Dead & Forgotten

Ch. 17

Marvin only replied by saying, "I'm sorry, but I have to go make a quick phone call. I'll be back in a little while." He sounded slightly awkward when he said that, which made me believe that I truly did creep the hell out of him. But I could not help myself. I said, "Okay, well good luck with that," without really meaning it at all. He just left after he said that, and I knew he wasn't really going for a phone call, nor was he ever coming back. That's it---I'd completely blown it with him. To him, I was just his rambling, delusional girlfriend who believed in ghosts coming to life and seeking revenge on humans. So I'm guessing he was no help at all. I would do this all by myself.

If I recalled correctly, Rachel said that her drowning incident had something to do involving two girls, either younger or around my age. Even though I was always the more acknowledged one in the family, and I had a good number of friends (almost all of whom I didn't always keep in contact with), I was pretty sure that Rachel had had some few friends. Maybe not as many as I did, but at least it was better than nothing. But the true question was, did she ever have rivalry with anybody?

Knowing her very well, despite that she was the neglected one at home and pretty much everywhere else, I always thought that Rachel got along with pretty much everyone who came her way---whether it be at school, home, park, beach, event, or anywhere else. I never really considered her to be the "bitchy, bratty" type. At least not until now that she was gone....or so, I think. There was also another possibility---at home, deep down, she was miserable. Hurt. Afraid. Angry. Rejected. She secretly got into small spats with other people and always put on a facade, making us believe that everything was all right with her when in truth, it probably wasn't. Somehow, she took her frustrations out on two {teenaged?} girls, who might have mocked her pain and misery and caused her to drown to death at the beach. The most important question here was, who were those two girls? Were they former friends, or were they sworn enemies?

Here I was, alone in the library again. Trying to find more answers that would probably be of no assistance at all. Here I was, lost again. Not knowing anything. A question then came across my mind: Did Marvin really think I was weird? I couldn't blame him if he ever thought so. After all, it wasn't really my fault that Mom and Dad had lied to me.

Just then, a name came into my mind---the Hanks. The Hanks were a couple for whom I used to babysit about two years ago. I used to babysit their then five-year-old daughters now about seven, Ariadne and Penelope. I loved those girls very much; they were so sweet and adorable. Okay, okay, call me crazy. You probably don't find blue-eyed blonde children adorable, do you? But I did, and for some reason I could not explain, these girls had some sort of a bond with me. But I wouldn't say the same for Rachel. She always said she would rather die than to watch after the Hank girls. And unfortunately for her, her wish had come true.

Which was kind of weird....if you ever thought about it. But it couldn't be likely that the two, sweet innocent Hank twins were behind this, could it be? The Hanks and our family were very close; our relationship was similar to that of the Langs. We trusted the Hanks with all our lives and our hearts. They always saw us as we truly are, rather than as "celebrities", and we loved them for that. If this was the case, then why would the Hank girls do something like that?

I wondered if I still had the Hanks' address with me, and I realized that I always kept track of things by recording them in my diary. My diary was the place where I kept down important information about anything, as well as writing about how my day sucked or something. When I first met the Hanks, I knew I'd written down their address in my diary. So I left the library and went back upstairs to my room I shared with Donna, who surprisingly was still not there. Maybe she was busy having a social life, and I was just keeping myself busy by continually convincing myself that the apparition of my deceased sister has now come back to life to haunt me and to avenge me for an unknown reason. I took my diary out of my backpack and when I flipped to the first page, I didn't really expect to see the address there. "23 Melvin Road, Pasadena, California. House No. 222," I read aloud.