Found (BxB)

CHAPTER 46

Kaden dropped me by my house before going to his meeting.

I was going to grab my bag of the football practice and then head to school. Jonathan was probably already at school. He told me he was going to meet Melisa and then he would go straight to the practice. Meanwhile, the twins had gone to a friend's house. And my dad was in a business trip. He would come back only in a few days.

I entered the living room. I realized that my mother was on the couch, looking down at her lap. I figured she was on her phone, and walked past her to my room since I had to be fast if I wanted to get to practice on time.

"Hey, mom" I greeted her as I headed to my room.

I didn't wait for an answer as I went upstairs, opened my room's door and went straight to my bed, where I had placed my bag. I stopped in the middle of my way when I noticed my closet's door was open.

I walked up until my closet to close the door that, for some reason, was open, but I just held the edge of it as I realized that my clothes were pushed to the side; the piece of wood where I hid my pictures exposed.

My heart stopped beating. Calm down, Ethan. Maybe the pictures are still there. Maybe someone just messed in your closet to find some shirt or to give it back, and they didn't even notice this loose piece of wood. Nothing happened.

My movements were hesitant as I grabbed the edge of the piece of wood. I closed my eyes because I wasn't ready to discover if my secret was or wasn't still in there. With my eyes tightly shut, I pulled the wood from my closet.

Now you have to open your eyes. It's okay. The pictures will be there. Don't worry. Nothing happened. Even with the soothing voice inside my mind, I took a while to flutter my eyes open. That's because what we can't sense can't hurt us. If I remained in ignorance, if I didn't know the answer to the questioning inside my head, I wouldn't suffer. I wouldn't need to suffer for something that wasn't real. And, as long as I didn't know it, it wasn't real to me.

But we can't remain in ignorance forever. If we do, then we'd be living in our own world instead of living reality. And, despite all the problems existents in it, I wanted to live the real world. It's the only world that can bring us down and make us happy at the same time. So, I opened my eyes.

The nervousness had made my vision blurry, and I had to blink a few times to see straight. Better yet, to see nothing.

I looked around my closet, in the hopes the pictures would magically pop up. I pushed my clothes from one side to the other, hoping the photos would fall from them. Then I looked at the floor close to my closet, in the hopes they would have fallen there and I hadn't seen it.

What I was doing reminded me of what Kaden thought when Charlie died, when he thought his brother would one day show up in his room and tell him it was all a joke. Unreasonable, but the only way our brains find to prevent us from facing the weight of the truth.

The pictures weren't there. I took a deep breath, trying to let that sink in. But I could already notice the effect that my despair was having in my body. My hands were shaky, my heart was speeding up inside my chest, and I felt like there was a knot in my throat, though I didn't know if it was because I wanted to cry or throw up.

My mind wandered to my mother downstairs, to how she was staring down at something in her hands. Maybe she isn't the one who found it. Maybe it was Casey. But, deep down, I knew that didn't make sense. Why would Casey keep the pictures I had taken with my boyfriend? But, again, this is the way my brain found to prevent me from facing the weight of the truth.

I reluctantly made my way downstairs. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I looked over to my mom, still on the couch. I analysed her from there, trying to find any signs of sadness, anger or disappointment. As I could barely see her face, since she was still staring down at whatever that was in her hands, I walked closer to her.