Evelyn

Evelyn - Chapter Eleven

4 days later Mitch's parents organised his funeral in his hometown, Oxford. Mitch and his family were Christians, so it was held in a church. Chloe, Jonah and myself entered the historic building, all dressed in black. A large black coffin sat at the end of a small room, several rows of chairs were lined up and half of them were occupied by his family and friends.

"Just remember..." Chloe whispered. "We're here to pay our respects, not to cry and embarrass ourselves!"

"The only one who needs to be reminded not to cry is you Chloe!" Jonah spat.

She threw him a harsh look. "Whatever Jonah, It's not like you were anything to Mitch anyway. I was his girlfriend. I think I have some reasons to be upset."

Jonah and Mitch's secret was still unknown to anyone. Nobody suspected what they were up to before he passed, and I hadn't uttered a word to a single soul. I pushed him away from the oblivious girl and ushered him to a seat, three rows from the front. Chloe sat by herself on another row, I guessed she wasn't in the mood for sitting with Jonah at the moment.

The service was an hour long and by the time it was finished, most people were wiping their faces with sodden tissues and old hanker chiefs with floral embroidery. I managed to contain myself as I wasn't that close to him, and I was still angry at him for being so ignorant about Evelyn's disappearance. His parents requested that someone would read out his note. Some people found this a nice touch, on the other hand I found it quite the contrary. Distressing. I had to read out his note as I was the one who had obtained it the night we found him. Once I began to reach the end of the letter I realised that he had left an extra note at the bottom, I left this out as it had no significance to anybody there. Immediately after I stepped off the podium I was uneasy. I wanted to leave the church as soon as possible and tell the others about the code.

Mr and Mrs Smith approached us as they exited the church. They asked us if we would like to come to the after party to send Mitch off. I graciously declined and thanked them for their offer, but told them we couldn't make it as we were extremely busy.

"What do you mean we can't go?!" Chloe hissed.

I pulled out the note and pointed to the last message. "The code? Code for what? Have you not noticed that we are getting closer to finding Evelyn?" I retorted.

The duo scanned the writing and rolled their eyes.

"I'm sick and tired of looking for her, if she cared she wouldn't be leaving all these clues." Chloe said crossing her arms.

"Oh, so Evelyn came back and snuck into Mitch's room, didn't acknowledge the fact he was dead, just to write a password onto the end of his note?" Jonah shouted, easily frustrated by the curly haired blonde.

"Well, even if it is a password, what for?" She snapped, thrusting the note to my chest.

"Her laptop." Jonah exclaimed.

"She doesn't have a laptop?"

"Oh, yes she does! Come on!" He replied, jogging to the car. He hurried into the vehicle and started the ignition. In just under 2 hours we arrived back to campus. It was 5pm and a few students still had lectures.

A distressed Heidi Green scurried towards us and started rambling about Evelyn. "I know it's a little late but I haven't seen you guys in ages. I can't believe shes gone. We always shared such good banter and she was such a laugh. I will miss her dearly, she was a great friend to me!" 

We stared at her blankly before Jonah spoke up. "It is illegal to hit a woman, right?"

"I think it's illegal to hit anyone..." I concluded in reply.

"Yeah.." Chloe started. "but I'm a girl too so it's not as bad!" She seethed before hitting the snobby teenager that stood before us. She clenched her fist into a ball and smacked Heidi straight across the face. Her nose started bleeding as she hunched over and squealed in pain.

Chloe walked away in victory as Jonah and myself acted as her shadow. We got to Evelyn's dorm and Jonah pulled out the key he had for the door. The room was still raw with her scent. Nobody had removed her bed sheets or the clothes in her wardrobe. Her makeup and lotions still invaded the bathroom counter. Even a slice of toast smothered in jam had began to mould. Jonah knelt beside the bed and reach his arm underneath. He pulled out a thin silver machine and opened it up. The login screen loaded and we entered the password that was on the note; Prince Of Wales.

The screen loaded quickly and we all stopped what we were doing in shock. I was sat cross-legged on her bed as Chloe and Mitch perched on the edge. As soon as Evelyn's desktop background fully loaded and focused I felt a gut wrenching feeling in my abdomen. Unlike in the cliche movies, my heart didn't feel like it was exploding into a thousand pieces. Yet the sudden feeling of somebody stabbing me and my friends in the back occurred, and I felt as if somebody was continuously punching me in the face. I bit my lower lip as my eyes darted between my two companions. Chloe's eyes started welling up and Jonah started shaking his head.

"If we find her. She'll wish her note was real, I'm going to kill her!" Chloe exclaimed, raising her voice. "Stupid cow! She knew we were happy-"

"How could she do this?" Jonah cut the blonde mid sentence."How could she betray us?"

Although I wasn't 'seeing' Evelyn, the photo before us somehow proved my feelings towards her to myself. This sudden wash of jealousy flooded over me and I became clueless of how to handle it. And then I remembered that Mitch was taken, and how he had already cheated on Chloe with Jonah. Whilst breaking Jonah's heart too. And I'm pretty sure that Ev was just another night to him, just another one of his games. She deserved better, and knowing that she settled for him was heartbreaking enough.

The picture that sat before us was one of Evelyn and Mitch. It looked pretty recent seen as Mitch had dark brown hair, rather than his natural blonde locks. The pair were stood outside a restaurant we had visited days before Evelyn disappeared. Although the dim street lights made the quality of the photo extremely low, the couple were still visible, kissing. Despite probably not meaning anything to Evelyn, if she knew what it meant seeing her like that with another guy, she'd know how much she meant to me, and how much I cared about her.