Finding Tristan ✓

25: Waiting Game

"He who makes a beast of himself removes himself from the pain of being human."

Kylie

"So it really was him," Ashley shook her head and crossed her arms. Lynn and Ace looked towards me from across the table. We were currently sitting in Perkins, sipping on our sweet raspberry teas as we waited for our order. I swept my gaze over Ashley's freshly dyed crimson hair before meeting eyes with her. I pursed my lips and nodded my head in response.

We took a moment of silent to recollect our own thoughts. I cleared my throat and stared down at my lap, waiting for any sort of call from Mr. Fletcher or Tristan. Mr. Fletcher was able to justify that the suicide body was Marcus's, and he had found a small slip of paper with an address on it. But the house number had been smeared off with the blood, and only the street name was readable.

That street address was where Tristan was probably held captive. And I was really hoping that the authorities would be able to find him alive and breathing. I knew that they would be asking around that neighborhood about Marcus. He had been a zoologist, and I can sure say that the normal and not-insane side of him was kindhearted. Genuinely, I always thought he lived a lonely life, and he just decided that he couldn't take the pain anymore.

I couldn't help but to feel bad for Marcus, because I was so oblivious to his feelings from when I was just a child. And as I continued to grow up without him after moving away, I had completely forgotten about him and left all those memories behind. He had the right to be upset and angry with me, but I was only a child then. And all the things that he did in the present time now was so very wrong. He wouldn't let go of me, and as I struggled against his desires, he took the lives of several people as I did so.

I promised myself that I wouldn't cry until either after Tristan is found alive or dead. I didn't want to waste my tears on the psychotic man who made my life a living hell. I didn't want to waste my tears for Marcus, the one person who deserved to die out of all the innocent lives that were deprived of their life and happiness. I removed my attention from my lap and took one look out the window. I sucked in a quiet breath when I saw Marcus's disfigured body standing right on the other side of the glass, all his limbs bent at a painfully inhuman angle.

I tensed up in my seat and a powerful chill racked down my spine, my hands started to tremble on my lap. His eyes were nothing but angry red holes, blood streaming down his entire face. Marcus's lips formed a sinister smile, revealing jagged sharp teeth. I kept my eyes on him, his mouth opened wide in a silent scream; almost ghoul like, and there was nothing inside of him but darkness. I wanted to scream and jerk back away from the window, but I was too petrified to move.

"Kylie!"

I blinked several times and turned my head to face Ace. The blonde boy in front of me sighed and ran a hand through his hand. "Our food just got here five minutes ago, and you look like you've just seen a ghost." I stared down at my chicken tender sandwich melt. And suddenly the bowl of ranch and pile of fries didn't seem so appetizing to me anymore.

"I don't really feel hungry anymore. You guys can find a way to split my part of the meal." I gave my friends a tight smile and Lynn had noticed that I had seemed to be scorn of myself. She continued to stare at my face expression, trying to read me entirely. I kept a neutral expression as she did and eventually the brunette in front of me gave up and went back to dining on her food.

Ashley nudged me with her leg underneath the table and I mouthed a "what do you want". My best friend gave me a knowing look and shook her head. "Are you sure that you're not hungry? I don't want to seem like a pig y'know." I laughed at her comment and nodded my head. Ashley immediately grabbed a handful of fries and added it to her own pile and she used my bowl of ranch for dipping.

Ace and Lynn reached forward to grab a half of the chicken tender melt sandwich. Next thing I knew, my plate was completely empty. I sat there and mindlessly played around on my phone and checked my social media feeds as they all enjoyed themselves to Perkins' food. I drank all of my sweet raspberry tea and frowned at the lemon sitting on the bed of ice at the very bottom of my glass. Our waitress came by and refilled all of our glasses with more sweet tea and she gave me a bright smile before rushing off to take another order from a table.

"We have another movie project that we have to do, but our English teacher is having everyone doing it individually," Ashley rambled on.

"Is that the one where read our own selected book, write a summary of what the book is about, and then make a movie trailer for it?" Ace groaned in disappointment.

"Yeah, the teacher pretty much talked about that project that week, and she assigned it to the classes that she teaches earlier than the others." Lynn wiped salt off of her boyfriend's cheek and gave him a small kiss. The blonde boy's ears turned a rosy pink in gratitude.

"To be honest with you, I like it better when she assigns group projects for us to do because then we would be able to choose our partners easily. And not only that, it's also easier on her for when she's grading each group's work." Ashley stated and continued to stuff her own mouth with fries. I eventually was able to block their voices out and felt my head buzz with insecurities.

I deemed myself to easily get distracted in conversations if I had a sense of paranoia or when I had a lot of stress. Most of my friends were able to pinpoint where my problems sprouted from, and sometimes they didn't know what was wrong with me at all. So basically what they did was continue having conversations with each other to let me be alone with my own jumbled thoughts. And if they knew exactly what was wrong, of course they would do the exact opposite by trying their best to help me out. I was grateful to still have some people left by my side to depend on when needed.

I sneaked another look outside and there was nobody there. Marcus's disfigured state was most definitely a small fragmentation of my mind. It was something that I shouldn't have been worried about. Mr. Fletcher was the investigator who declared him as dead, and I had to reassure myself that this was true. In the very back of my mind, I was thinking that Marcus had given up on his life too easily.

He who makes a beast of himself removes himself from the pain of being human.

I could do nothing but wait for Tristan to come back to me safe and unharmed.