Nowhere Girl

Suspicions

Nora couldn't sleep.

She stared at the ceiling as she lay in bed, watching the idle motions of the fan. She thought it would calm her, but with every turn, she felt her anxiety grow, gnawing at her stomach like an insect. It did nothing to suppress the question that was spinning in her mind. 

Who sent that note?

Nora was afraid that she knew the answer to that question. 

She had pushed the suspicion away as soon as it had emerged, but it still lingered in the recesses of her mind. 

Jem. It had  to be Jem, for who else knew the truth about what happened on that day?

It was unlikely that anyone in her school would know about an isolated car crash in a far of country of Austria. Unless, of course, they had bothered to do the slightest of digging into who Nora was- which, thanks to her near invisible social presence, no one ever would. 

That left only her step brother, but she did not want to admit that to herself. After all- how could she ever confirm it? She could, of course, confront him- but that came with the risk of incriminating herself. After all, if the note hadn't been from Jem, then it was likely that he did not know the real details of the incident. And those, she would take to her grave. 

So what could she do?

Nothing,  she thought with growing despair. She would lay in bed, trapped in the frenzy of her own thoughts as they converged towards panic and feel powerless against it. Whoever had sent the note likely knew more- and soon enough, would inform the entire school body. 

Nora shot up straight in bed, reaching for her laptop. The room was pitch black, and she fumbled around in the dark before finding it. The bright light hit her eyes when she opened the lid, but she needed the information. 

It took a few meanders through the internet before she found what she had been looking for. It read: 

Obituary for Elena Sayafi

Elena Sayafi, née van der Berg, passed away on June 21st, 2013, in an unexpected car crash. 

She was the loving wife of Zafar Sayafi, and is survived by her son, Jonas van Rijn, and her step children, Nora and Zakaria Sayafi. She will be dearly missed for her beautiful presence and generous heart. 

Nora almost threw the laptop out of the window. 

The obituary was filled with utter lies. 

She wondered who wrote it- her father, probably. She had laughed when she had seen her referred to as a 'loving wife'- even in the brief years she had been married to Nora's father, she had been nothing but loving. She had been capricious in her affections at best, tumultuous and abusive at her worst. 

The article was open for the world to see on the internet, but that hardly mattered- despite the wreckage the woman had brought to Nora's family, she was, after all, a nobody. 

She forced herself to calm down, running through every worst case scenario possible. Finally, when the palpitations in her heart had stopped, she let herself relax- but certainly not enough to fall asleep. So, in a half daze, she decided to do something had been on her mind for days. 

Nora decided to give in to Elliot's dare and dabble into the world of Star Wars. 

And so she began the first film, A New Hope. She scoffed when the first scene came on. But by the end of the movie, rather, the end of the first three- she was hooked.