Be Mine - Completed

Chapter 24

So they didn't catch the guy who did this... Penny sent the text to Daniel on Tuesday morning. When they got home from the meeting on Monday, the girls all went to their separate bedrooms, spending the rest of the day thinking, trying to remember something that could help the FBI.

Are they dropping the investigation?

No, they called the meeting to let us know that the FBI is involved and then we had to talk to them. I was at the house until like 4:00 yesterday.

Holy shit. Daniel's reply was instant but before Penny could respond to him, another text came through. Are you okay?

I think so. I'm just hoping that with the FBI here they can figure out what happened.

I hope so too. Want to hang out, take your mind off things? Penny thought it over, trying to figure out what she needed right now. She would love to see Daniel, but she had classes today and didn't want to push herself too much.

Tomorrow? I need some alone time to recharge, sorry ☹

Don't apologize, tomorrow it is!

Penny spent the day going to classes and taking time for herself. She finished all her school work in between her classes so by the time she got home, she could relax and sort through her thoughts. She'd been having an extremely hard time with the news about Georgia's potential killer, but she's been trying not to let anyone see it.

Penny put on her fluffy pajamas and curled up in bed with a blanket around her shoulders and a nice warm cup of hot chocolate. She tried to focus her thoughts on exactly how she was feeling in order to sort through the jumbled mess that was inside her head. She felt like she'd been lied to. She knew the police were just doing their job and that at the time they genuinely thought that this was an isolated incident, but now that she knew that it might not be, it felt like the police had blatantly lied to them. She kept replaying every day in her head, wondering if she'd seen the killer at some point. Had she run into him? Was he still here, hanging around for whatever reason? Did Georgia know him? What if Penny had seen them together and just couldn't remember it. She was mentally kicking herself for having such a bad memory, feeling like she was useless in the investigation. She wanted to help in whatever way she could, and she felt like she could be doing more but just couldn't get her brain to think about it.

She thought about Georgia, trying to picture her face and remember her voice, thinking about the memories they shared. During Sophomore year, Penny was having a really hard time with her mom. She remembered her mom making a lot of comments about how she needed to be more careful of her actions and how she was a terrible role model because she was going to a lot of parties. Penny was devastated. Her main goal in life was to be a positive role model for Bri and Luna and being a poor role model was the biggest failure she could imagine. She had been sitting in the hallway of Savery Hall, trying hard to keep her tears at bay after her mom hung up the phone on her when Georgia walked by. They hadn't talked much, but Georgia took one look at Penny, grabbed her hand and took her out for coffee.

It was such a small gesture, but it made Penny realize that she had more people on her side than she realized. Georgia didn't ask what was wrong. She didn't try to pry and when Penny had a hard time finding words. Instead, she found things to talk about so that Penny didn't feel pressured. That's just the kind of person she was. Penny had forgotten about Georgia picking flowers until Viv said it to the agents, but now she could remember the time she got in trouble by the university for picking so many flowers and Georgia told them that their student's happiness shouldn't be compromised for campus beauty and flowers make people happy, so they should just plant more flowers.