The Girl Who Was Adopted

Chapter 7 - All Hell Breaks Loose

"I was hoping you'd pick up, but I guess you're busy. Look, I just wanted to say that I'm really sorry about getting angry at you – I'm really sorry for what I said; it was uncalled for and it wasn't my place to say anything." There was a long pause. "I just – I want to fix things, and I guess I'd been hoping that you would message me, but – I know that I owe you the apology." Alex sounded so unsure of the words coming out of his own mouth. "Just, let me know if you're willing to give me a second chance, no matter what, I'll be there. I'll tell you everything. Call me."

I sighed as the message ended, and I selected the replay option and returned my head to my pillow. I'd been listening to the voice mail for the last six hours, I'd avoided the call just after I'd returned from the race track, and it'd taken an hour for me to pluck up the courage to actually listen to the voice mail.

It was just after five thirty when I'd fallen asleep, but it was restless and the dreams faded in and out, feigning different possibilities of how seeing Alex again could go.

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I woke up just after nine, it seemed that Clare had given me the day off because she hadn't woken me up. Perhaps she was simply accepting the way I was dealing with everything. I climbed out of bed and made myself some coffee and toast before wandering into the study.

My brain was focusing on the accident, trying to figure out what kind of accident it could have been. I started up the laptop and opened Google before typing 'Rebecca Green' into the search bar. It took a second to load before a bunch of news headlines from a few years back were listed.

I clicked on the article title 'All Hell Breaks Loose' and waited for the page to load. I recognised the title and the location immediately, and absently I could remember reading the article when it had first been released. A picture loaded beside the article, a photograph of a car pile-up in the racetrack that we had been riding the night before. I felt sick to my stomach.

"A seven car pile-up happened today during the annual City Star race. Four drivers have been confirmed dead, two drivers are critically injured and one driver left almost completely unscathed apart from a few recoverable injuries. We are still unsure about what caused the accident, but investigators say that it might have been due a fault in Racshaw's vehicle.

The dead drivers were named as Jesse Rachaw, Lukas Phillian, Cameron Smith and Phillip Frances. The two injured drivers were Caleb Edwards, and Rebecca Green. Damien Johnson walked off the track with the paramedics this afternoon, trying to help his injured comrades as best could."

I closed the tab and went back to the original Google results. Rebecca's Facebook page was listed, and I clicked on it. She had Phil's light brown hair and bright blue eyes. She was beautiful, to say the least. All the latest posts on her page were from Sarah and two other girls, with long time gaps between each.

Sarah had posted, with 18 comments:

"I miss you every day, more and more."

I scrolled down and skimmed the other posts below, they got more and more apart with months in between. I spotted another one of Sarah's posts and opened it.

"I remember on your first day of high school, you decided that you hated it so much and you made that chart, counting down each and every day until you were finished. I remember really wanting to help you, because you seemed like you were on a real mission, and you let me colour all the Wednesdays blue. You didn't list the days that you would get off for family functions and stupid holidays that meant nothing to us. I remember you telling me that if you could get through high school without murdering anyone, you would take a fat day to pig out on all your favourite foods.