Just Another Crazy Coincidence

Chapter 13:

Corey
Friends hang out, right?

Adrianna
The last time I checked, yeah.

Corey
Great, then I hope you don't have plans tonight.

Adrianna
As it happens, I was on the lunch shift, so I'm free as a bird.

Corey turns up at Adrianna's door with a bottle of wine, he wasn't going to bring it, but then he decided that even though he knows Adrianna doesn't want a relationship anytime soon, he is not going to pretend he doesn't want that one day. As much as he is going to respect her boundaries, he is also not going to stop showing her that he cares and has not turned his back on the idea of them. Adrianna eye's the bottle as Corey walks in, right now it is just what she needs.

"Oh no," he tells her, "this isn't for you. Friends don't share wine."

"Yes, they do." Adrianna snatches the bottle away from him and heads to her kitchen.

Corey follows her into the kitchen, letting his eyes scan the room. He doesn't take in much because there is not much to take in. There is no clutter, except for the centre of the room on a square table, which captures his attention. While Adrianna is pulling two wine glasses out of a cupboard above her head Corey steps closer to the table and he can see clearly what the clutter is. There is a photo lying on an open phonebook; of which a page is covered in highlighted rows. A laptop is beneath a few old newspapers, and Adrianna's birth certificate. Corey shifts the birth certificate, and picks up one of the newspapers, noting the date; 27th November 1992.

"I don't know exactly what I'm looking for." Adrianna tells him as she hands him a glass.Corey doesn't put the paper down but takes the glass with his free hand. "An engagement or marriage announcement maybe, or a congratulations on the birth of your baby girl now hand her over."

Corey raises his eyebrows but says nothing. Adrianna is somewhere between bitter and exasperated. Like she wants to be annoyed, but she can't find the energy to really care. Jacobs warning plays back in his mind, as he watches Adrianna take a seat at the table and pull one of the newspapers over to herself.

"I take it that means you haven't gotten very far." Corey sits down across from her when a front page photo catches his eye. He picks up the paper that was beneath the one Adrianna is not looking at and discards the first one he had.

Adrianna is shaking her head, but she is not looking at him, she is looking through the birth announcements in a paper from - Corey presumes - around the week she was born.

While Adrianna's mind is elsewhere, Corey focuses his own attention on the newspaper. He will never forget that photo - he was the one who took it. It was about four weeks prior to that photo being splashed over newspapers and television broadcasts that he had taken it. He remembered because She hadn't known he was watching her, let alone about to photograph her. It was so natural the way the wind blew her hair back from her face and over her right shoulder. Her elbow rested on her knee, and her chin in her palm. Pensive and beautiful, heartbreaking in contrast the the headline above it.

Tragic Teen Suicide

There is nothing catchy about the headline other than the bluntness of it. There is no joke there, there is no room for interpretation. Corey folds the paper back up so he does not have to see her face any longer and he places it beneath the rest of the mess on the table.