Escape

Chapter 16

The following week I left to retrieve the valuables from her old house. It was a four hour drive and thank God for diners. I made a few stops on the way but I finally reached my destination. As I stepped out of my car, all the memories came rushing back to me, flooding my mind. Ugh...I missed her so much. All our good times and not so good times. All our late night chats, steamy fights, movie nights, sleepovers...just everything. I wrapped on the door and a woman answered. She looked to be in her thirties. She had a warm smile and the house smelled like home. A familiar aroma. It brought tears to my eyes. The young lady asked me "what's wrong?" in a genuinely concerned voice. I wiped my eyes and introduced myself and explained my situation and why I was standing at her door. 

She nodded and allowed me to enter her home. She introduced herself as Alice and she told that both she and her husband along with their two children had been living in the house for three years. Their home was beautiful, a little renovation was done but it still felt like the house I remember. She offered me something to drink but I kindly refused not wanting to take up too much of her time. Alice went down into the basement and returned with a box labelled 'Dreams' and she handed it to me. 

" We found this box in our basement when we moved in, it was probably left here by the previous owners. We never opened it and it doesn't say a name, only Dreams". I took the box from her and opened it just a bit. The first thing I saw was a picture frame and I closed it and thanked Alice for what she had done and exited their house. On my way to the car I had a flashback while crossing the street to the day Riley almost shot herself and I was frozen solid looking at myself. 

Riley had the gun to her head and she was laughing at me. I looked at myself again, I was frozen, frozen in time. Who was Riley laughing at? Then she came closer, she ran towards me, I was scared. 

Riley- Liv you could've saved me *she screamed and she stopped. She lifted the gun to her head* 

Liv- Riley nooo!!!

She pulled the trigger and fell to the ground, blood rushing out of her head through the bullet wound. The other me unfroze immediately and ran to her side.  " What have you done?"  she repeated over and over. She looked up at me " What have you dooonnneeee?", she wailed. Her eyes rolled back and blood gushed out and she was holding Riley's skeleton with blood on her hands and face, "You monster!", blood was dripping from her sockets. 

I jumped back into reality, I was now at my car, shaken. I opened the door and sat in the driver's seat. "Riley what did I do?", my head was pounding and my heart was racing. I reached into my bag for a painkiller and swallowed it. "I think I'm going crazy!", I said to myself aloud. The box was filled with souvenirs from places Riley and I visited when we were younger and little notes we sent to each other in class with photographs. The big framed photograph was of the two of us on the day Riley almost killed herself. When we got home my parents took a picture of the two of us. We were hugging and I remembered how happy I was that she was still alive. There was a note attached to it. It read...Thank you for loving me even when I was at my lowest. There was a tear strain on the edge of the paper. I touched it and closed my eyes and sighed. I missed her. I closed the box and placed it in the passengers seat and drove off. I was driving 30 on a 50 and there was a man blowing his horn behind me. I indicated to him that he can overtake and he did. I pulled over and turned on the radio to drown out the silence that was deafening in the car. I sat and listened to Let Her Go  by the Passenger and watched the clouds begin to settle. I had a long drive ahead.