Chapter Fourteen:

 

“You know perfectly well what I’m talking about, Alice,” I say. 

“No,” She says sassily. “I don’t. I don’t even know who your mom is.”

I stare at her. I don’t really take Alice to be the believable type. What would make me believe her after all she has done to me. She has hated me from the first day we met. Alice gives me that glare I’m familiar with. 

James breaks up the staring contest. “Okay ladies, um, Alice, can we go inside to further…investigate?”

Alice sighs and says “Fine, but I don’t know why you’re investigating me in the first place. Am I gonna get arrested for being too beautiful?”

I laugh. “You wish,”

She gives me the deathly glare once more. Her glare doesn’t scare me as much as it did when she first did it. I just stare back and eventually, she’ll stop. Alice walks us into the huge mansion she calls her home. There’s an actual fountain in the middle of the foyer. 

Alice leads up to the living room, which was on the third floor. James and I jog up the staircase, me being eager to get the answers I have been searching for. 

It had to be Alice. Who else would come in and take Mom from the hospital and claim to be her daughter? I’m her only daughter! Well, actually, that’s not all true…

At last, I and James reach the third floor and find Alice sitting on a velvet sofa waiting for us. 

“It took you long enough!” She shouts from the couch with a Starbucks frappuccino in her hand. I look at her. “You…you have Starbucks? At…your house?” I needed some caffeine in me after all that has happened. 

“Yeah,” She says. “But, I’m not telling you where it is.” Alice smiles smugly. 

“Of course,” I sigh. 

The two of us walk over to where Alice is enjoying her caffeine-infested drink and sit down opposite to her. I can tell she already doesn’t want me at her house, James on the other hand, she doesn’t mind. Even though, he has made it very clear he is not interested. I put my feet up on the expensive coffee table on purpose to show Alice how much I want to be at her house too. 

“So, Alice,” I say all detective-like. “Where were you the night before you…kissed James at school?” I forced the word out of my mouth. That memory still brought me pain and sadness. 

“I made a phone call to him. About my plan that obviously failed. He kept saying ‘I don’t love you anymore!’ Stuff like that.”

“I didn’t ask what the call was about, I asked where were you?”

“Oh yeah,” She says recalling. “I was in Austin when I made the call.”

I take a long sigh. “I know you were in Austin, Alice. Where in Austin were you?”

“Look, Halo,” Alice says impatiently. “I don’t know why you don’t believe me because I have no idea who your mom is and I didn’t know she was in the hospital. So, what will it take for you to believe me so you can leave my house? I have people here already.”

I knew she was lying, about having people here that is. I know her parents aren’t home much, she must get lonely, and the loneliness she has, she expresses her pain out on me with words and slapping. But, what would she have to do so I would believe her? I know she did it. I just do. 

“Fine,” I begin. “You want me to believe you?”

Alice nods her head eagerly. 

“If you didn’t get my mom in the car crash, get her sent to the hospital, then take her away from the hospital by impersonating me, what else were you doing besides plotting to break up me and James?”

She stares at me, not in a deathly way this time. This time, she looks…sad. James can tell this must be the time for me and Alice to have ‘Girl Talk’, so he gets up and leaves the room and walks down the stairs. 

“Halo,” She starts, “Can you keep a secret? Just this once, for me?”

I sigh and massage my face. Why me? “Sure, Alice…” I say immediately regretting it. 

“You know my parents aren’t home a lot right?”

I nod. 

“Well, yes, the reason they’re not home is because they are at work, but when they get home…” Her voice trails off as tears start to fill her eyes. Alice forces the tears to not come out and takes a long breath. “When they get home…it’s fighting. Always fighting. And it’s not just like they’re arguing, Halo, they will throw things at each other, and scream so loud at each other I can hear the voices from my bedroom late at night…”

“Alice…” I get up and hug her. Wow, I just hugged Alice Anne who I thought was the worst person in the world. She must have felt comfortable sharing this with me because I highly doubt she talked to James about this when they were dating. 

“Can I tell you something too?” I ask as I release my hug. 

“Sure,” Alice says as she wipes up her tears. 

“My parents are divorced. They did it when I was born. My dad took my older sister with him and it’s made me mad ever since I found out about it. So, even though I might not have actually witnessed divorce, you have a person to talk to if you ever need to.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“Are we cool now?” I ask curiously. 

“Yeah, but I don’t want people to walk all over me, I want to do that. So, I’ll just send you hate comments on Instagram so people think I still hate you.”

“So you’re not gonna deathly stare at me in school anymore and tease me?”

She laughs. “No,”

There were seconds of silence between the two of us, James then comes back up the stairs. 

I clear my throat. “Well, Alice that’s all I needed. I can tell that you truly didn’t get my mom in the car crash.”

I stand up and reach my hand out to shake hers. 

Alice chuckles. “Alright fine.” She shakes my hand. “Now, please get out of my house.”

James and I walk down the grand staircase we walked up three floors, now to only go back down three floors. 

At last, we finally reach the door we came in from. Wholeheartedly I run to James’s Lamborghini and put the keys into the ignition to go back to my house. I didn’t know where else I should go. Mom is not going to be at the house, because someone took her from me. I really want my mom right now…

After about 15 minutes through the drive home, James speaks up, clearly seeing that I was in a bit of distress. 

“So, I can, uh, tell that we’re going back to your house?”

I nod my head. 

He sighs. “Halo, if you want to talk about how you’re feeling, I’m here.”

I don’t want to talk about my feelings. That’s not how I want to live. I mean yes, James knew how I felt when we first got together, then when he kissed Alice he clearly knew how I felt. But, right now, I don’t want to talk. I just want to hold back my tears because I know that Mom is probably out of my reach now. 

“I’m fine, James.”

“That’s a lie,” James says. “I can tell when you lie, you don’t look at the person you’re talking to.”

“Uh, hello? I’m driving, James. I can’t look at you.”

He smiles. “Yes, that’s true. But, you’re still lying. Now, please tell me what’s wrong. I’m your boyfriend, you can talk to me.”

I sigh. “That’s the thing, James, you’re not my boyfriend. Anymore at least.”

James stares at me. I just let a major bomb explode. 

“What…do you mean?”

I park the Lamborghini on the side of the road and turn the blinkers on so that no one will crash James’s car. 

“James,” I begin. “I like you. A lot. But, right now, I don’t think I need a boyfriend, I think…I need a friend.”

“Then why did you say that we’re not broken up earlier?” He asks angrily. 

“I was being stupid, okay? I didn’t know what to say then!” My voice increasing in volume now. 

“Halo, if you want to have friends, you don’t lie to them. Especially about things like that!”

“Look, James, I don’t want to fight right now, I just want to go home.”

Fight. I just fought with the person I least expected to fight with. Why don’t I want to be with him right now? Yes, I’m going through some stuff right now, but, I still want to be with him. 

Then, for some reason…I start to cry. Tears roll down my cheeks as I hit my head on the steering wheel. 

James is shocked. “Halo…”

I sniffle. “I’m not crying.”

He smiles and hugs me. It was nice. I felt like I hadn’t been hugged like this in a long time. 

I chuckle as we release our hug. “I guess, we are still dating, huh?”

“Yeah,” He says as he wipes the tears off my cheeks. 

“Okay,” I say. “I am in a bit of distress.” 

“How so?”

“With my mom being gone, and that whole charade we just had, that was stressing me out a bit too.”

He nods his head. “That’s why we’re gonna find her. I promise you that, Halo Nelson.”

I laugh. “Thank you, James Garcia.”

I place my hands back on the steering wheel and get back on the road toward my house. James and I discussed things on the way back. Not investigation stuff, stuff about the future. Graduation, college…everything. 

When we finally reached my house, there was a car parked in the driveway beside me and Mom’s. It was black and had a Montana license plate. Who would be parked in our driveway from Montana?

James and I enter the door, slowly, not wanting to let the visitor know that they have company. I grab my key from my pocket and open the door. 

Once the door is open, I see Mom on the couch, laughing at the TV with a black-haired girl sitting next to her. The girl is probably in her twenties. Just by looking at the back of her head, I felt like I knew her somehow, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Mom!” I shout as I run over to the couch and hug her. 

“Hello, baby,” She says cheerily as usual. 

We hug for what seemed like forever. Our arms then release and I look at the girl who’s sitting next to her. 

“Hey, Mom, who’s this? Can you introduce me?”

The girl and Mom stare at me. 

Mom speaks up and clears her throat. “Halo, this is Kamile. She checked me out of the hospital.”

Kamile smiles at me. But, I didn’t like it.

 My juvenile and daughterly instincts explode as I tackle Kamile to the floor. 

(That’s supposed to be Kamile at the top)