Tracking down the killer of her friend's mother wasn't what Mia had in mind for the summer break, but it is what she ends up doing anyway.
Secrets are revealed and sinister truths uncovered as she steps into a world of murder and abuse.
...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Ava,
I wish I could tell you that none of this was your fault, but then I'd be lying.
I've been an orphan all my life and while I know you like to sympathise, you really don't know what it's like. You don't know the half of what goes on in government funded foster homes, where the helpers aren't paid by the work they do but by the times they've signed themselves into the register. You won't ever know the pain of the realisation that no one would ever want you, simply because you weren't the cute little kid that could catch the eye of the parents. I'm glad you don't know what it feels like to finally find a home to stay, only to learn that the home was nothing but a hollow house and your new parents were people who exchanged their presence for money. I was their ticket to temperory fame--the child they adopted to be called the 'good lot'.
I remember you once asked me where I was from. I had just smiled and shrugged the question off, but the truth is I'm from nowhere. I suppose you wouldn't understand what it means to live under a roof and not in a city, but that was my reality.
The thing is Ava, you expected too much of me. Everyone but you gave up on me halfway through. If I'm being honest, I liked it that way, until you began your descent downwards. Your expectations were the only thing holding me up but now, when your expectations had given in to gravity and had begun their descent downwards, I could not help but trip.
Why did your mothers murder affect you so? I never asked you because I knew you didn't want to answer it, but its been slowly but surely eating into my thoughts Ava. You said you hated her before, you swore you did, but now? Why now?
I'm sorry I won't be the one to hold your tears, your pain and your blue anymore. I didn't want to leave you Ava, you made me do it.
I won't say sorry for leaving. All I will say is that I'll miss you wherever I am. And oh, how I'll miss you.
The Ava that wore sumer dresses had once told me that she hated death because it was nothing but an unraveled grey sweater with nothing to show for itself but the threads. It was loose end and Ava hated loose ends. At least, the Ava before did. I don't know the present Ava anymore.
So, here's a gift to the old Ava who loved mysteries more than life itself; green, Ava. All I can hear, feel and see when I look at you is green.
