My eyes shifted to Ethan. He was going to leave after a few days?
“Yes, sir.”
I was going to talk to him about this. I just got together with him and now he was leaving.
“How many more days?” I asked.
“Just till the day of the launch party of my friend’s daughter’s new company.” Dad said.
“When is that?”
“In less than two weeks. Now I’d like to privately talk to Ethan.”
I took the hint and exited his office, hanging around to have a talk with Ethan after.
After ten minutes, he appeared out of the room and I stood up to reach him.
“What did he say? And what did you say?”
“He told me that I can date you.” Ethan said with a grin. “He still doesn’t trust us though. He’s confused how this happened when we absolutely hated each other.”
“Oh that, well he doesn’t need to know.” I looped my arm around his. “All that matters is that he approves.”
“Yes, finally I asked him.”
“And are you really leaving after a few days?”
He sighed, the cheerful mood quickly dissipating into the air. “Yes.”
“Damn it, I wasted so much time.”
“I’ve learned all I could from him. There couldn’t have been a better teacher to get some experience from. But now it’s time I return to my own home. To my dad and mom.” He said softly.
“Will I be able to see you as often?”
He pressed his lips in a thin line. “It’ll be hard but I’ll try. We’ll go on dates every Saturday and Sunday and I’ll try to meet you during weekdays as much I can.”
“You don’t have to do that. Don’t let me come in between you and your work. At least not to the point where the company might suffer because of me.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
“So what’re you doing after work tonight?”
“Tristan is deciding to stop by. I haven’t seen him in so long and he misses me. He remembers I exist only when he feels lonely.” Ethan joked.
I too haven’t seen Tristan for a quite a few days. I hoped he was doing well.
“Okay then I won’t intrude.”
“It’s alright. You can hang out with us.”
I shook my head. “No I think I shouldn’t. I have something to do anyway.”
“You sure?”
“Of course.”
And I wasn’t lying when I said that. I had decided I was going to find out what was wrong with Olivia. I had decided to ignore but now I couldn’t anymore. After what happened last night, it sounded serious. I needed to do some snooping.
So I called Amelia when I was alone in my room. I could only trust her to help me.
She picked up instantly.
“Hey, Amelia.”
“Oh hey Juliet. What’s up?”
“Is someone around you?”
“No, I’m alone. Why?”
“It’s just that you called me Juliet.”
“Ah, it just became a habit. You two are so alike yet so different. I guess I really started to see you as Juliet. Anyways, why’d you call?”
“Listen, I need your help. I’m going to find out what Olivia is keeping from me.”
“Okay what do I need to do?”
“Can you take Olivia out to do something? Just keep her occupied for about an hour.”
“What’re you planning to do?”
“I need to check her room. Back home she always kept a diary and wrote in it often. She can’t go long without having a book to write about herself in. I’m sure she has made a diary here. If so, then I can know what’s really up with her. She writes everything about her in it. That diary is my only hope.”
“That’s a good idea.” She said, laughing nervously. “But shouldn’t we not invade her privacy?”
“Olivia is not telling me and I need to know. We can’t afford to keep secrets if we have to live here for God knows how much longer. And if she won’t tell me then I don’t have a choice. What if it gets worse over time? We need to quickly find out and solve her problem.”
“Okay. But if it’s anything serious, don’t confront her about it straight away. First tell me and then we’ll figure something out with Heather.”
I shook my head knowing very well she couldn’t see me. “No, this secret involves Heather as well. Did you forget that she took Olivia somewhere and told you to keep me busy that one time we went on a girl’s day out? They’re together in this and Heather will most probably just deny everything and try to cover up for Olivia.”
“Oh right, I totally forgot about that. I can’t believe Heather is keeping secrets from me. We tell each other everything.” Which was why this was scaring me. I just hoped that Olivia hadn’t messed up that bad.
“That’s why this is so serious. I need to find out.”
“If you do find out, don’t forget to tell me.”
“Okay. When can you come and take her out somewhere?”
“I can’t right now but I’m free after six today.”
“Okay, that works. Text me when you get here and are ready to leave.”
“Okay.”
We hung up and now I only had to wait until six tonight to know everything I needed to know.
***
Amelia didn’t need to text me that she was here to take away Olivia because her honking her car loudly and continuously as if she wanted every person in the mansion to know she had arrived was enough indication.
I peered out of my window at her sleek black car idling in the driveway as she got out and made her way inside.
I waited and counted the minutes. It took twenty minutes for both of them to return to the car and soon they drove away. I imagined it wasn’t easy to coax Olivia out of the guestroom where she had been self isolating herself for weeks.
My phone buzzed with a text from Amelia. I didn’t know how she managed to text me while she was driving.
You’re? clear.? You have one hour tops. She’s difficult to keep? around? for much longer.
Once their car disappeared out the gates and around the bend in the road, I quickly raced down to Olivia’s room.
I quickly slipped inside, unnoticed by others and took a quick glance around. It looked normal, nothing that would suggest that she was hiding something from me but I knew better.
I reached the bedside drawers and began searching for her diary. Nothing was in the three drawers except some unimportant items like textbooks and some notebooks she used for her notes.
I knew Olivia could hide it anywhere. She always chose the most unexpected of places to hide things. So I even searched under the foam mattress of her bed but found nothing.
Next I searched her tiny closet. It didn’t have a lot of clothes like mine did. In fact hers seemed rather empty compared to mine. My walk-in closet was filled to brim with designer clothes.
Nothing was hidden behind or under her clothes and I was starting to think I wasn’t going to find anything.
The bottom of the closet had a small drawer and thank God it didn’t need a key.
A big empty bag was stuffed in it and I had some difficulty in pulling it out because it got stuck somewhere inside. When I finally managed to pull it out, I found exactly what I was looking for. Hidden underneath the bag was her old phone, the clothes she wore at the night of the party where we got kidnapped and all the accessories she had on at that time. But that wasn’t what caught my attention.
I found bottles of pills. A lot of them. There were pills of many kinds. Among the mess I found her diary. It was a new one she had requested from Heather for when we started to live here. I vaguely remembered her asking Heather if she could maintain a diary and she had found no harm in it so she had given one to her.
I took it out and it was almost half filled with diary entries. It fell open to the last page. There were a few papers folded into half and put in the diary.
Right at that moment my phone started buzzing crazily. I took it out, curious to know who was messaging me so much.
I had to turn around? the? car.
Something’s wrong with Olivia.
She’s coming up to her room.
Amelia had sent three separate texts to me and her words sent a chill of fear inside of me. I didn’t want to to be caught snooping around. But I was so close to knowing what it was. I couldn’t just let it go.
So I ignored the texts and opened the papers folded together neatly.