Morgan Rice - Fated

Caitlin looked out the open windows and saw that a new day had dawned. She looked to the floor for the pages, but there were none to be found. She looked to the front door, but it was closed, just as it had been the night before.

It was all just a nightmare. A horrible, horrible nightmare.

Suddenly Caitlin remembered: the nightmare of her real life. She turned to Caleb.

“Scarlet?” she asked, grabbing his arm. “Anything?”

Caleb shook his head grimly, and Caitlin’s heart fell. She reached down and checked her phone.

“I already checked it,” Caleb said.

Caitlin checked anyway, and saw that there were no new messages. No new texts. No new calls. Nothing.

Scarlet, her baby, was really gone from here.

“The police?” she asked.

Polly and Sam shook their heads.

“We already called. Three times since sunrise. No one has seen anything. She’s gone.”

“But we have to find her,” Caitlin said, jumping to her feet. “We have to! My baby’s out there!”

“She’s my baby, too,” Caleb replied calmly, “and we’re doing all we can do.”

“We’re not doing enough!” Caitlin pressed.

“What would you have us do?” Caleb asked, exasperated.

“Let’s get back out there,” she said. “Let’s split up. We’ll take our own cars. Drive block to block again.”

“Drive block to block where?” Caleb said. “We’ve already covered every block there is ten times. What good will it do?”

“And if we leave this house,” Sam added, “we might miss her. You heard what the cops said: Scarlet will probably come looking for us.”

“We can’t just stay here,” Caitlin insisted.

“Then what should we do?” Caleb asked, hands on his hips.

Caitlin thought, racking her brain. Her dreams haunted her, and she looked over and saw her diary sitting there on the ledge, and something suddenly occurred to her:

Aiden.

Aiden had been right from the start. She had not listened to him, foolishly, until it was too late. And now, with nowhere else to turn, he was the only one she knew who might know what to do.

Caitlin grabbed her phone, and with trembling hands, she dialed him. She walked to the parlor, so that the others wouldn’t hear and think she was crazy.

She stood there, crying softly, wiping away tears as the phone rang and rang.

Please pick up , she thought. Please.

“Hello?” finally came the gravelly voice.

Caitlin let out a sigh of relief.

“Aiden!” she said. “It’s me, Caitlin. I need to see you. Now . Can you see me? Can you? Please. I need to talk to you about Scarlet. Please. ”

It all came out in a rush, and there came a long silence on the other end.

Finally, he spoke:

“Come to my office immediately,” he said. “I’ll cancel my appointments.”

Caitlin hung up with shaking hands, and she rushed over and grabbed her keys, and without even putting on her coat, headed for the door.

“Wait!” Caleb called out. “Where are you going?”

She looked at Caleb, completely forgetting.

“To Aiden,” she replied simply.

Caleb stared at her.

“To the city !?” he asked. “What about Scarlet?”

“This is for Scarlet,” Caitlin said.

She turned to go, but soon felt Caleb’s hand on her shoulder.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “I’m coming with you.”

Caitlin turned and looked at him, and she could feel the love and support in his eyes, and she nodded, grateful.

Caleb took the keys and opened the front door for her, and they looked back at Sam and Polly.

“Don’t worry,” Polly said. “We’ll hold the fort. You go. And get some answers.”

Scarlet flew through the night, circling high above her hometown, looking down at all the houses lit up in the darkness. They all looked so cozy from here, a million sparks of light flickering amongst the trees she crossed over. Scarlet imagined the families that must be in these homes, perhaps sitting down for dinner, laughing and enjoying themselves, normal, functional families getting together as they did every night. Perhaps they would have dinner, followed by TV, then homework. Perfect, happy families, without a worry in the world.

Scarlet craved a family like that now more than ever.

She wiped tears away as she thought of her own house, her own family. On the surface they seemed like the perfect family in the perfect town, seemed perfectly functional; yet she felt as if her family was all broken, as dysfunctional as every other dysfunctional family. Scarlet had felt so close to her mother her whole life, yet after reading her diary entry, Scarlet could not help but feel as if her mother wanted her dead. Scarlet had felt close to her father, too, and she couldn’t understand: how could he possibly have let her mother feel that way about her? Was he complicit?

They looked at her now as if she were some sort of freak, some sort of monster; she felt that now all they had for her was disapproval, no matter what she did. They just didn’t understand her. They wouldn’t take the time to listen to her, to hear her point of view; they were always so quick to rush to judgment and disapproval. As much as she loved them, she really hated that part of them. Why couldn’t they just talk to her, just try to find out what was going on with her, instead of rushing to condemn her?

Scarlet flew over her house, high above, and saw it, somewhere down below amidst the lights flickering between the trees. She knew it would be so easy to just dive down and enter it. And yet, the easiest route was also the hardest. Scarlet felt she couldn’t go home, felt that she didn’t really have a home anymore to go home to. Something inside her had irrevocably changed. She didn’t really trust her parents anymore, and she didn’t trust them to understand what she was going through.

She didn’t want to be with them, at least not now, during this fragile time. For now, she wanted to be with Sage. She felt somehow he would understand better than her family. She wanted Sage and no one else.

Scarlet brushed her tears away, knowing that Sage was gone, wherever he was. He had boarded up his house and fled like a thief in the night. It was as if he had never been.

Scarlet cried as she flew through the air, the thought devastating her. She had cared about him. Didn’t he know that?

Scarlet flew for hours, circling aimlessly, second-guessing herself, trying to decide where to go. Maybe she should just leave this town together, she thought, just take off completely.

But something inside Scarlet was not quite ready to leave yet. She still felt a lack of resolve about Sage, and she felt she needed to try to find out more about what happened to him. She couldn’t just walk away. And as she wondered how to find out more, she kept thinking of her high school, of the other people who might have seen him.

She thought once again of her friends, of her plan of visiting them. She recalled the last time she saw them, at the school bonfire; it hadn’t gone well. Yet as she thought about it, Scarlet realized she didn’t care if they hated her anymore; she just needed to find Sage. And they were the only people she knew who might have heard something.

As Scarlet circled, she decided, for Sage’s sake, to swallow her pride and seek out her friends. She couldn’t seek out Maria, not after the fight they’d had. Jasmine, though, she’d always been able to talk reason to. Even if Maria had turned Jasmine against her, maybe Jasmine would listen to reason coming from Scarlet – at least long enough to tell her if she knew anything about where Sage was. That was all she needed. That, and maybe to crash there for the night until she could figure out where to go next.