That Night √

50» That Confusion

Grace's POV
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I spent the entire night going through Dad's travel entries. It didn't take much effort to go through all of them. One second I was at the first entry and the next, I was opening the last one.

It was as if I was talking to Dad. I could hear his voice as I read those words in my head. Short detailed sentences. Every research trip he went to and whatever stuff he discovered there.

I could feel the invisible heaviness overwhelming my heart. I didn't care if it was way past midnight at that moment. I didn't care if my eyelids were slightly drooping with exhaustion. I just kept on going through his notes.

I stopped only when I reached his last entry. His last research trip, years ago. To my surprise, it wasn't opening up on the screen. It seemed as if it was encrypted.

I tried everything to open it up somehow, but nothing had proved  successful. This, with my lack of sleep, irritated me a lot. I had read each of those travel entries and had found nothing. Nothing that justified Burner's words which were repeating again and again in my head.

Burner believed that Dad brought something valuable from one of his research trips. But as far as I had read, I found nothing like such. Only the last travel entry was left, which wasn't opening at all.

Why was it encrypted? How was it not opening up?

I shut down the laptop screen and leaned back against the couch, my back aching in protest as I bit onto my fingernails anxiously.

That's pretty much how I spent the next few hours; thinking and thinking and letting my thoughts overwhelm me. So much so that I didn't even notice the sun coming up until my phone rang.

The same phone that I hadn't touched ever since Jonathan had handed it to me. I hadn't switched it on, not even in the hospital. Mainly because I knew Cynthia must've interrogated everything within my phone. Somehow, the day I had lost my phone at that Carnival, it had gotten in her hands.

She must've used it. All I wanted to do was throw it away, scared that she could somehow track me with it now.

But all I saw, when I switched it on, was Alice's short text.

Good morning :)

After that, time passed by really quick. I went to school knowing that I had already missed out so many classes to skip another day. I tried catching up to all my missed homework, all the while thinking about things like Dad's laptop and why that last entry was strangely not accessible.

Alice was beside me all day, except for few classes, making sure to keep me updated with everything that was going on around me. But I knew the real reason why she didn't leave my side at all was to make sure I was doing all right, especially since I had just left the hospital yesterday.

I was kind of grateful when she left for her last class, leaving me alone with my free period. Not that I hated her company. I just needed some time apart from her.

Instead of going to the library to finish up my Literature assignment, I headed for the grounds. More specifically, the bleachers where I was sure I would find Luca.