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Chapter Thirty · Five

Julian

After I took Eliza to work this morning, I went straight home. I checked in on Emelise and gave her something to eat and took care of any necessities she had, knowing I'd be busy for a while. I sat on the sofa, my laptop placed on my lap, as I began to do some research on my girlfriend's friend, Becca. I wasn't sure what social sites she had or her last name, so I typed in her first name and the college she attended into my search bar. I hit the search button and a few pointless links popped up. Something related to the college, but nothing to do with Becca.

I scrolled down and saw two links for Facebook pages with the name, Becca Peterson. I clicked the first one and was taken to a profile with a photo of a young frail-bodied woman with ocean-like eyes, pale skin, and long, bright bleached hair. In the picture, she wore a peach-colored yoga outfit while holding a smoothie in her hand and smiling. The good news is this profile seemed active, but the picture didn't at all help me with the search, as I had no idea what she'd even looked like to begin with, so to confirm if I had the right person, I took a scroll through her page. I found her bio and skimmed through it. It said that she lived in California; no specific city listed; she attended UCLA, the same college as Eliza. She definitely had to be her. There were too many similarities, and I knew this couldn't be just coincidences.

I read through more of her page, getting more acquainted with who she was. I went to her photos and began viewing them each, one by one. The first one was a recent picture posted just two days ago of her at the gym, in the same exact outfit I just saw her in on the profile picture. More updated photos were just about health and fitness. I could tell it meant a lot to her to be healthy. I scrolled continuously, viewing the dated photos in her album. As far as I could tell, she was an open book. I noticed she did a lot of traveling. There were photos of her took in different places like at the Mountains, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Niagara Falls, Mount Rushmore, and the Statue of Liberty. I took a look at her posts. Her most recent one is a shared memory of her and some other people at a beach house. I looked down at the caption and read, "Can't wait for next summer." I noticed the photo was taken in Palm Springs, California. I moved my mouse arrow slightly over onto the picture and clicked on one of the other people in the photo. Just then the link of a person's name popped up, and I clicked on it immediately. I was taken to another profile page with the name Astor Peterson.

The profile picture was of an older guy with an older lady, somewhere in between mid forty's and early fifty's. They were smiling and holding hands as they were sitting at a dinner table at some fancy restaurant. They appeared to be married to each other, both of them wore a gold wedding band on their ring fingers. There was another photo behind that one. When I viewed it, I saw the older couple again along with Becca and four other guys who looked closely related to her and close in age, but still much older. Right then, it clicked in my head that this was her family. I wanted to go more in depth about them, learn more and I will if necessary, but right now I needed to stay focused. Becca was my target. I went back to her profile and as soon as I did, I saw there was a recent post that was posted one minute ago and it said, "On my way to Naturewell Vegan Juice & Smoothies." That spot is in a couple of places here, one being only four minutes away from me and the others a little ways out of the city. So I wonder, what are the odds of her going to that exact one by me? Suddenly an idea popped into my head and I couldn't resist the urge of forming my devilish smirk on my face.

In a hurry, I closed out all of my tabs, and shut down my laptop, then closed it up and placed it on the cushion beside me and getting up after. I grabbed my keys and phone from the coffee table, then left out. I arrived there shortly after and parked on the side of the road. There were a few cars parked outside of the shop, but I wasn't sure which car belonged to Becca or if she was even here, so to be sure, I went inside. The shop was pretty much empty, with only a couple of workers and two tables being occupied. No, Becca, though. I approached the counter; a worker who was present at that moment asked me what I wanted, and I couldn't decide right away. Instead, I stared at the menu for a while. Eventually, they walked away, letting me contemplate on what to get. The menu had so much on it and some things I wasn't too familiar with or even interested in, however my eyes landed on something called the Acai Bowl. it consisted of Acai, blueberries, strawberries, bananas, and granola with coconut flakes for the topping. It didn't sound as bad as the rest of the other stuff they had. I figured I'd go for it. When the barista returned to the counter, I order the bowl and waited for it to be made.