My train of thought derailed. I turned to him as he held up the familiar-looking portfolio. "Do you know what this is?"
"No." I hadn't at the office and I still didn't now.
Ben flipped through the first few pages, his eyes wide. He was definitely seeing something that I wasn't.
"It's a real estate portfolio," he said with wonder and held up the folder, "these are all of the properties that Owein owns."
"Owned," I corrected before I could stop myself.
"Yeah," Ben murmured thoughtfully, "I guess they're technically Tucker's now. Fuck, that's strange. But don't you think, if my mom is alive -big if- and Owein somehow knew where she was...she'd be in one of these?"
His question hung in the air between us. Both of our eyes regarded the folder as if it were explosive. Of course, Ben's hypothesis made sense if we ruled out my own father's involvement. Which, I wasn't sure I was ready to do. I wanted to, obviously, but I had to be logical.
"It couldn't hurt to check out a few places every once in a while."
Ben's smile grew and I suddenly felt like I'd agreed to something that would closely resemble an FBI stakeout. As long as he was up for it, I would do whatever it took to find his mother. I'd never been an optimist, but I knew she was alive. I felt it.
Ben spent the rest of that evening playing Xbox with Harry while I attempted to finish my homework. My valiant attempt, however, kept being interrupted down the hall by loud yells. At one point, I think Ben had taken Harry's controller and thrown it across the room. All I knew was that something hard had hit my wall and was succeeded by lots of yelling.
It was the second night in a row that Mom didn't cry.
Unfortunately, the silence in the house didn't stop the nightmares. I woke, again, in a cold sweat with my heart threatening to beat out of my chest. When I had these nightmares, they weren't exactly prophetic.
It wasn't that they were dark, per se. I was surrounded by nothing, nothing at all. If I reached out, there was nothing. If I tried to touch my face, there was nothing. It was as if I, or anything around me, simply didn't exist. Vaguely, I wondered if that was what death felt like. Oblivion.
Now that I was wide awake and clammy at 4 am, I figured I should do something productive with my time. My homework had been shoved back into my backpack, half-done. College applications were haphazardly open on the computer downstairs, beckoning me to complete them. There were many reasons why I was not going to go near those for awhile.
It was an odd thing, I think, as somewhat of a psychic, that I didn't know if I had a future.
As I was heading toward my bedroom door, thinking already of the stack of Eggos I was going to eat, my foot felt the crinkle of a small piece of paper. Kneeling down, I realized a business card and a rotted photograph had fallen out of the portfolio that Ben had gone through last night. My sweaty foot had wrinkled and dampened them.
The photograph was barely visible as it was covered in water damage and dirt. My thumb rubbed across it a few times to try and clean the surface off, but it was stubborn and still difficult to see who or what was in the photo. The back of the nonvisible photograph was dated January 9th, 2016.
Flipping my attention to the business card, I almost dropped both of the pieces of paper. There was only a name and a phone number on it.
Johnathan Sterling.
My fingers shook. My father? His last name was Sterling?
So, my mind mused dangerously, in another life my name would've been Lou Sterling.
I knew before my fingers dialed the number that it would be him. Things like coincidences didn't happen in West Acres. Everything was always connected, somehow or someway.
So when I put the phone to my ear, I wasn't surprised when his voice answered.
"Eloise," he said, by way of greeting, "I should say, I was expecting this call when you were searching his office, and certainly not at 4:10 in the morning."
He didn't sound groggy or even like he'd been trying to sleep. Like me, he was wide awake.
"You left it there for me to find," I accused.
I could practically see my father's gray eyes sparkle as I put the pieces together. My heart sank, however, as I realized that if he were responsible for Delia's disappearance he must have already taken anything that could have helped our search.
"I find it's a terrible invasion of privacy to project your words into somebody else's mind. I figured you'd prefer it this way."
My voice was small, remembering the conversation we'd had in the alleyway. "I do."
Absently, I placed the photograph and the business card on my desk and paced my room anxiously.
Instead of bringing up my vulnerability of the last time we'd spoken, he changed the subject to my surprise.
"Why are you up so early? Or should I say late? Are you the kind of teenager who stays up all night then sleeps till 2?"
His voice was humorous, sounding genuinely interested in my nightly habits. I was wary, of course, I still didn't know his intentions, but his voice was comforting after my nightmare of oblivion.
"I don't sleep till 2...staying up all night, maybe."
He clicked his tongue and I heard a hum of television in the background.
"Is it the nightmares?" He asked.
I swallowed. "Sometimes."
"All the time," he corrected.
I'd just learned my father's last name minutes before this conversation, yet he seemed to see right through me. How come his knowledge of me only comforted me rather than worried me?
"You said," I began, my voice sounding accusatory again, "you would help me get rid of them."
"I will," his voice was earnest.
"When?"
There was a moment of silence on his end.
"Are you busy now?"
——————
How are we feeling about Lou's dad? It looks like he's giving her some comfort that she really desperately needs.
Also, I love Shakespeare, and writing anything bad about him is blasphemy, but Lou is the kind of person that would flush his plays down the toilet while I cried.
Alas,
I still like her.
Thank you thank you thank you for reading!!!!
Stay safe. Be kind.