~Beauty~
Her index finger was tucked between the next two pages of the book. It was like her very limbs were in anticipation of what would happen next. Her eyes couldn't consume the ink fast enough and she had to fight to refrain from reading ahead. Her muscles tensed as she leaned forward in her seat.
The love crazed man lifted his dagger, ready to plunge it into the chest of his wife. It fell down, crossing the space between the two until -
"Look out!"
Beth lifted her nose from the book just in time to see her best friend jump in front of her and catch a football in mid air. His muscular build landed in the grass in an ungraceful manner, sending dirt into her eyes.
Grayson smiled at her sheepishly. "I've told you a million times, you don't catch football with your face!"
"And I've told you a million times you don't play catch in a library!"
He shook his head at her. "We aren't in a library."
She looked around and then felt a burst of heat in her face. "Oh, right."
Her friend reached out a hand to lift her up, helping her dust off her jeans. "You completely lose yourself in those things, Beth. It's a safety hazard."
Grayson's friend from the football team jogged over. Out of all the guys on the team, he stuck out to her because he was a fan of one of her favorite book trilogies. However, she had talked his ear off about the series and was almost certain she ruined it for him.
"Hi Carter." He nodded at her.
"That's enough catch for today. Beth's trying to read," Grayson said clapping his buddy on the back.
"Of course, she is." Carter's gray eyes barely brushed over her but in the split second they did, they were filled with disgust. "I gotta go anyways. Catch you at practice."
Grayson didn't notice the look. He never noticed the looks.
Beth knew she wasn't drop dead gorgeous. She would never look like a model or a movie star but she had made peace with that. She made peace with her dead straight hair, her prone to acne forehead, and the couple extra pounds she carried. She also learned to embrace the things she really liked about herself like her heart shaped lips and the curves she had gotten from her grandmother. Nonetheless, she was no goblin. There was no reason for people to look at her the way they did.
No reason that related to herself.
Her mother struggled with addiction and everyone knew it due to her appearance at their freshmen orientation where she was far less than sober. No one wanted to let it go.
Not even her high marks in class could wash the judgment from her teacher's eyes. Some looks held more pity than disgust but unfortunately for Beth, every look melted together into one thing; an assumption. An unwanted judgment. And yet she could not bring herself to hate her mother for it.
"So I was thinking," Grayson started, breaking her from her trance, "we could go out Saturday night."
They had walked onto their college campus and were approaching the science hall. As the space got more crowded, more eyes landed on her. She could have been imagining it but she thought she heard pointed whispers that held her name.
"Sounds good to me."
"Maybe we could get some Chinese since I know you've been obsessed with orange chicken and egg rolls . . ."
"Egg rolls sound nice . . ." To say Beth was distracted was an understatement. The halls felt more narrow than ever. Were there really that many students attending their college? Wasn't small class sizes heavily advertised on the brochures?
A girl was pointing right at Beth. Directly at her.
"It wouldn't be one of our normal hanging outs though. I mean, it could be if you wanted it to but I was thinking it could be more of . . . more of a da-"
"Do you see the way they're all looking at me?" she whispered.
"What? Who?"
"Everyone!"
He laughed. "No, I was too busy looking at you."
A boy from her statistics class paused in their path. He was trying his best to frown but a smile kept twitching onto his thin lips. "I'm so sorry for your loss."
"My loss?" Her heart was racing before she even knew why.
The boy was already slithering off, mumbling under his breath. "Can't say your mother wasn't looking for it."
"My mother?" Beth turned, voice pleading. "What happened to my mother?!"
Grayson grabbed the boy's arm, pulling him back toward them. The smug smile was off his face in a second.
"She asked you a question."
"Sh- she's missing. The neighbors heard screams and they called the police. In the apartment, everything was torn apart." The boy shrugged. "I thought you knew. It's all over the news."
Beth began to shake. The chatter around her muffled as if she was under water.
It was common for her mother to get herself into trouble. Sometimes she'd disappear for too long and Beth would enlist Grayson's help to find her slumped in some alley or in a holding cell for shoplifting. It wasn't everyone's normal but it was Beth and her mother's normal. News coverage wasn't part of that normal and Beth feared that meant the outcome was unpredictable.
She thought of her mother's cold body laying in the gutters somewhere, victim to angry dealers.
No.
For the first time, Grayson couldn't think of anything to brighten her mood.
"I can drive," was what he offered.
The two rushed off campus and into Beth's blue buggie. Before it was Beth's it had been her father's. The car had seen better days. It's paint was faded and sometimes it took a while to start but it was familiar. She remembered her father had driven it all the way to New York from Mexico because he had gotten such a good deal on it. Beth had never gotten to visit Mexico to see her abuela but he'd bring her gifts from his trips. When he wanted to name the car she insisted it was a boy and named it Pedro. The name stuck even after her father passed. The car was one of the only things she had left of him.
It was all Beth could do to keep it together on the twenty minute car ride to the apartment. She thanked God that she hadn't decided to dorm at some upstate university - like she really had the choice. Going away for college would be like a death sentence for her mother. Yet, here they were anyways. She shuddered.
Grayson offered to turn on the radio but she swiftly declined, fearing a report about her mother would come on.
"Why didn't someone call me?" Beth was close to tears. "I'm her daughter. I'm all she has!"
Grayson laid a hand on her knee. "We'll figure it out."
The scene at the apartments sent chills down both of their spines.
The police cars, yellow tape, the mess . . . it was all there. It had been true.
For Beth, the rest of the day passed in a big blur of questioning, standing around, and holding onto Grayson for support. The police looked for clues, asked Beth the same questions over and over, and assured her they would do everything in their power to find her mother. But she knew they wouldn't. The cops were familiar with Ella Rodriguez. One quick search of her name and they would see that she was hardly ever sober and always in some kind of trouble. They didn't care that she was a broken woman too scared to face reality without Beth's father.
By the end of the day, it was Grayson in the apartment with Beth. He was supposed to drive her to stay at his apartment since it wasn't safe for her there. Although, they both knew it was never safe for her there.
"Are they gone?" she asked, referring to the cops. Grayson closed the curtain with a nod. "Good."
She got up from the kitchen table and wiped her tears away. The apartment was a mess. Furniture was flipped over and there was broken glass scattered across the floor. Things were scratched and chipped. It still made her nauseous that there had been blood, not all of it her mothers.
Beth let herself into her mother's room. It was barren and had been for years. Her mother had a habit of selling her possessions for extra cash. Sometimes she tried to sell Beth's too. She had walked in hoping to receive a sense of comfort. She hoped the room would still smell like her mother or act as a reasonable substitute for the time being. It was a foolish expectation but it had made her think of something.
"The diary!"
Grayson came in after her with curious eyes. He watched her move a stool over to her mom's closet, climb up, and blindly feel around. "What are you doing?"
Her hand brushed against the book's spine. "Yes!"
She tossed it onto the bed and sat, motioning her friend over. She flipped through the pages. "My mom keeps a diary. She may have written about something that could tell us why someone took her," she explained. The diary was an idea her old rehab coach suggested. It never really helped anything in the drug area but it had proved to be a useful tool in helping Beth keep tabs on her mother. The last time she had used it, she found her mom had been planning to shoplift in New Jersey. To no one's surprise, she was found in a jail cell in New Jersey. More so it helped Beth keep track of how her mother was feeling. If she wrote about feeling down, she could anticipate her mother to use more.
Grayson kneeled onto the bed. "Why didn't you tell the police about this?"
"Can't you see? The police don't care about my mother. No one does." He winced, making no effort to deny it. "Look, today's date." He sat beside her and read the entry aloud.
November 2nd,
Today I was high out of my mind and decided to leave the apartment.
I don't know how I got there but I found myself in front of a fence to a backyard. There was something behind the fence glowing red and I just had to see what it was. I knew that it wasn't the drugs. That red glow was real.
As I got closer, I realized it wasn't coming off of a screen of some kind and the glow was accompanied by a sweet smell. The sweetest smell I have ever smelled. I jumped over the fence and landed in the most glorious rose garden I have ever seen. It reminded me of the rose garden Hector used to have.
Beth flinched at the sound of her father's name. "Is that it?" A walk through a rose garden seemed like an unhelpful tip. What trouble was to be had when surrounded by flowers? Besides, trespassing, that was.
Grayson shook his head and read on.
There were only red roses but the shades varied, all glowing. When my fingers grazed their petals I felt power radiate off of them. It was like an electric shock. In the center of the garden was a single rose placed in a glass vase. It was sad. I don't know what about it made it look sad but I could feel it. The type of sad that is bottomless and hangs in the air around you, threatening to suffocate you.
The world spun around me and suddenly the vase shattered onto the ground. A roar filled the air and for a moment I thought I was in the jungle. The rose had fallen onto me and so I took it and ran. I ran because I heard footsteps coming after me.
It was only when I stumbled over the fence when I realized who was chasing me. I had seen the black mask and blue eyes on the news multiple times.
It was The Beast.
It still hasn't registered that it was really him. I would report his location to the cops but I can't for the life of me remember where that garden was. Besides, the only proof I have that all this wasn't some weird trip is the rose. The rose he so desperately wanted back.
I think I heard him say that he would get it back even if he had to kill me.
But I did make it home and I have a beautiful rose for my daughter.
Beth closed the book and took in a shaky breath.
"The Beast took my mother."