Absolute Dark - Three (UPDATE#1)

Chapter Three

Chapter Three — Falling

My phone slides through my fingers and graces the hardwood with another thud. I want to say I feel miserable but I don't, I don't feel anything.

I don't remember going back to sleep but I feel like I must have, because I'm jolted back into consciousness standing right where I was when I picked up the phone, startled by what can only be the front door being slammed shut.

Looking down at my phone between my feet, I bend down to pick it up, wincing at the progress the crack in my screen has made.

Clicking the home button I see it's 8am, Jane must be off to work.

I head to the kitchen, striping as I go, grabbing the Jim Beam, a whiskey glass and retreating to the bathtub.

Floating underwater in the tub, looking through the bubbles helps my mind stay vacant.

I slide above the water, grab a swig from my glass, ice cubes clink as if to add to the soundtrack of a Mother Mother album called "The Sticks" blasting on high from out in the living room.

I don't know when it's going to come for me, but I know it's coming, the pain and guilt always comes around. 

 The haze clears just enough for me to think about our foster parents. They lived in the same neighborhood as our biological parents before they passed. 

At least at first, as time passed however our sorrow and emotional disarray seemed to cause problems in our new home. 

Our new father soon moved us further into the country, citing a job loss. We quickly became latch-key kids, with our new mother lost in an opioid haze and father off at work presumably, Coraline as I became each others' only real friends.

As years passed we even used ciphers and codes to send each other secret messages, usually about things we know we couldn't ask our fosters about, sex, drugs, literally any movie or piece of music that's popular with other kids.

It always struck me as odd that they would let us out unsupervised, presumably getting up to all kinds of shenanigans, but at home certain things were just off limits. 

If you want your kids to hate god, raise them like our fosters did with us. 

It was easy enough to pass our codes off as homework, when that excuse ran its course we just started leaving unsent or deleted emails in specific email accounts we set up.

She brought a book home from the library one day a little before the accident that killed our biological parents, a pretty little black bob bouncing in unison with her summer dress.

A few days later after we were told we might end up in the system, I grabbed the book and we figured out two simple ciphers so we could communicate no matter where we each ended up.

She was so bright, even in her grief, she grasped most of it before I did.

I dry my hands on a bathroom cloth and light a cigarette, it's coming faster and I won't be able to inhale properly by then.

She's had her phases after I left, causing my now retired foster father and very ill foster mother no end of grief.

To me, it sounded like a kid lashing out, but to them it was just about enough. 

I promised her she could move in with me in a year or two when I've got more space, which made her exude glee, but as time wore on she got colder, until she barely wants to talk to me on the phone anymore.

Our foster parents, our biological parents, and now she's missing.

I can't help but let my mind launch a barrage of excuses, from the money I sent her, to the favors I called in for her.

None of it helped much. I can't make sense of anything right now, so I have another sip of J.B.

To my great surprise, I haven't broken down yet, I've managed to dry off and get back to my computer, draped in ugly baggy clothes.

I'm not using this time wisely. I know I shouldn't be reading into it, but I am, what did the caller ID say? .... Brightmane, British Columbia. 

A small town right off of Highway 16, infamously nicknamed the Highway of Tears for all the unsolved murder. Lovely.

One article quotes a police officer saying that the average citizens will be the ones to bring any serial killers to justice. Jane's words echo in my mind, "Cops aren't paid to prevent shit." Clearly.

I scroll through faces and faces of missing girls through the decades until I'm sick, then, I found a reddit thread.

In this thread I found dozens of missing women and children cases near or on the Highway, and yet they're not included in the Highway of Tears statistics.

The subreddit went into 404 as I scrolled down, along with the Wiki, and maps pages.

Good, I can't think about pain and death anymore.

I have great timing though, the pain hits anyway.

I spent the next three hours crying and screaming. 

I had fallen fast asleep at some point, the slamming door again woke me.

Jane stopped in my doorway, she must have seen what leftover makeup had dried while tears cascaded down my face hours ago.

Her golden locks harnessed by unseen pins making her look like a Disney princess stuck in a jogging suit.

I smiled her way despite myself, fresh off of slinging coffee all day and she still looks like a goddess to me.

"Hey…" I sniff & blink, trying to wake up a bit more, "Hey gorgeous, good day?" "You know, same day different shit." She strolls over to me. 

"How fucked is my makeup?" My head falls onto her chest. Jane rubs my back with one hand, the back of my head with the other, "Let's just say you're lucky you don't wear much."

We share a sweet chuckle. "Did you get outside today?" Jane asks, In response, I tell her everything about Coraline & losing my shit while looking up the Highway. 

It all just falls out, then I fall silent, like I needed to vomit the information.

"So, what did they tell you about the investigation?" I responded weakly, "Not much, I hung up on the cop who called." 

She chuckles, "Really? Pretty badass." She always could make me smile, no matter what. I guess she just proved it.

"I'm sure Coraline has just run away again, this time to some nerdy dude's basement apartment, in a forgettable town called Brightman.

She's done this how many times Abi?"

"I know", I reply, "I'll find her and she'll be fine, just like last time."

Jane continues, "..and the time before that, and the time before that."

She drags me out to the living room couch & I melt into her.

I don't deserve her. She made us dinner & again held me until she had to get on the phone with her mother, which almost always lasted hours. 

I glide my way to my bed on auto-pilot, completely forgetting about the concept of turning off the TV or lights.

I end up at my bed, crawl in and fall asleep, thankful that this day is over.

I Hope this is just a nightmare.