With a Pull of a Trigger

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

By the Precipice of Insanity

The apartment was shockingly empty.

Catherine cautiously walked inside, her spare key still grasped tightly in her hand. Gil’s apartment was devoid of any appliance or furniture, and Catherine suspected it had been that way for two weeks after graduation, the day when she last saw Gil. What with her busy schedule and her internship, it was only at that day when she found time to go to Gil’s apartment and, if possible, spend the day with him.

It wasn’t possible, and that was because of the clearly emptied out apartment.

With quick fingers, Catherine opened her peach handbag and took out her phone, dialing Gil’s number with shaking hands. Her heart thudded in her chest as she wordlessly listened to the woman on the phone tell her that Gil’s number was unavailable.

A quick look in all the rooms told her that no, Gil wasn’t there, and that he just left.

A sudden wave of anger hit Catherine, prompting her to throw her phone to the wall and just collapse on the ground, her shaky legs no longer able to support her weight and the burden she seemed to be carrying all by herself. She knew it was bad of her to not speak to Gil for such a long time, but never did she ever think Gil would use that as an excuse to leave her. They had gone through worse, only got to speak to each other after three weeks or so, but never did Gil leave her.

So why was Gil gone now?

Didn’t he understand that Catherine was busy because she so badly wanted to work hard and bring back money to her mother? Didn’t he understand that not all people were as rich as him, that not people had the chance to live the luxurious lifestyle he got to live?

Angry tears spilled out of Catherine’s eyes as she looked around, wanting desperately for Gil to appear and hug her, tell her that everything was okay.

He didn’t.

With shaky legs, Catherine struggled to stand up and walked towards where her phone was, surprisingly still in one piece. She looked at Gil’s picture on her phone, at his number, and remembered how Gil wasn’t that guy.

He wasn’t the type of guy to just leave everything behind without an explanation.

Remembering that conversation she once had with Gil wherein he explained where he would hide a letter explaining everything to her in the impossible event wherein he needed to be discreet, Catherine ran to the bathroom, turning on the light with a flick of the light switch. She put her bag on the dry, tiled floor, and lifted the top part of the toilet bowl’s tank.

Laying it on the ground quickly, she stood up and looked inside the tank.

There was a Ziplock bag inside the tank.

Careful not to be wet, Catherine took the Ziplock bag and saw that there was a white letter envelope inside, along with five different kinds of flowers; a striped carnation, a cyclamen, a sweetpea, a purple hyacinth, and a single red rose in full bloom. She knew what they meant, of course, and it just hurt, really, that Gil had to leave behind flowers instead of giving them himself.

 She slid open the bag, took out the envelope, ripped it open, and unfolded the letter.

The first two words she saw were ‘I’m sorry’.

Agents were, as a general type of people, often construed as paranoid, and people who were teetering on the brink of insanity, just that one step into becoming mentally deranged.