Chapter 19
Camie hesitated, not wanting to leave the helpless woman defenceless by herself.
‘They will kill you, run!’ the woman mouthed again before shifting into a sitting position again, trying to distract the three. “Please just take me in.”
“What part of ‘I despise overtime’ don’t you get?” the first man spat before activating his quirk. A green aura spread around his one arm and he brought it down on the woman’s shoulder, slicing off her arm in one foul swing.
Instead of reacting to her attackers, the woman’s eyes pleaded silently with Camie, once more to run.
Camie nodded before activating her quirk and hiding herself. She ran from the alleyway and didn’t stop until she got into her bathroom and dry-heaved into the toilet. Nothing came up as she hadn’t eaten anything all day but she still rinsed her mouth out. After she had finished in the bathroom, Camie walked into her room, shut the door and collapsed onto her bed. She was asleep in seconds.
The next day, Camie woke up to find a note from her mother on her desk:
‘I heard from the school that you came home yesterday due to been ill. I have already let them know that you won’t be coming in today. Breakfast is in the fridge; heat it up when you are feeling hungry.
Don’t push yourself too much today
Mom.’
That’s right! The woman from yesterday.
Camie hurried downstairs and turned on the television. She tried to search the incident on her phone while she waited for the news but couldn’t find an article about it. After watching the news and not hearing anything about yesterday’s incident, she decided to call the police station.
“I’m calling to ask if an injured woman was arrested yesterday morning, just before lunchtime,” Camie told the operator.
“No ma’am, we didn’t book any injured people yesterday.”
“Thank you,” Camie put the phone down.
Maybe I should go have a look in the alley.
Camie raced upstairs and changed. Quickly warming her food up and eating it before she left. It was a five minute walk to the alley from yesterday. Camie walked straight down to the dead end, not finding a single piece of evidence that a bloody scene had been present the night before.
Maybe I have the wrong alleyway.
She quickly checked the alleys on either side and upon finding nothing, decided to check every alley on the street. Camie scoffed.
They don’t have time to fill in paperwork but they have time to clean up an entire alleyway perfectly.
Toga’s words came back to Camie and she shuddered at the thought of something like that happening to Toga. On her way home, Camie messaged Toga. She asked her if they could meet up to talk at night by the park and that Camie would wait for her as long as she could.
She sent the message and looked up from her phone to find Inasa standing in front of her house. His hand was raised, ready to knock on her door.
“Inasa?” Camie called out before he could bring his hand to the wooden surface.
“Oh Camie, hi, I heard you came home yesterday and I thought I’d come check on you.”
“I’m fine, just a bit worn down,” Camie admitted, deciding that it would be better to be slightly honest with her friend.
“How so?” he asked.
“Just going through some personal things,” Camie saw his mouth settle into a frown and quickly added. “I owe you an apology.”
“For?”
“For prying into your personal life. There are some things in life that we need someone’s help but there are also things that we need to sort out alone. I was insensitive and should have looked at the matter from your perspective. For that I am sorry.”
Inasa smiled, “No problem, I’m sure one day we will be able to share stories about the things that weighing down on us now.”
“Would you like to come inside for some tea?” Camie asked returning the smile.
After Inasa had left for the day, Camie started on making the food for supper and had it ready by the time her parents came home. She excused herself early and shut herself in her room, preparing to meet up with Toga. When her parents had finally fallen asleep, Camie snuck out the house the same way she always did.
The walk to the park seemed more eerie than usual and Camie wasn’t sure whether it was because of what had happened to her this past week or if it was because she didn’t know for sure whether Toga was meeting her there. The blonde hadn’t read her message and Camie wasn’t sure she ever would. Camie reached the park a little faster than she normally did as she had quickened her pace halfway there. She took a seat at the usual park bench and waited.
Five minutes passed
Ten minutes.
Twenty.
Thirty.
One hour.
Two. Three. Four.
After five hours had passed, Camie was struggling to keep her eyes open and decided to head home for the night. She sent Toga a quick message to let her know she was leaving for the night and slowly made her way home.
Camie slept through her alarms and had to be forced out of bed by her mother, who insisted that if she was well enough to cook last night then she was well enough to go to school. Camie slept through most of her classes and took a nap as soon as she got home. By the time her parents were home, she had caught up on her school work and had started cooking.
Just as she had done the night before, Camie excused herself early and went up to her room. This night however she decided to message Toga before leaving, despite her still not reading the previous texts that had been sent.
Toga didn’t meet her at the park that night either.
Over the course of the next month and a half, a pattern started to emerge. Camie would sleep through classes and have a nap in the afternoon. She would then catch up schoolwork and cook. In the evenings she would excuse herself early and head to her room. She would sneak out to meet Toga in the park, only for her to not show up.
Camie was beginning to think that this was futile and had only made it this far by telling herself that Toga was busy with family stuff but that excuse was getting old. It reached the point where Camie decided that this was going to be the final night.
‘Hi again, I’ll be waiting in the park tonight as usual. The same place we always meet up. I would really like to sort things out. Please come, even if it is just so that I can see you one last time. After tonight, if I don’t see you or if you come to end things; I’ll give up on you completely. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make you happy.’
She pressed send before she started to climb out of her window. As Camie reached the foot of the tree, a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky. It brought a slight drizzle of rain with it.
It’s a good thing I decided to bring my jacket tonight.
Camie tugged her jacket tighter to her as the rain picked up. She made her way to the park bench and took a seat. This night wasn’t any different from the other nights and Camie went home drenched with a heavy heart.