thin walls (are calling me home)

Chapter 28

"Oh, my name's Kevin, Kevin Anders. I was... a friend of your parents, and knew you when you were little. I was hoping that we could talk."

To say that Camila was shocked to hear those words would be an understatement. She'd never expected to hear from the Anders again, not after all this time and certainly not on that day. Could Kevin Anders be calling her to simply wish her a happy birthday? She couldn't imagine why he would do so, but what else could he want to talk about with her? The only other option, the most likely one now that Camila thought about it, was that he wanted to talk about her parents or their murder. That made extra sense since Camila had given Detective Norman the Anders' old phone number, but she really hoped that this wasn't about that.

Camila didn't want to think about that, not today of all days, when everything had been going so perfectly.

"Camila? Are you there?" Kevin asked, startling Camila and interrupting her train of thought.

The girl shook her head, forcing herself out of her stunned silence, and took a seat on one of Shawn's kitchen stools. "Yeah, yeah, sorry, I just- I was just surprised by your call, that's all."

The man sighed on the other side of the line. "I understand, I'd be surprised too. Is this a bad time? I can call you later."

Was this a bad time? Well, it was her goddamned birthday, for crying out loud, but did that make the moment a bad time for this specific call? Camila didn't even know, if she was being honest with herself. On the one hand she wanted nothing more than to end the call and go back to her friends, pretending that it never happened in the first place, but on the other hand, she knew she couldn't do that. Now that he'd called her, Camila's mind had been swarmed with questions that would probably plague her thoughts for the rest of the evening if left unanswered. For starters, had the police contacted the Anders? And how did Kevin get her number? Why would the Anders reach out to her after all these years of no contact whatsoever despite having been close to her parents in the past? Could he really have called her to talk about the investigation?

Camila swallowed hard and decided to tackle one matter at a time. "How did you get this number?" She asked, ignoring his previous question altogether.

"Oh. I called the Mendes'. Karen gave me your contact. Was that not okay?" Kevin sounded as nervous about the whole thing as Camila herself felt. Noticing that caused her to frown, but also made her a bit more empathetic to the man. Whatever this was, it wasn't easy for him either.

"No, I mean..." Camila trailed off, unsure of what to say. "It's fine. It's just... it's been so long, I never thought I'd hear from you again."

There was a long pause then, the only sound Camila could hear being the music coming from the living room. She was about to ask Kevin if he was still there when she heard him sigh again. "I'm sorry, maybe this was a bad idea after all."

Camila's eyes widened and she sat up straight. "No, wait!" She exclaimed. Kevin didn't hang up, but didn't say anything either. "What... what did you want to talk about?"

Another pause, until, "I... Josh and I... We received a call from a detective about your parents... The case was reopened, after all this time... And we... well, there are so many things we could tell you about them, so many things that we have of them... Photos, letters... I guess I- I mean, we... we felt like you could want to see all of this. And that we should have contacted you a long time ago. So if you wanted to visit us any day now, to talk about them, see those things... We would be happy to have you over."

By the time that he finished talking, Camila had a lump in her throat and her eyes were filled with tears. "Oh," was all she could say, caught off guard by the sadness that had washed over her.