Charming by Haig Moses (1st Draft)

Chapter Thirty-Two

HOME SWEET HOME

A deep gloom had cased itself around Kappa's camp and when the police and paramedics arrived we were all questioned one by one though there was nothing to tell. Yvonne was supposed to be in a car headed back to campus after she had been cut from he Kappa recruitment trial. "I didn't really know her," I had told the detective as she scribbled notes in her handheld notebook. "I saw her around campus and when us pledges recruited for Kappa, but other than that we didn't really speak."

    Detective Haan had written all of my words down before asking me a few questions about Kappa. Whether any other girls had disappeared and the treatment of Kappa throughly rush process. "It's common for the hazing rituals to get a bit brutal," she said. "If you can tell me anything about that, or about Prathana Balakrishna, who I believe is the president of this organization."

    I swallowed thinking back to Sebastian laying on the ground nude and bleeding, locked in a cage. Back to me being dragged across the backyard and down the basement stairs, into the dark room and drugged again and again. I thought about the screws coming from the basement about the merciless ripping of pledge pins. I thought about all of this, but what came out of my mouth was, "I don't think I would call it a hazing ritual," I said. "It's not even a ritual at all. We were only here for a scavenger hunt."

    The detective looked up from her notebook and exhaled. "Look, I know there's a lot of loyalty going on here, but anything that you can tell us about this organization could help with solving this murder."

    I watched the woman back and smiled, "I'm sorry, there's nothing I can tell you."

    Exhaling she put her notebook away and I too released a breath I didn't know I was holding. When they finished questioning me, I took a ride back to campus with an officer and went straight to my dorm. Without even blinking I packed my things in a small bag and took all the belongings that were of importance to me: my mother's journal, my phone, wallet and dog tags. And left after I ordered myself a car. As I walked out, Prathana was walking in and her eyes didn't even bother to meet my gaze. We passed each other like two ships in the night and something inside of my fractured even more.

    "Where to ma'am?" The taxi driver asked.

    "Airport."

    The flight back to Poulsbo was always longer than I think it's going to be and by the time the car arrived at the large white house my backside was sore from sitting all the time. As I walked up the front of the house, I took out the unused key and quickly unlocked the door to the house.

    The familiar scent of coffee and oil paint brushed my nose and I looked around the house which was a perfect example of two things that didn't exactly go together. The traditional home was cluttered with empty canvases and unfinished sculptures. All done by the hands of Danielle who moved from project to project like a hummingbird to flowers. Wherever inspiration struck was where she followed. I knew somebody was home, their car was parked right outside and so I didn't bother to announce myself and slipped upstairs and into the third bedroom on the right.

    It was the second largest in the house. The walls were painted a pale green and decorated with tiny string lights. Just above the bed was a map of the world with pins on every city I wanted to visit and on the other side was my desk and a board of photos of various stages of my life. Most of the were happy memories that blurred together and others seemed happy, but were really hidden by terror. In all the photos I didn't recognize the girl in them. At various stages of my life I had become something else for somebody else and now I just felt too exhausted from change to define who I was. I felt almost like Danielle's paintings. So many hands had attributed to creating who I was, but nobody had ever cared to finish and now there I was a cluttered mess waiting, but knowing I'd never become a masterpiece.