Stay With Me

35

"Vanessa, we need to discuss this."

Barely managing to subdue the feeling of panic in her chest she continued to play with the pen in front of her. "What exactly are we talking about, Mr. Nash?"

Her words had come out harsher than she had meant, but this wasn't supposed to be talked about until she had finished her report. Unfortunately for her, the ones above Roy and Spencer weren't pleased about an unsupervised test with one of their employees.

"Vanessa," Spencer tried to keep an even temper. "We need to talk about where you decided to run off to for three years. Did you not think people would be worried about you? Even your mother had no clue..."

"You called my mother? What were you thinking?"

"You vanished without a trace!" hollered Roy. "We assumed you had gone to your parents to talk things out with them but they were just as surprised as we were to hear you were missing."

"This isn't a game, Vanessa," continued Spencer. "We need to know exactly why you left and what your intentions were."

"I believe I have a small idea as to why," started Roy. Setting down the laptop she had previously used, he opened it to the still open page of the Mayhem articles. "Does this have anything to do with it?"

Her breathing stopped for a moment at the sight of Dead's picture on the screen. "I closed those. I know I did."

Roy shook his head. "There is such a thing as the history menu, Vanessa. Now, start explaining yourself."

Defeated, Vanessa turned the computer around. "I know what you'll both say when I tell you, but I'm ready for it. Mayhem was a band with an extremely dark history. Their vocalist, Dead, committed suicide at twenty one and Euronymous was murdered a few years later. I...I wanted to show Dead that someone cared enough about him to want to help him...to show him someone..."

"Loved him?" finished Spencer.

Vanessa fixated her eyes on the table. "Yes. Loved him."

"You're the one he's trying to find?"

"Yes."

Roy closed the laptop before taking his seat across from Vanessa. "You do realize what you have done, don't you? We thought you were dead. Your mother called every day after hearing you were missing and we couldn't tell her anything. We spoke with her after you arrived, she'll be coming to visit with you this afternoon."

"Why? Why did you contact her? You of all people know what's going to happen when she hears about this."

"We couldn't exactly get her to stay away," interrupted Spencer. "By the time we had told her you had been found she was already buying the plane tickets."

"Tickets? As in more than one?"

Spencer nodded reluctantly. "She's bringing your siblings as well."

Her heart sank into her stomach. Was there no light at this damned tunnel?

"They'll be staying at the Mellow Haven Hotel for a week," Roy tried to say optimistically. "I made it clear to her that you probably wouldn't be in a very agreeable mood given the amount of stress you've been under and she seemed to understand."

"We also made it clear that you will not be with them alone," added Spencer. "We'll be sending Tanya with you during your visits to make sure they don't do anything to pressure you into talking about this or to hurt you."

Vanessa scoffed. "You think that'll stop her? She knows where I live, she knows how to get her way. You might as well just tell Tanya to not waste her time because her being there or not won't change a damn thing."