WHAT HURTS THE MOST
Chapter Seven
Sarah lay in her bed, her eyes
closed. She had been awake for about an hour. She didn’t bother to open her
eyes, though. They would be burned by the sunlight.
She could feel her eyes stinging
already. Her head hurt from crying last night. She didn’t know how long she was
crying, and she didn’t really care.
Time was just a word to Sarah
now. To her, a minute seemed like an hour. And an hour...well, it would stretch
forever, almost to taunt her.
Shut up, Sarah would think to the clock, even
though it could not say anything and it was an inanimate object.
She dared to open her eyes. She
knew she should have kept them shut. They were sore, obviously from the crying.
She sat up and rubbed her head.
Her father definitely wasn’t
home. She would have heard him walking around by now. And judging by the sun,
he would have gotten her up by now if he was here.
The silence in the house made
last night come back to her. Her father, Caledon Hockley, was dead. She knew
that was the same person who had shot himself in the alley near Peterson
Detective Agency. She just knew. It sent a chill up her spine to see her father
dead and not even realize it. And Detective Peterson...he could have stopped
it!
That was why her father was
acting strange yesterday morning. That was why he said that he loved her and to
remember it. And her last words to him? "I will."
Sarah got up and stretched. She
was in the same blue dress that she was in yesterday. She hadn’t bothered to
change her clothes. After learning about her father’s death, she went straight
to bed. Actually, she cried herself to sleep before going to bed.
Why did he do it? Why did he have
to commit suicide? What could possibly have made him so sad that he had to kill
himself and leave Sarah behind with nothing but memories?
He could at least have left a
final note, Sarah thought.
She looked on the dining room table to see if there was a note. Nothing.
Sarah knew that this was the way
he always was. Before she was even born, it was always about him, him, him. He
never thought about anyone else. Just as long as he profited, that was all that
mattered.
She touched the necklace that she
got just two days ago from her father. She wondered how long he had been
planning this. Was he drunk when he did it? Maybe it was accidental. Maybe
someone shot him.
She wouldn’t let herself think that
way. No. No one would be evil enough to shoot her father. But he was evil
enough himself to take his own life.
Nothing says I love you like
committing suicide, Sarah
thought bitterly. Love me, did you? Well, then, why did you do this to
yourself? To me.
Sarah felt another lump in her
throat. She wasn’t going to let it surface again. She went to her bedroom and
looked through the folder labeled Rose Dawson.
She pulled out her suitcase and
started stuffing clothes into it. Everything she could fit into the suitcase
was going with her. There was only one person she could go to now, and that was
Rose Dawson.