A Heart Still

6 Break-in

I woke up late on Sunday. I had gone to sleep quite late the previous day, so I needed to sleep in a bit.

The sleepover, if I can still call it that given I hadn’t stayed, sucked. It sucked majorly but it did help me realize one thing.

I should find out where Claire was. But how? I would do the only thing that came to my mind. I would go and pay a visit to her house. Maybe her parents would be able to tell me some news.

After I got dressed, I ran down the stairs and went to grab something to eat.

Mom was sitting by the table, doing something on her phone while I moved to make myself a cup of coffee. As I said, I couldn’t do a thing without a cup of coffee first.

“I thought you would spend the night at Molly’s.” mom said, not looking up from her phone.

I sighed and sat down. “Me too, but I changed my mind,” I said simply. I didn’t want to explain and I knew she wouldn’t even ask.

She just nodded and turned back to her phone.

I finished my coffee in silence and stood up to put the mug in the sink. “I’m going to head out for a bit,” I said and she hummed, her eyes still on her phone.

I headed out and started walking, rubbing my hands together. It was chilly and I forgot to take gloves.

As I was nearing Claire’s house, I could see that her parents’ car was missing. I hoped they would be home.

I knocked on the door but no one opened it. Maybe next time, I thought and was about to leave, but then another idea hit me.

Maybe I could look around Claire’s room while they were gone. I knew I probably shouldn’t but I had to. There was a possibility I could find something important.

I stood by the front door and looked around to make sure no one was anywhere in sight.

Then I took the spare key from under the pot on their window and unlocked the door. I closed the door behind me and walked to the staircase, but I could hear some shuffling from upstairs. Oh f**k, were they home?

I stilled for a bit and listened. The shuffling was coming from where Claire’s room was and I didn’t think before I headed upstairs.

The closer I got the louder the sounds were and I could hear the screeching of her window. I opened the door just in time to see someone climbing out of the window.

What the actual f**k!? I quickly ran to the window and looked down. Ethan was running away from the house and he didn’t even look back at the house and just ran as fast as he could. What the hell was he doing here?

No one was home and he was sneaking around Claire’s room? Why? I turned to look at her room. There were a few things out of place around here. Was he looking for something?

I walked to the bed and looked at the things on it. There were some clothes and a comb. I turned to put those things back to their place because I was sure Claire wouldn’t just leave them lying there.

When I was putting the clothes in the drawers, I saw her phone on the cupboard. I took it in my hand and turned it on.

It asked me to put in a password and that I have two goes to get it right. That was weird, you always get three attempts, not two.

I typed in ‘Hugh Jackman’, Claire’s favourite actor, and the phone unlocked. I don’t know why this was her password but she told me, just like I told her what my password was.

There was a billion messages from me and some from her parents and other people. I scrolled through her texts. I know I shouldn’t, but my priorities were quite different at that time.

It was like a little lightbulb lit above my head, just like it did in cartoons, when the lead had an idea, and I realized that I should go. It wasn’t so smart to stand in her room and scroll through her phone when her parents could be back any minute.

I put the phone in my pocket and looked around the room once more. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary and I couldn’t think of anything else to look for so I went back to the opened window to close it.

What was Ethan doing here? I thought as I closed the window and locked it. Claire never locked it and I always scolded her for that. I always locked my window. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night otherwise.

Walking to the door, I turned around one last time. Everything was in its place, except for the phone, which was in my pocket, and it was time for me to go.

I sneaked out of the house, locking the door behind me and I put the key to its usual place in the window.

Then I walked away from there as fast as I could. The last thing I wanted was for someone to see me entering a house that wasn’t mine while the owners weren’t there. And without their knowledge. I think it’s called break-in but that wasn’t what this was.

I was just looking for a way to find a friend, not breaking into another person's house, right? Anyway,…I went home as fast as I could, the phone in my pocket and I closed the door to my room and locked it.

Sitting on my bed I took the phone out of my pocket and unlocked it. Where was I? I scrolled through her messages again and took the time I needed to go through them.

I could ignore the messages I sent her, because I knew what those said, obviously.

There were a few texts from her parents saying ‘call me honey’ and ‘where are you?’. I guess they wrote it before they realized she left her phone at home.

Then there were a few texts from people asking for notes, or asking if she wanted to know what was for homework. I was guessing people from her other classes, but none of the messages was more recent than from Friday.

It made sense given she was officially missing from that day and what would be the point in texting her.

There was something that caught my interest. One of the last messages was from Thursday, from someone she saved as Honeypop?

Who the hell was that? I opened their conversation and the last three massages said "Where are you babe?" and "call me hun", ending with a simple "call me"? What the actual f**k?

Claire had a boyfriend? No, I think I would know if Claire had a boyfriend. She told me everything, from what she ate to what was her first time like, I’m pretty sure she would tell me if she had a boyfriend.

I looked further and saw they called each other a lot, but always in the evening or at night. The messages were mostly cute texts but there was no name, she always called him Honeypop or Mr big.

I didn’t want to know where the other nickname came from, disgusting.

What puzzled me was that a lot of messages were deleted. Why?

I looked at the last texts. There was one from Monday afternoon, but it was deleted again. That would be one of the last texts she read. Maybe the very last one. Why was it deleted?

I started to read through their conversation again, just in case I could see something. They were joking about the lake houses? Why?

It was a bunch of small cottages for tourists by the lake but they were always empty because there were no tourists here.

From the sound of it, they were meeting there. Why on earth would she be meeting someone in one of the lake houses?

There was, however, no time or an actual text to meet him. Were those the deleted messages? But then again, why would she delete them?

A sudden knock on the door made me almost drop the phone and I panicked and threw it under the pillow.

My heart was beating from the surprise and Jake opened the door to my room, popping his head from behind it.

“Hey Becca, aren’t you going to eat lunch?”

I looked at him, puzzled before I looked at the clock and realized it was one pm.

“Yeah, sorry. I’ll be right there.” I said and he smiled at me, leaving.

I took the phone and placed it in one of the drawers and put it under one of my sweatshirts, which was folded in the drawer, just in case.

Taking a deep breath to calm my still fast-beating heart, I headed down to eat lunch with my family.

The food was good, mom doesn’t usually cook so I was grateful she did. However, I couldn’t fully enjoy the food. I kept thinking about Claire’s phone and that Honeypop.

The nickname was ridiculous, but I desperately wanted to know who he was. I felt a little hurt that Claire had a boyfriend and she hadn’t told me.

We told each other everything, at least I told her everything.

I ate my food and went back to my room. I took out the phone again and started to go through her texts one more time.

My head couldn’t whap around this whole thing. And there was the thing with Ethan. Why the hell was he in her room. I hoped he didn’t see me. At least I thought he didn’t.

He was out of there as fast as he could. He probably thought I was Mr or Mrs Perrish. I would have laughed if he wasn’t breaking into my friend’s house.

My mind was swirling, but even after going through her phone for another hour or so, I wasn’t able to figure out anything else.

I put the phone aside and decided it was time to do some work. It was Sunday and I needed to do some homework.

That took me the rest of my afternoon and soon it was dark and I was too tired to do school work anymore. It didn’t help that I couldn’t really focus.

I wanted to go to bed but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep.

I knew what I had to do. I took the phone and decided to go and see what was the deal with the lake houses. It wasn’t that hard to sneak out of the house and at that moment I didn’t care that it was dark and cold.

I even didn’t mind I had to walk all the way to the lake. I just needed to get some more answers.