WHERE ARE YOU CHARLIE?

NOW - CHAPTER 7

As soon as Cole turned on the gravel road leading to my house, I knew that I shouldn't have come here.

"Hmm... Maybe we should just turn around..." I suggested in a small voice.

I frowned when Cole didn't answer. It was very uncharacteristic of him. Maybe he hadn't heard me?I turned to look at him and was taken aback by how tensed he looked.

In fact, he'd been strangely quiet ever since we'd come out of the Fields' house. He'd been yell-whispering at somebody on his phone when I'd met him in the hall and hadn't said a word since.

"Cole?" I tried again, but for some reason it came out as a whisper.

Why was my throat so dry all of a sudden?

I forced myself to breathe deeply but when I finally felt better, it was too late, we were there.I slowly opened my door and got out of the car.

I gasped when I finally found the courage to look up and took in the state of what I'd been calling home a couple of months before.The roof of the main building was gone along with Jim's side of the house which had consisted of his bedroom, his office and his conference room.

I walked to where the front door had once been and froze.

"The dining room?" Cole's voice wasn't as soft as usual but still stunned, I nodded and studied the room I'd spent so many hours in.

The open fireplace on the left and the little stone step where I always did my homework. Jim's armchair by the window. The long wooden table that could sit twelve people and the benches on each side. The tall oak sideboard where I'd stored our best china for when Jim had important guests.Everything was still where it used to. The only difference, a thin layer of soot covered all the surfaces. Cole's hand in the small of my back was what made me step inside.

I crossed the room to check the kitchen and gasped at the contrast with the dining-room. Here, the ceiling had fallen down, destroying everything underneath. On the side, the laundry room was strangely untouched. The ceiling was intact, there was no water or soot anywhere, and the washer and multiple products I had stored in there were still in their place.

How was that even possible?!

"The kitchen got destroyed and the laundry room looks brand new..." Cole sounded on edge.

I turned to look at him and was once again surprised by the tension on his face.

"Are you ok?" I asked him.

"Why wouldn't I be?!" He snapped and I instinctively took a step back from him.

"So where was your room?" He asked coldly.

Maybe he was in pain or something. I led him to the small door facing the front door and opened it revealing what had been mine and Charlie's quarters: a very dark and tiny corridor with three doors on top of the one we had just come from. The ceiling looked intact here too and the space was soot-free.

I opened the first room on my right and revealed what used to be our bathroom – or shower room which was as big as the toilets at the fields'. Then the toilets, and finally our room.

"What's that?" He asked pointing at the two mattresses on the floor.

"Our beds..." I answered, feeling uncomfortable.

"You were sharing a room with your brother?" He asked incredulously.

I shrugged.

"Even your laundry room is bigger than this shithole!" He pointed out angrily.