Smoke and shattered mirrors

Chapter twelve: Cryptic clues and a traumatic ex boyfriend. Oh luck!

I took a relatively large amount of time before replying, "It is.. It's been q-quite a while."

Brandon was deliberate with his steps as he reaches for me and strokes my left cheek. I flinch aat his warm fingers that smelled of gatorade orange juice.

He saw my discomfort and let his hand fall to his side. "It's really you."

"I well.. It's nice to meet you, but I have to go." I started, trying to leave but he keeps blocking my way.

He shakes his head. "No. I need to talk to you, Merce."

"Can't it wait until later, Brandon?" I looked down. Worried that Topher might wonder where I was.

He smiled, that goofy hint of the boy I once loved surfaces, it was the same smile he wore on the picture that Aunt Caroline gave me on the way home in the car.

"You said my name. You remember me." 

"No. Aunt Caroline mentioned you." And I had this weird flashback about us fighting over something serious, so yeah, now I'm scared of you and you should probably step back because I need to solve my own almost murder case.

He looks dissapointed. "I thought you remembered me. That I was somehow that important." 

Brandon's tone was somehow thoughtful and sweet. But then I remember my flashback.

Nevermind.

"I'm sorry about what happened six months ago, Merci." He said, "I was really out of it when I thought you died."

"it's okay. It's not your fault, anyway." Not until I prove who did it and gave justice to my family.  And if it is you, I don't know what I might do to you.

He shrugs. "You okay? I mean, with everything going on in your life right now and not just physically stable."

"I'm okay present tense." I said. His upper lip sneers into a genuine smile.

Running his fingers through his dark blonde hair, his posture seemed stiff and even a bit tense. 

"I should probably get going, Brandon. I have plans made today." I made a show of looking at my wrist watch.

He sighs heavily before nodding and turning his heel to leave

i had a second to spend. So I'll spend it wisely.

"Can I ask you one thing, though?" I said in a small voice. He looked back, body still facing the open doorway.

"Anything, Merce." He smiled.

"Did your brother, Scott, died the same night my parents did?" 

His smiled slowly turned into a frown. He looked down and seemed to debate with himself.

"He did." He said in a very pained voice. "I was there that night. I tried saving Sophie, Merci. I did! But there was smoke everywhere and I couldn't see where Scott went and where Kylie went and then this lighting overhead almost fell on me, when I dodged it, Sophie was lost in the smoke and then I passed out cold."

I nodded, digesting another important detail.

" Then when I woke up, there were these firemen hauling me off the ground and- God, Merce, It was a huge mess- I saw Kylie strapped to an oxygen tank, and she said Scott was still inside. I tried saving him, Merce. I really tried. Then I started panicking when I overheard these cops say they couldn't find you."

I kept nodding. Trying hard not to cry all over again.

He said," I'll spare the gory details until you're better."

I gave him a half-hearted smile before walking to leave.

                              **********************************************************************

"A strawberry swirl burst with mint sprinkles and chocolate syrup."  Topher said, pushing a cup of frozen shaves of yoghurt to me. Snowflakes was half-filled with people. Most of which looked at me like they've seen a ghost. 

"Sounds foreign." I grinned. Ignoring the eyes boring unto my back, unclothing me with their stares.

He nods in my direction and says, " It is. I experimented a little while waiting"

"Again. sorry 'bout that. Brandon Asher took that time to pay me a little visit." I nibbled on 'Topher's experiment' and found it quite tasty. But the after taste is like the vitamins my doctors made me take back in the sanitarium.

"Hmmm... well... Let see here.." He was fiddling with my laptop again. Topher took a spoonful on his froyo (something that smells infused with coconuts) before continuing with pecking the keyboards too fast.

Computer geek, I thought.

I patiently waited, eating my froyo one spoonful at a time. 

Wondering why Brandon seemed tense and too stoic at the same time. Like he's talking to a mental patient.

Oops! I thought it once I said it,.I was a mental patient.

"Done! I cracked into your email account!" He silently  exclaimed.

I leaned over to see my own email account. There were a lot of unread messages. But we scrolled down to October last year. There were three unread messages that month, two from October 20 and one from October 31.

"What are you waiting for? Open it!" I encouraged him.

He clicked on the first one. It was from an unknown email address:

Hey there! will you please meet my mother Yin? she nags me to do my homework every where! My serene place is the desert , I especially love the cold dunes! But I don't even really get  algebra. Mother is aiming too high! ( Lucky girl with the name M-e-r-c-i , you!)

"Okay. So it is definitely not helpful nor significant."

I nodded. Which crazy person would send that to me? But I look at it. Long and hard like I'm missing something, That it's not just a random message. Like there was a secret behind it.

The other message was from the same unknown email address, when we opened it. It contained the same message.

Topher and I looked at each other incrediously. 

"Weird." I muttered.

Finally, he opened the October 31 message and all it said was:

                 SAFE.

"Check my outbox!" I exclaimed. We did, but it was empty. And it would take forever to scavange through my inbox. What with 1000 messages piled up from 

"I'll handle the tech stuff, Merce. We'll figure this o-"

"It wasn't a message." I said out of the blue. "I know it's not just a message, Toph. The ones from October 20 aren't insignificant."

He gives me a stern look before pecking at the board again with his fingers. I leaned closer and smelled his wonderful chrome cologne intoxicating me.

"You're right. You opened that message before. The morning of October 20, you saw the message. It was sent three times, 10 o'clock, 12 o'clock and 3:30. You read it at 10."

"Coincidence? I think not." I said. I had filled Topher in on the whole shrink fiasco and about my October 20 appointment when I've gone missing the day before. On my own disaster sticken party. And the deeper I get, the clues seem to strech on to October 20. And what I did that day is a mystery that changed my whole damn life.