Bewitched (Neymar Jr) ✔

#19, Serious Talk

Avalon had trouble digesting Neymar's words. What? By the Moon Goddesses... Carol's case. About to be closed?

"I don't understand," she said dumbfounded, giving words to her confusion. "Can they do even do that? Just like that?"

Neymar lifted a shoulder. "It's been a few months. They can't find any trace of her. She's just– gone. Disappeared from the face of the earth."

Of course, Avalon had already gotten the rough memo of Carolina's missing case from Nadine, Neymar's mother, before starting as Davi's nanny. And then, last night during their mega-talk, a few more details from Gil: One moment Carolina had been about to come pick up Davi from Neymar's home in Brazil. And then... poof. No clues (apart from the hundreds of fake social media posts), no suspects (no real ones that actually led to anything, that was), no witnesses (just a lot of people "wanting to help" the big star) and no evidence to her possible whereabouts. There'd been one poor girl resembling her and her image had been plastered over Brazilian tabloids for weeks before police had published a statement to the public to leave her be, she wasn't the one.

So police and special investigations kept looking for the true Carolina Dantas, feverishly. That had been in June. It was the middle of October now.

Avalon's throat tightened. They say if you can't find a breathing person for a long time in this world they either don't want to be found in it; or they can't be found in it anymore.

"It's been months," Neymar repeated, as if he needed to hear some sort of confirmation. As if he needed something that would tell him it was okay to let go of the grief and leave the pain behind. Maybe that's the first step to closure, Avalon pondered sadly. "They're not gonna find her if they haven't found her yet. So now it's officially a cold case." He straightened then, clearing his throat. He scratched the back of his neck, flustered. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't even burden you with all that. I guess I just had to tell it to someone."

"Don't worry about it." She grabbed his shoulder softly. "It's about Davi's mom. And in case you hadn't noticed, I love that boy to the moon and back, so... Seriously, if you ever wanna talk, just come find me. You already know where I live so that shouldn't be a problem," she added with a wink, trying to lighten to mood. Besides, now wasn't the time for a long heart-to-heart. Who knew how long they'd be alone in the tunnel?

It worked; Neymar's warm chuckle was a balm for her spirit. "I noticed," he said. "Thank you."

The tension slowly subsided within her; the brightening of his mood and the somewhat confession had cleansed his aura of the heaviness the topic had laden it with.

He didn't say anything else. Instead, he put a hand on top of hers that was resting on his shoulder, giving it a soft squeeze. But the way their eyes met when he did that caused a completely different sort of tension. There was an intense look in his eyes–

Then it was gone, replaced by a mischievous sparkle. Its sudden appearance surprised Avalon, so she merely blinked stupidly when he stretched, thereby nonchalantly letting go of her hand – which lost its grip on his shoulder – and grinned widely at her. "I guess we better catch up to the others. Pretty sure they're not gonna wait for us with feeding the penguins. I like the penguins. Penguins are fun. And I wanna feed them too!"