Deadly Double Love

Deadly Double Love 16

The next morning, when I awoke to the awful sound of my alarm, I found myself still on the floor. My back ached terribly as I pushed myself up and crawled over to my alarm to shut it off. I then dragged myself onto my bed and lied down. The second that my back hit my blanket-clad mattress, I felt a million times better. That is, I did feel a million times better until I remembered that my mom was missing.

My vision suddenly blurred as my eyes filled with tears. Remembering that she was gone was like being hit by a truck. I screwed my eyes shut and buried myself in the pillow, wanting to fall asleep, wanting to forget. But I couldn’t. Desperate for some escape of my internal pain, I rose from my bed and made my way to my desk. I pulled out the scissors and sliced through the skin on my arm. The pain of the incision claimed all of my attention and for a moment I felt better. But then, just as quickly as relief had come, it left and I was filled with internal sorrow once more.

I dropped the scissors and curled up on the floor by my desk. I stared at the carpet for a long time, maybe hours. When I finally felt stable enough to stand, I got up and looked at my clock. It was almost one in the afternoon. I felt a pang of hunger in my stomach and so I headed down to the kitchen for lunch, which was the only meal I ate anymore. As I rummaged through the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator, I remembered that it was Friday. A school day. I panicked momentarily, but then realized that it didn’t matter. School was a waste of time. There was nothing good there, only endless hours of torture.

But then, as I pulled a bell pepper from the fridge, I remembered Scott. He would worry when he sat at our table and I wasn’t there. I glanced at the clock on the microwave and realized that even if I left now, I would be too late to make it before the lunch period was over. Besides, I could hardly even go to the kitchen without feeling like I was going to cry, so how could I make it to school?

Instead of thinking about Scott and school anymore, I chopped up my bell pepper. I sat alone at the dining room table and ate my lunch. When I was done I retreated to my room and lay in my bed, slipping in and out of consciousness. At times I felt empty and other times I felt like all of the pain in the entire world had gone inside of me.

I went through the same routine every day for many days. I did next to nothing. I only moved from my bed to cut, have lunch, or use the bathroom. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything more. It was unclear to me how much time passed as I dragged myself through my monotonous routine.

One night, as I listened to my dad and Addie discussing something over dinner downstairs, I heard the doorbell ring. I got up and walked out of my room to the top of the staircase. I wanted to know who was at the door, but I wanted to be close enough to my room that I could run back if I didn’t want to see them.

My dad ran to the door and pulled it open, revealing who our visitor was. It was a policeman; one of the ones who had been here the day that they told us my mom was missing.

“I have the results of the DNA testing,” he said as he entered the house.

I rushed down the stairs, eager to hear what the results were.

“When we were here last time you gave us a list of people whose DNA would be expected to be here,” the policeman said.

“Who were they?” I asked.

The policeman pulled out a sheet of paper and started reading names off of it.

“Christopher Edwards, Kaetlyn Edwards, Adeline Edwards…” He then proceeded to list many of Addie’s friends and her boyfriend. He also listed several of my dad’s colleagues from his work and some of my mom’s friends.

“So what are the results?” my dad asked impatiently.

“No one outside of the list was inside of your home.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. I knew what he was implying, but somehow it didn’t seem possible.

“Either your mom left on her own or someone on the list took her.”