Poisoned Rose

Chapter 26: Hold Me Closer

 Chapter 26:

There are many things that we can’t understand. The past. The bad things that happened... and we become afraid. Of what might happen in the future. It was okay to be afraid. But we have to keep hoping and believing... to keep hoping and trying our best to be good and do good. Even when we're afraid. The dark circles that were under my eyes sunk deeper with every day that passes and she wasn't here. They've been searching continuously for three days now and no one can find her. There were rumors that flared in the dwindling faith that rose higher with each day that passed. The whispers of death. And, the town's biggest fear remained a question that no one wanted to know the answer too, because they were afraid of the truth that might have hurt them if they did know it. 

I didn't want to be afraid for Karlie. 

I wanted to be strong for her.

All around me, I found that Derek's house was so quiet, that my footsteps echoed into the depths of the empty passageway. I was alone in his large house. But, I tried to avoid the tendencies to be afraid of what might be going on outside those doors that remained closed. 

I knew that he was somewhere out there in the darkness outside, hoping to find her. He wouldn't return without her, I knew this because he had hardly been present in his own home for the last three days.  Every time he did walk through those doors, he looked tired, but determined. I hadn't been able to sleep knowing that Karlie was out there alone and lost. I wanted her to come back safely, for all this to be some sort of misunderstanding. 

I sat alone on those cold, marble steps while everyone else was out there looking for Karlie Camlin, slowly blinking into the empty distance. He said he didn't want me out there. He said that he would only be distracted by me, my scent would overpower any slight trace of hers and my presence would linger at the back of his mind, if I was out there looking alongside with them, which was why Derek had requested me to stay back. I didn't want too. She was my friend too. I wanted to be out there, searching for her. The house was lit in complete shadowy darkness where the light that rained in from outside was a dim gray.

Everything was gray.

The overcast skies had the color of deadened stones, and seemed closer than usually, as though they were phlegmatically observing my every movement with their apathetic emptily blue-less eyes; each tiny drop of hazy rain drifting around resembled transparent molten steel, the pavement looked like it was about to burst into disconsolate tears, even the air itself was gray, so ultimate and ubiquitous that color was everywhere around me.

Gray...

I ran both my hands through my messy hair. My eyes were trained to the rich brown doors, hoping that by some farfetched miracle Derek, Sea and Karlie would come through that door laughing and joking with big smiles on their faces. But, the silent tick of the grandfather clock filled the space and I was left trapped in a prison of my own thoughts.

My mind was a race of worry. I ended up digging my nails into the palm of my hand when those thoughts about what happened to Karlie spun in my head and became much too overbearing for me to even comprehend. I had tried to contact Aaron using the land-line in Derek's home, but it went straight to voice mail. When I thought of the pain he must have been going through in separation of not knowing where Karlie was, I felt sad and broken myself.  

I bit my nails nervously. It was something I never did, but it had been too long and too late and the burning desperateness fueled inside me. I had to know what was going on. I hadn't heard from anyone today. Not from Derek. Not from Sea. Not from Chet. No one. The silence was overpowering just like the darkness of the house where the gray light filtered through the windows and the shadows of the trees cast over the walls.