Dear Ava

Chapter 22

Ava's PoV:

The news left me shocked, it just proved Oliver's innocence more. How was I even doubting him?

"Oliver, do you remember the exact date your keys were stolen?"

"It was March 24."

"James, can you please check that date in the journal?"

"Yes.... He's telling the truth. Mason's house was broken in the day he was....., umm, this is the date before that."

"That means that whoever....whomever did this to Mason had planned everything down to every single detail." I realized.

All these clues that proved Mason's killer to be so smart worried me. We were against this person we didn't even know but had so much power over us. I really hope that we'll prove the killer wrong.

"Hey, Oliver?" Noah piped in, "Was it you with Mason that day, on the day of his... Was it you with him, near his hotel?" I had forgotten about that detail.

"No. I hadn't seen him nor talked to him that day." Oliver replied, looking even worse. "God, I didn't know losing a set of keys would make such a difference... I swear we reported everywhere we went to search for them, the gym, the classes.... We didn't find it, I finally had some new ones made."

"It's okay Oliver," I tried to console him, it feels worse when it feels like it's our mistake. Oliver had just opened up to everyone and was already closing himself.

"No, god..." he continued, but James put a hand on his shoulder.

"You can only go forward, man, and we need to go forward if we want to find who did this..." he tried to give him strength. James continued after a while.

"We have to find out who was with him. Maybe whoever was with Mason knows something, or maybe that was the one person who did it."

"We know James. But how can we do that? No one knows who it could be" Noah said back.

Their conversation continued, I didn't want to hear them. Everything was becoming worse. The one who did this to Mason was planning this really well. The clues had made me actually suspect Oliver, I won't make the same mistake twice. This should end soon as I don't know how much I can handle it anymore. We'll either end it or it'll end us. Then I decided to step up to their conversation and say the one thing that came to my mind.

"One thing is for sure. We are back to square one."

Oliver's PoV:

In the past few hours, so many things had happened. I had been mourning by myself, blaming myself from the day of Mason's death. I was hurting badly, but I never looked at others, Ava was also hurting so much. She had come to my apartment trying to talk to me, and then to accuse me of killing my own best friend? I couldn't fully believe the truth. Mason did not commit suicide, someone murdered him. Someone took my best friend away from me and he had to pay. I was spiraling out of control, I had to stop thinking about all this. I had enough of being cooped up in my house, worrying about my mental health.

After the conversation I had with Ava and others, I thought that all this was a joke. Why do we have to endure these awful things? The only thing I wanted at this moment was to do something to calm myself down. That's what made me go and visit Liam. I haven't seen him in so long, and I really missed him. He could maybe make me remember all those great times that we spent with Mason.

As he opened the door, he looked at me as he wasn't expecting me.

"Oliver? What are you doing here?" he moved to the side to let me in.

"We haven't talked since Mason and I wanted to see what you were doing." I saw the dark circles beneath his eyes, my eyes followed the mess in his room, but I didn't concentrate on that, I had to focus on Liam.

"Isn't Ava with you?" he was still at the door as if expecting someone else.

"No, she's busy." Ava did mention meeting Liam before, I guessed she had not told him yet. I didn't want to tell him too, I didn't want to break his heart, it was hard to mend.

"Oh, I'm okay I guess I wanted to call you sometime, but it always slipped my mind," he answered my previous question shutting the door.

"No worries. So, tell me now, how's it going?" I tried to initiate a conversation as he headed to the coffeemaker to pour us some in two mugs.

"Don't you know? Without Mason it's different." He sighed.

"Yeah, I know."

Then we continued talking more about the old times till it got late and I had to return home.