If Summer Never Ends

Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

I was never really one to let my curiosity get the best of me, which didn't really explain why I was two and a half hours away from Sanibel, nor why my car was parked a block away from the house of a stranger, whom I had planned to talk with.

As it turns out, locating someone isn't really as hard as it seems. With a cup of coffee, a notepad, and my trusty friend Google, I had effortlessly found out more about Andrew Cahill, the man that my mother was going to marry before she cheated on him with my dad. I still found the situation a little fucked up.

Anyways, a couple of days ago I found Andrew's Facebook page but that was it. I couldn't add him as a friend; he would recognize the last name. I couldn't find out every single little detail about his relationship with my mother on Facebook; it was the internet for crying out loud. I couldn't google him all day; I didn't have time for that. My dreams of becoming a skilled hacker were slowly fading piece by piece.

So, I just ended up looking at his basic information: birthday, location, career, relationship status, and I even browsed through his photos. Apparently, he now lived in Cottonwood Heights, Utah, was married, had a son, was an employee for some big corporation, and was interested in this band called The Colourist.

My hands had flown up in the air out of frustration. It was impossible to get a hold of him; there was no way in hell that I was going to travel all the way to Utah just to ask him a few questions. I had the picture of Andrew and my mother on the desk beside me so that I could compare his face to all two-hundred fourty-three Andrew Cahills on Facebook. It was vexing me out of the corner of my eye and I couldn't stand looking at it anymore, so I flipped it over. But just when I was about to give up, I noticed that he listed someone named Elena Dutton as his sister, and that she lived in Tampa, Florida.

So there I was, parked a street away from Elena Dutton's house in a small subdivision in Tampa with an address that I copied down off of Facebook on a crumpled up piece of paper from my notepad and my car keys dangling in the ignition. For a second, I almost considered turning around and letting my questions go unknown for the rest of my life, but then I remembered that I paid a ridiculous amount of money for gas to get up there, not to mention that I totally lied to Aunt Julia, telling her that I was going to Cecily's house all day.

I yanked the keys out of the ignition and began to walk down the sidewalk to her house. My nerves were on edge; I had never interrogated someone before so I was pretty nervous, it being my first time and all.

It was a quiet , rainy afternoon in Tampa; not many kids were outside playing nor was there a lot of noise. The most action I saw was a lady walking her dog moments ago. It was kind of strange, for Tampa was a tourist attraction as well.

The beats of my heart had increased as I walked up the stone driveway and up to the porch. The answers to my questions were just inches away, but a cringed back for a brief moment. My shoulders moved up and down as I slowly inhaled, desperately trying to calm down my nerves. For some reason, I closed my eyes as I rang the doorbell; I regretted it as soon as I did it. Worst case scenarios began to flicker in my mind like an old movie. What if I was kidnapped? What if I was raped? What if I was killed? I should've brought pepper spray.

The faint sound of footsteps approaching made my heart race even faster; believe it or not, somehow it was possible for my heart to beat that fast without exploding out of my chest. I staggered back a little as the door swung open.

A petite woman with an elegant pixie-cute and light brown eyes greeted me at the door, two little girls standing behind her. I noticed dolls and several toys on the floor and it reminded me of Evelyn and Rose back home. The woman gave me a warm smile and looked at me with curious eyes.