And I, you

CHAPTER 4: LINA

'And my own darkness illuminates its memory'

- Peter Cooley, from "The Light From Certain Houses"

"Miles I need you to call me back right now, this is really important. Please call me as soon as you get this," I say and hang up.

His phone has been going to voicemail for the past two hours and I am worried sick now. I tried to google information on the same accident but there's not much. It just seems that if an accident truly did happen around that time, I'd know, wouldn't I?

My phone pings with a message and I rush to see whether it's Miles who finally reverted but it's just an unknown number. God, this is how it always starts in those movies, I blame Hollywood for my fear. I open the message that came along with it. 

'Meet me at the Cafe at 6 pm - E'

It's really no mystery who this E is but his intentions to suddenly contact and meet me are getting clearer by the second. I delete the message and try to work. Hours pass by and when it's finally time to go, 5 pm, I have recorded five files in audio format which is well, pretty good considering the day I've had. Miles has yet not called me back and I've stopped worrying, he probably would be on a hectic case and must be dealing with that. 

My mother comes and picks me up from the office and I am beyond glad to go home. 

"How was your day?" she asks me during the car ride.

"Eh, okay. How was yours?" 

"Pretty good, I hung out with some of my friends today at the Cafe and met this young lovely man, I've gotta feeling you'll like him," she says and I can feel the smile she's wearing on her face right now.

"Ahan and who might this chap be?"

"He even had such a beautiful name, I'm telling you, darling, they don't name their kids anymore this way!"

"Definitely, what's his name? I'm absolutely in for a blind date, pun intended," I say and chuckle at my own joke, god, what happened to me. 

"Ezra," she says.

"No fucking way, when was this?" I ask her and grip my seat so hard my knuckles turn white.

"Around 4 pm, why do you ask?"

So around the time he texted me, he was already there?

"Great mom, I hope you didn't get too friendly with him," I say to her and she pauses.

"Would inviting him to our house be too friendly?"

"Mom WHAT?"

"I'm sorry darling, I had no idea you'd react this way"

"Mom, you've barely ever met the guy how the hell did you end up inviting him to our house?"

"Well he seemed quite lonely and he was so kind to the ladies, he helped us fight off that mean old pervert I told you about remember? It felt as if the least I could do," she says with a sigh.

"I am not stepping one foot in my house with that man there, you can leave me here," I say and try to open the car door but she's already locked it, damn it, she's fast.

"Psh, he's not in our house, he's at Aunt Maria's! We have to go to her house for dinner anyways tonight and you're coming," she says firmly.

Was this his stupid plan all along? That bastard knew I'd never agree to come to the cafe alone this way. I've got to give it to him, he's clever.

"Fine, but we're doing this my way," I say and she agrees.

He'll never know what hit him.

                                                                                                  ***

We arrive at the house at exactly 5 pm, courtesy of my always punctual mother and we're the first ones to arrive. Aunt Maria greets me way too excitedly for someone who had met me yesterday and I'm taken aback by all the hugs she's throwing at me, her affection is starting to get suffocating now. When she finally lets me go, I gasp for breath while she moves on to strangle my mother. 

"So, the job treating you?" Aunt Maria asks me once we all settle down in her living room. Though I can't see it right now, it will always be engraved in my memory. It has a baby pink sofa in the middle, Lina, her daughter, had odd choices in life. A beautiful painting in the centre which Aunt Maria painted and a coffee table in front of the sofa. There's a love seat at the edge of the sofa and the walls are covered in black, giving the room a very sharp look, minus the baby pink sofa of course. There's a piano in the corner of the room with dust gathering on it, Lina used to play it but she hasn't been here in years. Now, it's just a table with baby pictures of her, pictures of her with her mom and me. 

I used to spend countless hours with Lina as she used to babysit me. We weren't so well to do earlier, so my mom was constantly working two to three jobs at that time to support me and my father, until he disappeared when I was young. Although his leaving did relieve some of the stress my mom had about working, it still left a giant hole in her heart. It's been 15 years since and we don't talk about it anymore, but it would be nice to. 

Lina didn't have to babysit me but we enjoyed spending time together, she was only 3 years older than me. Some of my best memories are with her, forever etched in my mind. 

"Lu, she asked you something," my mom says to me and I return back to the present.

"Huh? It's been going great, thank you," I say to her absentmindedly. 

"Sorry, she does that a lot these days," mom says to Aunt Maria with a sigh. 

"She and Lina were so much alike, it's uncanny," Aunt Maria says with sorrow etched deep in her reply. 

Lina had gone overseas for some work, she was supposed to return in a few days, the date somewhat being around my accident but she didn't come back when she was supposed to. We knew she was alive because she constantly called us and nothing had seemed wrong or out of the ordinary, she said she had some work and would come back in some while, until she never did. 

She died in a car accident but we could not get any insightful details because her body was brutally damaged during the car accident, at least that's what the reports said. They never found her body. 

It's safe to call me a human omen. 

"Remember that one time when Lu and Li decided to shoot some movie on this fantasy idea they had and kept asking us for unicorns or ponies for it," my mother says with a laugh. 

"I still have it on videotape you know, that movie they almost made. Damn, there were some good lines in it," Aunt Maria says and laughs along with my mother. 

"Oh, bring it out won't you dear? I'd love to see their chubby faces again"

"Of course, I'll just get the CD. Lina had me change the cover of the CD from grey to some baby pink colour, remember the one her Prius had? She was so obsessed with pink" Aunt Maria says with a chuckle. 

And then it all hits me like a cyclone coming to shore. 

The pink Prius.

How her body was never found. 

The description of the woman in the news article. 

A 37-year-old woman was killed. 

The collision occurred after a Prius travelling on the wrong side of the road hit an Audi.

The woman was left lifeless and severely injured on the road. 

Her corpse remains unidentified to date. 

Oh

My

God 

It's Lina.