The girl with the blue umbrella||✔

Eleven

We walked over to where the man was and waited for him to be done with his conversation before we approached him. Jaime and I greeted him and introduced ourselves because courtesy demands it.

"Well it's not often you see to young and agile men in my art gallery. I'm Edward Philips." He sent us a smile, shaking our hands.

"So you are the owner of this gallery?" Jaime asked.

"It's all thanks to God's grace." He replied. "So what do you boys need? Are any of you interested in an exhibition? Or are you interested in an auction?" He added.

"Actually sir, we want to ask you some really important questions." I spoke out.

He must have seen the look of urgency on my face because he nodded his head and lead us to his office.

"Take a seat." He offered.

"Thank you sir." Jaime and I chorused.

"So what can I help you with?"

"Actually sir, it's concerning this artist who goes by the initials L.C. We have reasons to believe that she is one of our classmates who went missing pretty recently." Jaime said.

"It's seems like you boys have delved deep into this matter but I don't understand how any of this concerns me."

"Mr. Edward please, is L.C Layla Cunningham?" I pleaded.

He looked really shocked when I asked that but he quickly changed his expression. "Unfortunately I can't disclose that information. The artist specifically wanted to keep her identity a secret. I have no right to go back on that."

"So it is her." Jaime retorted.

"I never said that." He replied

"But the look on your face says otherwise."

"I have no obligation whatsoever to tell you who she is."

"Sir please. This is serious. Do you know what may have happened to Layla? Why she disappeared or anything? Please." I was pleading now, my palms on top of each other vertically.

"Martin, is it?" He asked me and I nodded in reply. "Who is Layla to you?"

"Aha! So it is Layla!" Jaime pointed out. I gave him a flat look and made gestures of zipping his mouth and throwing the key away.

"To be honest, I don't even know the answer to that question. Who is Layla to me? I never actually got the the chance to ever have a proper conversation with her. And the day I summoned the courage to, she went missing. And the day after that, I found out that she was bullied because she was mute. But before all of these happened, I was always drawn towards her for some reason unknown to me. I would never talk to her because I couldn't get the words to come out of my mouth. Now that she isn't here, I don't know what's making me look for her. Perhaps it's the hope that when we eventually find her, we could be friends. We could start over. And no one would bully or harm her ever again." I said quietly, mostly to myself.

"Hmm." Mr Edward laced his fingers together. "I wish I could help you. I really do. But I don't know how. Even her family has ruled out the option of her being kidnapped because there has been no calls for ransom, after all this time. Layla is like a daughter to me. But if she ran away-"

"No she would do that." I cut him off.

"How would you know that? She has been struggling, all her life, in this Godforsaken town. Do you know how insulting it is to tell a mute person to speak to someone. That's not right! So if I end up finding out that she ran away, I wouldn't be surprised. I would wish her all the best." He sighed and leaned back in his chair.