My heart starts pounding faster as I slide my phone out of my pocket and call Lexi, waiting for her to answer. It rang one, two, three, four, five, six times before I was sent to voicemail and asked to leave a message.
In the six times I called her, I could see her sitting next to the window with her golden waves hiding her shoulders, wearing her favorite PJ’s and holding her phone each time it rang. Since the lights in her room were switched on, I saw how she ran her hand through the scalp of her hair several times before she started picking at her nails which is a habit I knew she followed without noticing whenever she was contemplating a decision.
I called her six times, and, in those six times, she didn’t answer me once.
That was her decision.
I look up at her room once more to check that I was looking at the right bedroom, to check that my brain isn’t playing tricks on me and to check that just because my parents are hiding something from me, that doesn’t mean Lexi is, but she is. My heart clenches in pain.
Whatever games my parents are playing, I hope that Lexi’s not in on it; I really hope, as awful as it sounds, that she doesn’t know what they’re hiding, and that she’s just a pawn in their game. With the jolt of emotions that suddenly hit me, I walk away without passing Lexi’s house a second glance. The house, that I always felt, was my second home.
‘In through the nose, out through the mouth,’ I remind myself to take long, deep breaths rather than short, rough ones as my feet continuously pound the ground one at a time.
As I jog on the sidewalks of the streets, my ponytail swings from left to right and back from right to left several times. The light from the sun begins to fade as the clouds become more and more dense; a sign from God that the sky is about to rain.
Since the weeping of the sky is usually heavy in London, people started switching the ‘Open’ signs, signaling customers to enter their shops, with ‘Closed’ ones. Next, they started heading to their cars to drive their way back to their families at home who are probably wrapped up in blankets on their couches while drinking hot chocolate in front of their television.
I, however, place my hands on my knees as I stop jogging to take in deep breaths in order to ease the loud drumming of my heart. Opening the water bottle in my hand, I take in large gulps of cold water then start walking, praying to reach the front door of our house before I drown.
On my way home, an old lady wearing a kind smile on her face stops me. Her grey hair is just above her shoulders with an inch or so; her nose was crooked and her eyes were the kind that made you wonder if that’s the ocean you’re looking at.
“Is there something I can help you with, Ma’am?” I ask her with a genuine smile.
“What are you doing here dear?” She asks me in a voice that made it sound as if speaking is as hard as working out with dumbbells.
“What do you mean?” I furrow my eyebrows at her question.
“You should hurry up; otherwise, it’ll be too late to save her. Go!” I almost lost my balance, surprised by how an old lady like her can put as much strength as she did in a push.
“Excuse me? Ma’am are you sure you’re talking to the right person? I don’t understand. Save who?” I look around, checking if someone is in some kind of trouble, and if there wasn’t any, I think I should call a mental hospital for this old lady.
Throughout this short period she’s been talking to me, I haven’t realized how the sky suddenly turned fiery red. The sky was a merge of fire and blood which made it seem quite scary.
Suddenly, a loud crash grabs my attention from the old lady. I turn my head left and right trying to understand the source of the sound until I managed to spot it: a black SUV car crashed right into the driver’s side of a black Porsche. I run as fast as I can to check if there are any injured people, and see if I can help.
Throughout my running, red and white ambulances painted with the same bold words ‘ROYAL LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL’ enter my line of sight. My shaken form calms a little once it was double checked by us- the crowd surrounding the cars and I- that the owner of the SUV is okay. I pushed my way through the crowd towards the black Porsche to make sure the passengers are okay as well, but they weren’t.
Inside the car ,at the driver’s seat, was an unconscious man and right beside him, in the passenger’s seat, was a blond girl with blood seeping through her shirt near the stomach area which was struck with a piece of glass from the broken window next to her.
“Evelyn?” My breathing started becoming more rapid once I recognized her face.
I pass my hand through the shattered window and press my fingers to check her pulse under her jaw. She’s still breathing. With my other hand I wipe the tears I didn’t realize were streaming down my face.
“Evangeline?” She slowly manages to get the
