What She Left Behind ✔️

chapter twelve

A/N: Song for the chapter is "I Think I'm OKAY," dedicated to Gemma, Levi, and most of all Rae. ❤️

"And you've only watched the first one?"

"Yep."

"Aren't you curious what's in the other videos?"

"Oh, I'm totally curious."

Levi looks at me like I've just sprouted a second head. "Gemma, all of Raelyn's secrets might be on this flash drive, yet you're just letting it sit in your purse like a tube of chapstick?"

"It's not that I don't want to watch the rest," I tell him. "It's just...."

Seeing my best friend alive and on video was too real. It felt like she was in the room with me, like she wasn't a pile of dust and ash. If I watch the rest of the videos, if I let myself indulge in the fantasy that she isn't really gone, I'm afraid my perception of reality will become muddled.

Hacking into the flash drive was supposed to bring me closure. Now I feel more lost than ever.

"I get it that seeing her is painful," Levi says. "Hearing her voice, listening to her words... well, it's probably a little confusing, I would assume."

"Confusing is an understatement," I reply, flopping onto the couch and hugging a paisley throw pillow to my chest. "Levi, what if the videos get worse? What if I see something I don't want to see?"

Ella's words ring in my ears: Just be careful. You can't un-ring a bell. I can accept the fact that Raelyn kept a world of secrets from me. She was always an enigma, even when we were kids. If she chose to hide parts of her life, there was probably a good reason for it. She knew me fairly well. She knew what I could handle, what I could wrap my small-minded head around.

Raelyn may have granted me guardianship of Evangeline—something I still haven't come close to making a decision about—but the "veritas" drive was not addressed to anyone. Hell, it was so highly encrypted that it took an IT expert four weeks to hack into it. If that isn't a sign that no one is supposed to know what's on it, then I don't know what is.

"May I watch the first video?" Levi asks.

"Why?"

"Because I'm curious."

I shrug my shoulders and hand him the drive. "Sure, but don't watch any of the others, okay?"

Nodding his head in agreement, he takes the flash drive into the kitchen, where his laptop is resting on the table. I watch him sit down and click on the first file. Raelyn's voice fills our home. She retells the story of her new two-bedroom apartment, the cemetery outside her window, her creepy boss, and how bright her two year-old is. I squeeze the pillow tighter. When the video ends, I release a breath I didn't realize I was holding.

"That was... interesting," Levi mutters.

I snicker. "Interesting? She trapped those files in a techno prison. I figured I'd see her snorting drugs or performing a revolting sex act or something along those lines."

"There's three more files. You still might get your cocaine and BDSM."

"God, I hope not."

"I do have one question," he goes on. "Who is she talking to?"

I raise my eyebrows. "Come again?"

"This isn't just a video diary. She's addressing someone," he says.

I get off the sofa and join him at the table. He's right. Raelyn was talking to someone specific, someone who had never met Evangeline before, someone who didn't see her on a regular basis and had to be updated on her life via video blog. That narrows it down, but only slightly. I know who it wasn't—me, my family, or any of our friends from high school—but I haven't the slightest idea who was on the receiving end of this video.