the secrets of ocean shores - a paranormal murder mystery

Chapter 10.

Chapter 10. 

An older yet attractive woman with long grey hair lazily pulled a cigarette from her lips and exhaled, letting a puff of smoke waft around the room. She rested a slender arm on the plush and comfortable armrest of her chair and placed her cigarette on her lap, letting the thin stick loose from her plump and weathered fingers.

"He's unbearable," she sighed, picking the cigarette up again and twirling it, raising an eyebrow at the wrinkles lining her fingers. At the age of 78, she looked a million times better than anyone her age, but she was still unhappy with her appearance.

"He is, and always has been," a boy seated politely across from her nodded vigorously. "But in a few short weeks, that will all be gone."

A sly smile crept onto the old woman's face as she stuck the cigarette between her lips and took an elongated puff. "Good. You know, my dear grandson, you make me proud. You're all I've ever wished for in a grandchild. I don't want somebody like him."

Trying to contain a proud smile, the boy shifted in his seat. "Don't worry, Grandma. This will all go accordingly, and they will never be able to contain us ever again."

"That's right." The older woman stood up elegantly, blowing out a gentle stream of smoke. The smoke traveled through the air. The young boy softly gagged, trying to do it elusively under the gaze of his nicotine-addicted grandmother. She was one of the prettiest women he had ever seen, despite her weathering age. She always told him that age said nothing. After all, her grey hair and wrinkles added to her beauty instead of taking it away. Although she smoked, vaped, and used cocaine, she still looked at her prime.

The boy, on the other hand, carried none of her beauty. He was rather plain-looking, his only stand-out feature was the green eyes that he and his grandmother shared. He had gotten it from his mother. His father had grey eyes. His aunt and nephew had blue eyes. But he, his mother, and his grandmother all had those striking green eyes—the ones that stopped people where they were going so they could stare at them. 

The sad green eyes that then sat on his face were reflecting in the window opposite him. He had never had many friends, a good romance life, or a happy family. The sadness seeped into his eyes and drowned him, leaving his dry and empty when it was over. His life was like that. Sadness, disappointment, and then numbness. Both were equally bad. The sadness made it so that he was too overflowed with emotions. Always spending the days huddled up, listening to sad music and letting the tears flow. But the numbness made it so that he didn't feel. The worst part about the numbness was when he did things he regretted, but never regretted them until the sadness, when the guilt tipped him over the edge. That was the world he lived in. Never enough for him. The love, the happiness, the wholeness had always gone to other people. Never to the boy. He stayed in his empty pocket of the world. Even his grandmother never understood. She tried to help, but frankly, her help did nothing. Glue trying to fill in the cracks of a rubber ball. Never quite good enough for his whole self. Not enough time, effort, just never enough of herself committed to him. But that was his life. Nobody was ever committed enough to him to do that for him. To fill the numbness. To mend the sadness. 

His grandmother and mother had always been in the spotlight of the world. Controlling it from within. The elegant rulers that had daggers hidden in their cloaks. But the boy vowed to be the one that shocked everybody. The only one that nobody would forget. Not his smart and yet deadbeat mother. Not his powerful drug-addict grandmother. But him. In the center of the spotlight. Nobody would forget him. 

The boy knew nobody would ever forget him, even so early in his life. Especially not a certain blonde, freckled girl halfway across the world. 

Kella's POV