Black Waters (Frank Ocean Love Story)

Chapter 二十五

Christopher’s View

I was extremely upset with Mia. She seemed to enjoy annoying me. First she tries to pry into my own personal life, asking me about who I’m on the phone with. And then when I specifically instruct her to stay in the car while I take care of business, she comes in after a heated fight with one of my best friends and claims that he’s just a ‘job taken care of’?

I just didn’t understand.

Mia’s behavior grew stranger by the day, or even by the minute. When she came home from the mall the next day, she had a malicious expression on her face. I wanted to ask what was up, but being that I was still upset with her, I remained silent. The slammed her body down on the couch and I continued to watch my television.

“They’re penetrating the movement. They’re getting closer—too close.” Mia said to herself. She didn’t even have the courtesy to whisper. I shook my head and flipped the channel when the Nets vs. Bulls game went on commercial. Unintentionally, I stopped on a news channel. One word, one name caught my eye.

Ajahni.

“A frazzled manager of the popular mental institution Cedar Gardens reports a horrifying picture that an anonymous person mailed to the school. The picture was of patient Ajahni Nash, who had recently disappeared from the institution along with four other girls. Nash was clearly murdered as the picture portrayed. A significant amount of money, along with files from the patients’ personal files, is missing from Cedar Gardens. Police are trying to get in touch with Ajahni’s family regarding funeral concerns.”

The remote slid out of my hands.

Everything stopped. The world stopped spinning, my heart stopped beating, the reporter stopped speaking.

It was like I was frozen in time for a million years and then defrosted. Nothing was going on, yet so much was happening. A single, stinging and itchy tear shed from my eye.

My only true fear had suddenly come back to haunt me. I gave up on looking for her, and now she’s dead. Gone. Every memory I ever shared with her is simply that. A memory, with no hope of being continued. Ajahni is dead.

So without her, what am I?

“Dead.” I answered my own question. I might as well just die. But I didn’t have the strength to do it, to bring death upon myself. After all, I’ve just defrosted. Everything is numb.

Mia stared at the screen and then looked at me knowingly. She could tell I knew Ajahni. But the knowing expression she had was more than just that…there was something else she knew. Did that even really matter?

“But police are so surprised by the strangeness of this case that they claim to doubt that Nash is even dead. There is a possibility that this was all a joke, or possibly someone who kidnapped her wanted people to think she was dead. Either way, the police are still trying to find her.”

A tiny portion of my numbness turned into feeling, into relief. This was much, much better news. Even if it wasn’t good, it was better. Ajahni being dead…I was on the verge of destroying something, everything. But now that I know there’s a possibility she’s still alive, it’s ok. I know for sure that we are destined to meet again. Fate wouldn’t allow one of us to die before we meet.

“She’s okay.” I smiled through my tears, not even bothering to wipe them. I smiled widely at the screen even while the story changed to something different. My world was okay.

“Hopefully,” Mia replied to me suddenly. “Hopefully she’s okay. I know how it feels to have a friend die. My friend died just last night.”

I looked up at Mia suddenly, seeing her eyes glazed over with potent emotion in the darkness of the room. The only light in the room was the television, creating a somewhat eerie setting in the room. I couldn’t tell whether Mia was crying, or just angry.

“Someone killed him. People were trying to track us down, and we already knew. So we waited for them. And when they tried to hurt me, my friend protected me. But he got killed.” She said.

“This all happened last night?”

“Yeah. But it’s okay, because I took care of it. Those people killed my friend, so I sent somebody to kill one of them.”

And from that moment on, I was a bit afraid of Mia.

                                                                             * * *

On the news the next day, they were saying that Ajahni’s body hadn’t been found. But they did say that Cedar Gardens Mental Institution had received a threat letter, saying that if anyone came looking for Ajahni, they would blow up Cedar Gardens and kill the officers that found her. So now they knew for sure that Ajahni had been kidnapped.

The story wasn’t making much sense to me, though. Why was Ajahni in a mental institution in the first place? Because she broke out of a hospital? So what? That didn’t add up to me. And who would want to kidnap her?

For the first time in a long time, I prayed for Ajahni. I got down on my knees and asked God to make sure she was alright. I asked that whoever had her in their custody would not hurt her, and she would be found safe and sound.

And hopefully, I would find her too.

After praying, I also made a vow to myself. I would not continue searching for Forrest. I was beginning to feel as if my betrayal toward Ajahni caused this to happen. I could never neglect her like that again.

“So you’re saying you just don’t want to be friends anymore,” Mia said after I broke the news to her that there was no need for us to continue searching.

“No, I’m saying that I don’t want to look for him anymore. I just can’t, for my own personal reasons. We can still be friends, and you can still look for him on your own. But just don’t involve me.” I corrected her. Mia shrugged.

“I’d rather us not be friends any longer,” she said. “The only reason I spoke to you in the first place was for you to help me look for Roshon. Now that you don’t want to do that anymore, you are not friend-worthy. You’re just another job to be taken care of.”

“Wait,” I said before she began to walk away from me. “Why do you keep calling people ‘jobs’ to be taken care of?”

Mia smirked. “Since we aren’t friends anymore, there’s no reason for you to know that.”