Page 101 of Unraveling Connections

Grabbing it, I start to walk across my bedroom before I realize that I have left my phone on my bedside table, and I spin back around to go and grab it. Of course, I'm a klutz, so as soon as Ireach for it, instead of picking it up, I end up knocking it off, and it falls under the bed.

I roll my eyes at myself; I mean, how did I manage to only knock it off in the most awkward place possible? Couldn’t it have just fallen on the floor?

Put the note on my bedside table and then drop to the floor reaching under the bed and patting around like a looney, I can’t feel, and it can’t have gone that far under surely. Glancing underneath I spot it right in the middle of the bed, because of course it is. As I am pulling it out though my eyes catch on my memory box, it has been a long time since I’ve put something into it and I can’t help but reach for it too and bring it out.

I am more than aware that I am now stalling, but I'm going to allow myself that for a moment. I move so I’m sitting on my ass and carefully lift the lid of my box. It’s no longer the battered shoe box that I had hidden in the trailer when I was a teenager, my collection grew too big to be kept in that. Riot made me this box from scratch, and Trick did a beautiful design on it; it is now as special to me as the things inside.

I'm not really sure why I keep it under my bed still, I think it is just something that I have always done and for some reason it feels safer under there.

I smile as I pull out a photograph from our first Christmas up here, when I met Atlas. I have also got all of the labels that were on my presents because each one of them wrote something that made me smile. I have also got the map in here, the one that I kept after my father took me away from them and the one that I used to help me remember the way back when I could finally go home. That one is special on a lot of levels and for different reasons.

I have also got things like the first knife that Jensen let me borrow, the second one I still use on jobs, and it is one of my favorites, along with the knives that Atlas got me. There are alsothings like a note that Pete gave me when I was feeling sad, you would think it would say something sweet and meaningful, it doesn't it says, ‘Stop being sad, love you!’. That was it; strangely enough, it worked; it was so blunt and so Peter that it immediately brought a smile to my face, and he was super proud that he had managed to make me smile.

It's now become a running joke between us, and whenever one of us is sad, depending on the situation and things like that, we will give another one that says the exact same thing.

Chapter Thirty

Ever

As I’m rummaging through the box and finding things that make me smile and bring back the happiest memories, I come across a small piece of folded paper. I frown, not immediately recognizing it, and then my eyebrows rise as I read the note. It’s the note that Isabelle gave me all those years ago. She made me promise that unless I knew what the initials and three dates meant, that I didn’t call the number. Although something about them struck familiar with me, I never could quite place it, and then life got hectic as fuck, and I sort of forgot that it existed.

She told me that it had nothing to do with what we were looking into at the time, and she was right. I didn’t just want to throw it away since she had taken the time to give it to me, andeventually, it may have made sense, but it never did, so it went in my memory box since that was the only way that I could assure that I wouldn’t lose it. She was one of the only people that I have come across who had something nice to say about Amelia. I think she felt sorry for her, I think she may have seen herself in my mother, and the more I learn about Amelia, the more I am sure that Isabelle was probably projecting herself onto my mother.

Although Isabelle did know her when she was much younger, and maybe at one point she really was like that, before my father leached anything that was good or nice from her.

The numbers still look familiar to me, but I can’t place them, and it is only the one set that seems to jog something in my memory but not enough that I can actually remember why. As I stare at the number, an idea starts to form; it’s mostly just so I can put off thinking about what I should be thinking about, and that is my mother and her funeral.

I want to call the number; Isabelle told me not to unless I recognised the numbers but now that I have found it and remembered that it exists, I am insanely curious. There is a chance that the number no longer works anyway since it was such a long time ago that it was given to me. It would also be one long standing mystery solved.

“What are you doing?” Jensen asks, making me jump.

He has somehow managed to enter the room without me hearing him and is lying on the bed above me, on his stomach, his hands steepled under his chin, holding his head up with a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Fucking hell Jensen, you scared the shit out of me,” I accuse, and his grin widens even more. I ask, “How long have you been there?”

“Not very long, but it’s nice to know that my stealth lessons with Luc are working.” He replies, looking proud.

“They’re definitely working,” I reply.

“So, you didn’t answer my question,” he says, his eyes full of curiosity.

I only debate telling him for a moment before I hold up the piece of paper, “Do you remember this.”

He squints slightly and then nods, “Yeah, that’s from Isabelle, right? We had a big shoot-out at her place?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” I reply, impressed that he has remembered.

He frowns, “Did we ever figure out what the numbers and initials were?”

I shake my head, “No, I thought I recognised one, but I couldn’t place it, and I still can't.”

“Right,” Jensen says, dragging out the word. His eyes narrow again, “What are you up to, and I’m in.”

I chuckle, and push up so I can kiss him, before I sit back down and reply, “I do love you.”

“I love you too, Angel,” he grins, and then raises his eyebrow, “that didn’t answer my question though.”

“I’m going to call the number,” I say.

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