The Other Side of Lonely

Pink Room

Charlotte heard the front door close and the car start. She softly pushed her door open and tip-toed onto the landing. From there, she had a perfect view of the driveway. She could see the black Mercedes pull away from the house. That was it. She was now home alone. And it was time. She needed to find out what her mother was doing and why she had been acting so strangely recently. She wanted to find the letter. She had made a game plan the night before. The first step was to set a timer. She knew that she had a few hours, but she didn’t want to risk it, so she decided that she would allocate one hour.

Charlotte began in the living room where she heard her mother having a conversation a few days ago. She tried to find any sign of someone other than her mother or step-father being in there. Truthfully, she wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking for, but she was just trying to use her instincts. There was a cabinet in the corner and she tried to open some of the drawers. They were all locked. She thought that this might be an issue. Her step-father had a lot of important documents throughout the house.

She sighed, realising that she might have to find another way to get into some of those cabinets. Looking at her phone, about 20 minutes had already passed. Charlotte decided that it was time for her to change her focus. She went back upstairs, towards her mother’s bedroom. Even though she knew that she was home alone, she also knew that she had never been into that room before. Her heart was thumping hard in her chest. She almost felt like she couldn’t breathe for a moment. She pushed the door open. The room was beautiful. The decor was like nothing she had ever seen before. It was gold and white, and very elegant. It was also huge, bigger than the entirety of any other place that Charlotte had previously lived. Forgetting her mission for a moment, she stood in awe. Realising that she didn’t have much time left, she decided to start searching. She thought it was best to find a place that her mother did not share with her step-father. Based on the previous night’s dinner conversation, she could tell that Charles was not aware of what was happening.

Charlotte found the walk in wardrobe, or should she say the other room that was full of clothes? The walls were a gnarly pink colour, like a doll’s home. She felt like she was on a TV show where people showed off their excessive heel collections. There were a lot of drawers in there. She tested one of them, expecting them to all be locked as well. She was surprised when she discovered that it easily slid open. Inside were stacks of sunglasses. She opened the drawer below, which had rows of folded silk scarves. Charlotte knew that her step-father had money, but this display of wealth almost disgusted her. It was beautiful but terrible all at the same time.

She looked over and couldn’t believe her luck. She was the first to admit that her mother lacked some intelligence, but was it really this easy? The rubbish bin in the corner of the room was made of silver wire. Inside it was what looked like a plain envelope.

Charlotte slowly made her way towards the bin. Once she reached it, she pulled the paper out, took a deep breath, and flipped it over. It was the envelope that she had seen on the guest kitchen table a week ago. She was so shocked that she almost immediately dropped it. She looked inside. It was empty. Maybe her mother wasn’t as dumb as she initially thought. Still, she had a strange feeling about the handwriting on the front. It still felt familiar in some way.

She took a photo of the front, back and inside of the envelope so that she could study every detail later, and put it back in the rubbish bin, exactly as she had found it. Double checking that she hadn’t left anything aloof in the room, she shut the door and went back to her own bedroom. Her heart was still threatening to jump out of her chest. She decided that it was time to go to what was becoming her favourite place.

The wind was rushing through her hair. It was an incredible feeling. Running down the hill, she felt like she was floating, especially as she knew that she had uncovered a new clue. Her legs felt lighter and lighter. She made it to the forest and quickly found the clearing next to the huge tree. She sat down at the trunk and pulled out her phone with the photo on it. She zoomed in to the writing. The curls were very consistent. It was clearly written with a ballpoint pen, because it didn’t have the ink opacity of fountain pen ink. There were two lines underneath her mother’s name. They were straight and probably quickly added below as an afterthought, Charlotte decided.

She zoomed back out and stared at the front of the envelope as a whole. She wasn’t sure what she hoped to get from it, but she wished for something, anything, to jump out at her. She closed her eyes, hoping to give her subconscious mind the chance to work on the puzzle. This is what she did in exams when she didn’t immediately know the answer. And she always got the answer eventually, so it was a proven technique. In her mind, she was scanning pieces of handwritten text that she could conjure up. Prior to the summer, she had been trying to form a mind palace, whereby she could store and gather a vast amount of information when required. However, when your emotional brain breaks, it turns out other parts of it can start to crumble as well.