_ALONE

IV.

Content warning: referenced child death

Chapter word count: 3,107

~~~

The neighborhood is called High Grove.

Aiden hacks open the gates with his phone and drives through, quickly finding the house. It isn't that hard to find for it is the second house to the left of the lane and it looks like a very happy house where everyone is welcome, and where families live in perfect peace. He parks in front of the house and hurries out of the car, barging in the living room, thankful that the door isn't locked. He stops, looks around, basks in the familiar, homely glow of the house, and he stands there waiting for anyone to emerge from the locked doors spread out in the hallway that opens up to the kitchen.

He waits. He remains at the center of the living room, heart following a rhythm of wild, frantic beats. He stands there studying each part of the house as memory after memory came flooding in — there on that cozy couch is where he used to watch TV with Lena and Jacks and Nicky during holidays; there on that low shelf lined with photographs stands one frame of which he'd knocked over by accident when he tried to play with Jacks and his toy cars; there in the kitchen is where he taught the kids how to bake, only to end up wasting every ingredient available in the cupboards. He runs outside to the backyard and finds the picnic table, the swing where Lena always sat, gently pushed by Jacks, and the yard is filled with their laughter, all four of them including their uncle and their mother —

Aiden grips the picnic table for support. His heart still dances to the wild rhythm and he breathes in deep, careful to not let it burst.

Where are they?

He walks back inside the house, scanning every corner, inspecting every spot, every appliance and furniture desperately as if he'd find a family member hiding behind one of them. On the fridge door he finds one of Lena's crayon drawings: a family portrait containing her, Jackson, Nicky, and Aiden himself, each of them sporting a big, childish smile on their cartoony faces. He wears something brown and smudgy which indicates his dark overcoat, and there is a big blob of something dark-green over his head that tells him it was one of his ball caps. He remembers Lena drawing this, remembers watching her, remembers her asking why he always looked so gloomy and mysterious, to which he'd only shrugged, having laughed the question off. He reminisces that day. He remembers that he'd been wearing such tasteless clothes because he was dressed for 'work'. He'd dropped by after weeks of not having seen them, his little family, because he missed them and he didn't want them to think he abandoned them like the children's father had done.

He heaves another deep breath, head and heart still swimming, lost in the forgotten waters, and proceeds to examine the locked bedrooms to which each try only brought him failure. On one door, he finds the crayon drawing of a round, yellow smiling face with the name 'LENA' sprawled at the bottom of the page; written by a small, innocent hand. It's the only door labeled with the room owner's name and it is the only door where Aiden feels the most... most nothing.

Nothing that he could understand.

He looks at the photographs on top of the shelf he'd passed earlier. There are pictures of his sister Nicky: slim, blonde, looks younger than her age, eyes looking older than her age. There's pictures of Jackson, too: youthful, kind, a little shy, face a perfect example of brightness. But there's no pictures of Lena. There are no pictures of her uncle, either.

Aiden pulls away from the photographs and makes his way to the couch. He slumps, rubs his face with both hands then stares at the television. A blurry reflection of himself appears there — flushed, tired, eyes dark and shadowed and baggy as if it carries the world's innermost secrets. This doesn't look like him — doesn't look like the Aiden he remembers, doesn't look like the Aiden he's seen one memory ago. This looks like someone else.