Page 3 of Finding Our Reality

Creep.

Kissing my fingertips, I touch Harlan’s engraved name and walk over to join everyone else. Stepping from the grass, into the parking lot, all of a sudden, I realize that I’m an orphan.

No parents. No sibling. No husband. No children.

And that all fucking sucks.

Chapter 2

ELLA

It still looks the way it did when she disappeared.

Clothes still scattered on the floor. Crocs still laying underneath the desk chair.

This coming summer will be thirteen years. Thirteen years since I’ve heard my sister laugh. Thirteen years since she walked around this house, driving me crazy with her horrible singing voice. Thirteen years since we cuddled under a blanket and watched a movie together.

I sit on her bed. Drained. Exhausted. Depressed.

The past two days have been filled with meetings. The lawyers, the estate planner, the financial advisor. For now, I’m done with the immediate tasks. Probate will be filed next week. I have to wait until I get the paperwork showing me as the executor of the estate before I can proceed with anything else. I emailed all my business contacts and told them that I was settled in and ready to pick back up with work tomorrow. That’s the good thing about being self-employed, though. I can make my own hours, as long as the work gets done.

But today? Today, I focus on cleaning out Carrie’s room.

Holt moves in on Saturday. He’s using all of Carrie’s furniture, so I just need to box and store her personal items. And wash the bedding. Despite how much he loved Carrie, I don’t want him sleeping on thirteen-year-old sheets with his cousin’s DNA all over them. Especially considering, that cousin is most likely dead.

Dead.

Like everyone and everything else in my life.

My parents.

Harlan.

The woman I called Grandma for a few years.

My heart, my soul, my passion, my fervor.

My Reality.

And then there’shim. He’s not dead, but he might as well be.

I hate him. That commandment in his letter was easy to follow. The hate flows from me naturally. Like a freshwater spring, never stopping, never slowing down. He left me. Broken and shattered. And it only got worse. Exponentially worse. And I hate him more every single day. Why? Because I still think about him. And that makes me furious.

I tap my foot against the hard floor, hoping the repetition calms me, but it doesn’t. The longer I sit, the angrier I get, the more pissed off, until tears are streaming down my face, and my lips contort into a grimace. Unable to fight the need for destruction any longer, I stand up and scream. Louder than I’ve ever screamed in my entire life. I scream bloody murder. Reaching out, I sweep my hand across the top of Carrie’s dresser, sending everything shattering to the floor. Picture frames, a vase, her jewelry box, a stack of textbooks.

It’s loud. And messy.

I stand there, gulping air in and out of my lungs, trying to calm myself. Eventually, my tears dry in sticky streaks to my face and my breathing returns to normal. The destruction scattered across the floor makes me laugh. So, I stand there, amidst the shards of glass and crumpled necklaces, laughing like a damn lunatic.

Then, something catches my eye.

Her large jewelry box is turned upside down, and it looks like an envelope is attached to the bottom of it. It’s peeking out from underneath a broken piece of particle board. The wood isa different color, like this bottom to the jewelry box was added as an afterthought, with no one even taking the time to stain it the same cherry wood color as the rest of the box. Carefully navigating the landmine I created, I bend down and grab the box, holding it upside down. I give it a few hard shakes and more earrings and bracelets and necklaces tumble out. One of the drawers even pinches my finger. Sitting back on the bed, I snag my hand under the torn section and give it a quick pull. The paper-thin pressed wood falls apart easily, sending little pieces of sawdust everywhere. I run my fingers across the large envelope taped to the bottom—theactualbottom—of the jewelry box. Quickly, I pull my fingers away. Something in the back of my brain tells me this is important. That this isn’t just a note that was put here when Carrie was a little girl and this was her top-secret location for hiding the combination to her school locker or something.

Luckily, I know how to handle important things. It’s a business hazard.

Taking the jewelry box into the kitchen, I set it on the kitchen counter. I race around to the sink and knock over five-thousand bottles of cleaning supplies before I find the box of clear plastic gloves. Gloving up like I’m about to give a prostate exam, I carefully peel the tape away from the white envelope. I open a plastic baggie and shake the tape from my fingers.

Bile rises from my stomach, coating my throat and mouth. My lips are so dry they crack. What’s so important about this envelope that my sister felt the need to hide it away from the world? Hide it away from me, her best friend.

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