EMILY

CHAPTER FOUR

Seven months ago…

In Los Angeles…

Geraldine, Emily’s mom, came back from her trip and headed back to their estate from the airport. On entering the house, she felt that the house felt eerily quiet.

“ Was it not always quiet?” She asked herself as she headed to her room. She knew her husband would not be back until the next day and her daughter went to school or so she thought. She rested for a while before going downstairs to have her dinner since it was past six already. Dinner was served but there was no sign of her daughter.

“ Where is Emma?” she had asked the nearest person as she took a sip of the juice in front of her.

“ It is Emily ma” the servant corrected and she sighed. She always forgot her name but who cares?

“ And ma, she has not come down for either breakfast or dinner for the past three days” the servant continued and she hummed.

“ She finally got herself friends” she thought as she continued on her food. The butler came in and while bowing slightly greeted the mistress of the house.

“ Madam, Miss Emily has not attended her classes for the past three days” the butler had reported and the mistress of the house just brushed off the information.

It had always been like that. She never listened or cared to listen to any thing or words that concerned her daughter.

“ She will come back home when she is tired” She thought to herself as she made her way upstairs to retire for the night.

The next day…

Mr. Clark, Emily’s dad came back after spending three weeks in his laboratory. The formula that him and his team worked on was very important. Not like as if all other projects aren’t important either.

On entering his home, the butler greeted him and proceeded to repeat the same sentence to him.

“ Sir, the young miss has not gone to school for the past four days, neither has she come down for breakfast nod dinner” the butler said and the younger man looked at him in confusion.

“ Did you contact the school?” he had asked and the butler nodded.

“ The teachers had not seen her in school. We checked her room but she wasn’t there and we even asked around, we then discovered that the young miss didn’t have any friends at school or at home where she would have gone to stay and her phone’s also not reachable” the butler had informed. The younger of the two men moved to the living room and his eyes landed on the table. There was a brown document on the table and it had the logo of his hospital. On opening up the envelope, he realized what had happened.

“ Immediately send out a wide search, she wouldn’t have left the country” the younger of the men commanded and in nothing less than an hour, several television stations and bill boards had advertised the missing daughter.

“ We can’t find her recent pictures” the butler had complained and the younger of the men handed out his phone.

“ I am meant to have her pictures” the younger of the men says as he scrolled through his gallery and found only a picture of his daughter which he couldn’t remember taking.

“ I don’t have her pictures” he muttered to himself and then quickly called to a maid servant near him.

“ Call down my wife” he asked and the maid left.

“ Why don’t I have my daughter’s picture? We could make use of this for the mean time” he had ordered. Mrs. Geraldine, Emily’s mom made her way downstairs and was at the last stair when she noticed the tension in the sitting room.

“ What is happening?” she had asked making her way over to her husband.

“ Emily’s missing and we did not know that she was suffering from depression” her husband had explained and then it had dawned on her. She really never noticed her daughter.

Emily’s P.O.V …

“ Did you watch the music video of ‘Halo’ by Beyoncé?” Wilfred had asked Annabel and that led to the song bursting through the walls of the living room. I was in the kitchen having made lunch and immediately sat down to have mine when the music flooded through the living the kitchen. I groaned as I bit into my potato porridge. Luckily for me, we had concluded the work and all I needed to do was to work on the compilation and the edition of the work which I would start on once I was done having my lunch.

“ Emilyyyyy” I heard Anna scream and I rolled my eyes still seated. She soon ran into the kitchen dramatically panting.

“ Can I help you?” I asked before looking behind her. Wilfred had joined us in the kitchen. Anna immediately took my cutlery from my hand and dug into my food. I stood up motioning to Wilfred to have a seat. I proceeded to dish his serving.

“ Thanks” he said smiling as he collected the plate from me. He immediately looked up as soon as he had a bite giving me a thumbs up and not waiting for him to say anything, I headed out to the living room.

I pulled out my laptop and opened up my Microsoft 365 web page and going to my PowerPoint option. I really liked the app. I just needed to choose a template to suit it. I clicked on a template and while it loaded to open, I reached for my sketchbook and opened up my draft. I had drafted how I’ll impute them the night before so it didn’t take a lot of time and I was done. What was left for me were the pictures to be added which I needed to download and stuffs.

“ You are really good at what you do” I heard Wilfred say from behind me. I looked around and Anna was not with him.

“ She’s doing the dishes” he says as he scrunched down beside me. I instinctively moved away. He didn’t look like he was bothered from it as he kept looking at my screen.

“ You are amazing” he repeated and I nodded. I quickly tuned him out as I focused on my work. And soon enough Anna made her presence known as she began to sing to Beyoncé’s ‘Run the world’. I heaved a sigh and she pouted. I rolled my eyes but she took the intent, she immediately plugged in her headphones. I continued on my work.

“ What genre of songs do you listen to?” he, Wilfred asks and I shrug

“ I don’t have a particular genre, I do listen to everything” I say and he hums

“ Including Beyoncé?” he asks and I nod.

“ Taylor Swift, Astrid S, Billie Eilish?” he asks and I nod.

“ I’m not exactly a fan of any of them, but I can listen to anybody” I paused for a while “ Chris Brown included” I added and he nods.

“ You are not as boring as we all think you are” he says and I look over at him. Do they talk about me? I thought I made myself invisible enough?

“ The class, you know, you are friends with the said bad girl which I do not see the badness though” he says and I nod. Of course, I was friends with the bad girl.

“Emily” Anna calls from her space. I look up at her and she looked at me wide eyed.

“ You kind of look alike to Geraldine Brooks, and don’t get me started with the fact that you both have the same name” she says and I tensed up a little for them not to notice. She was now looking at her phone. I immediately scolded myself, I had revised this in my head.

I shrugged, acting nonchalant. “ You are not the first person to say that” I say as much nonchalant as I could. I saw her nod in acceptance before continuing to scroll on her phone. I breathed a sigh of relief when I caught the guy sitting beside me staring at me wide eyed.

I looked away immediately as I continued on my work. Suddenly feeling uncomfortable, I closed my laptop and quietly packed my bag. I put in my sketchbook and laptop, making sure to double check for my drugs. I just realized that I didn’t take them this morning and I might tend to overthink.

“ Anna, I’ll be on my way, see you later” I say and not waiting for a reply, I rushed out of her apartment. Placing my key on the key hole, I found my hands shaking drastically. I quickly tried calming down and I successfully opened the door. I locked it behind me as I slid down once inside. I was panicking. I immediately reached for my bag, opening up the cap of the bottle, I took one pill into my mouth. I swallowed it dry without water and gathered enough strength to rush into the kitchen. I drank water from the tap directly as I felt the effects of drugs begin to kick in. I slid down and laid down by the kitchen sink closing my eyes for a while, I calmed down enough to finally think straight. I raised myself up from the ground and headed back to the living room. I picked up my bag, placing the laptop on the table, I took the bag and my sketchbook into the room. I placed my drugs into my bedside drawer and my sketchbook on a table at my special corner. I stripped myself of my clothes and stepped into the shower. I decided to wash my hair to de stress. Once done, I dried it, and decided that I needed to sleep. I got to sleep as early as three in the afternoon that day all thanks to my anxiety and my depression.