five

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September 1999...

I don't know how I got home, but suddenly my street is flying past me. Our house is on the far left corner, my mother's car already pulled into the driveway, and another red jeep is here that's very familiar.

How did I get here? Were any of those lights I passed green? Where is my mind?

TV vans line our street, but I don't pay any attention to them, I can't. Because this is a race, and I need to be the winner. Pulling up to my house, the dread drills in harder. You'd think I'd feel more comfort in seeing the jeep with the It's Happy Bunny bumper sticker that I helped Mandy pick out saying 'I just realized I don't care', but I feel nothing but misery, because I know the reason she and my mother's cars are both here. They're waiting for me.

I park my truck in a hurry, not bothering how well I park or if Mom can get out or not, that doesn't matter right now. I can go back out in a bit to re-park if I have to. Grabbing my backpack and jacket from the passenger seat, I shut the car off, rip the keys out, but I can hardly make it out of my truck before the doors of the TV vans slam, and my name is being shout through the neighborhood with cameras and microphones attached.

"Kara! How do you feel about the recent news? Is it true?"

"Kara! Were you in a relationship with Trevor Val before your abduction?"

"Were you even abducted by him? Or did you run away with him?" Reporters turn to vultures, ready to prey, pick, destroy my life, my reputation. They run out of their vans, chasing me down. And I want to scream at them, shout with all my might, 'No! No, I didn't just run away with him! That's not what happened at all. How could you think that?' But tears replace the scream, and they keep falling down my face. I don't bother wiping them away anymore. There's no point, they'll just end up rolling back within seconds. But the cool fall air helps to dry them, becoming tight on my face. The cold wind passes me, shaking discoloured and tarnished leaves off their homes and into the air, storming around each other, like the emotional wreckage and storm spiralling inside me.

How is it so easy for them to turn against me? So I said some weird things in that interview, big whoop. They all know what I've been through. Don't they understand what it was like for two years in that cabin? Locked up, scared for my life, not knowing what was coming next. They should feel sorry for me, not him. I'm not the suspect, I'm the victim!

"Kara! What was Trevor Val to you? Was he your abductor? Or your boyfriend?"

"Did you really kill him in self defence? Or was it something else?"

It doesn't matter how fast I walk towards my front door and away from the reporters. Because this is a waking nightmare with long corridor hallways that only grow miles. It doesn't matter how many steps I take along our front yard with the dying grass and decaying flowers, because our sidewalk is only s t r e t c h i n g, and the vultures are gaining. About to pick me apart until there's nothing left but bones. And bones can't lie or tell the truth, otherwise, maybe Trevor Val would be more than just a suspected corpse.

"Kara." Our red front door finally opens for me, like they've been waiting for my arrival. And suddenly the scene isn't frozen and the sidewalk isn't stretching anymore, but it almost hits me as I nearly trip over our front stone steps, and my mom and Mandy waited eagerly inside for me.

"Kara!'' the last reporter hollers, repeating my name so many times to the point where it sounds weird. The voices become muffled as I run into the warmth and safety of the house, into Mandy's arms as she holds them open and my mom slams the door. And all is quiet again, piercing silent, as my sobs become the only noise. Mandy wraps her arms around me while I bury my head in her flannel. Her light, choppy bobbed hair tickles my face as pieces get stuck in my tears before I wipe them away. Another hand strokes my back, I can imagine it's my mother's, pity radiating off her. But there's something else seeping off her, something powerful she's trying to hide although she never does a good job at that. It's a feeling that's always here when Mandy is, bringing something out in my mother that wasn't here before; jealousy. Jealous, that I'm looking for comfort in Mandy instead of her.

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