Blameable

"Sir, Ms. Katherine is here to see you.” Martha, the caretaker of my house, say from behind the doors after giving a knock. I let out a deep breath while getting up from my chair. I walk out of my office with a heavy heart and no answers to the question Katherine was going to ask me. I'm not able to find the answers I’m desperately looking for. There is nothing I can give her. I walk out of the main door and stand on top of the stair. Martha is standing near the last step and requesting my sister to come inside, but Katherine refuses it, like always. She stubbornly stands near the fountain. "Sir, I requested ma’am, but she doesn’t want to come inside." "You can go, Martha. I'll handle it." I dismiss her with a polite thank-you. She nods and leaves my sister and me. It happens every week. Katherine would stand in the same spot, refusing to come inside, yet Martha consistently requests her tenderly. "Come in Katherine. Please." I request. "Did you find anything about her? Do you know where she is?" She ignored my invite and asked. Her green eyes were hopeful, like always. "First come in. We can talk over a cup of coffee." I requested it again. "Just give me the damn answer. Did you find her?" She was getting agitated with each passing second. Katherine shifted her weight from foot to foot and pressured her palms together. "No." The flicker of hope disappeared from her eyes. "No? What do you mean by, no? It has been f*****g two years, Cameron and you still couldn’t find her? What are you doing? f*****g your ass with the money? Throw millions, get the best investigators, and find her." She yelled, throwing her hand up. Even from this distance, I could see her brown eyes the same as mine, were red, and her face stretched in tension. "I have hired the best investigators to find her, but you need to calm down. We will find her." I answered gently and descended the stair walking towards her. How true were my last words, I wasn’t sure. “Calm down? It has been three years since I last saw her and two since she left to god knows where. Adrianna was my best friend, and I don’t even know if she is still alive. I cannot calm down.” She jerked her head, and tears pooled in her eyes. “You think I don’t want to find her? I'm f*****g dying here every day just to see her again. She is the woman I love, and I want to find her as much as you do.” “Really? Because as far as I know, one doesn’t do what you did to the woman they love.” Her words were laced in venom and like a dagger to my chest. Guilt crawled its way up inside me. My throat tightened, and all the memories ran in front of my eyes. Everything that happened. Everything I did was running like a movie in my head and my vision blurred with the unshed tears. Katherine observed it and her eyes softened slightly. I looked away, not wanting to reveal the damage inside me. "I should probably go. Call me if you find anything." She said after a few seconds and turned to walk away. "You're never going to step inside my house?" I asked her hopefully, might she say yes. Katherine didn't enter my house from the day she found out what I did to her best friend while she was in the coma for a year. Once a week, she comes here and asked me whether I found her best friend and my wife or not, and all the while, she stands 10 feet away from the main door. When I say my answer, the usual one, which is no, she returns to her apartment without a second glance. "The day you succeed in finding her safe and sound and the day she forgives you, I'll step in this house of yours." With that, she sat in her car and drove off. There arrives a time in life when you think you have achieved everything. You are on the top. You seize what you desire to satisfy your greed. People work to delight you. They run around you like dogs, to receive your attention. They agree with your every idea, even if it is pure bullshit. Men try to be like you, and women want to be with you. All of this fame, popularity, respect, dominance comes with one thing- money. Money can purchase everything and anything, and that’s what I used to believe. Until I realized that it can never give back your love. Money is incapable of doing that. I have spent millions to find my love, but I'm still at square one. Two years and detectives are still clueless about her whereabouts. Where is she? How is she? What does she do for her living? Is she even alive or...? My heart started palpating with an irregular rate thinking about the last thought. I know she is fit and fine. I can feel it. If something bad had happened to her, I would have known, my heart knows she is safe somewhere. I tried to assure myself. I loved Adrianna more than I loved myself or anyone. She was my rock, my support, and she loved me without any conditions. For her, the whole world was on one side and me on the other. She stayed beside me when things were hard. She helped me when I needed someone. Not only that, but she held me when I felt lost. She was my home, and I destroyed her. I turned my back on her when she needed me the most. I stopped trusting and believing her when she asked me to. Furthermore, I let go of her hand, and now I have lost her. I know should have stayed beside her and believed her, but no, I did not pay any attention to her pleading and begging instead, I listened to every single word she said. I believed everything she told me against Adrianna. And I did everything she made me do. Adrianna’s blue eyes filled with pain are still engraved in my mind when she realized I wasn’t her Cameron anymore. I hate you so much. I regret loving you. I should have never loved you. You are just a lying, manipulating b***h. I f*****g hate you so much. Those were the words I told her, and to the date, I hate myself for saying that. I hate myself for everything. I was still standing in the middle of my front yard, looking at the iron gates, and finally, let out the tears I was holding. I don’t know where to search for the answers. I don’t know how to find Adrianna. I don’t know how I will face her even if I found her? I don’t know how she is and what she is doing. And I don’t know how I became into someone I wasn’t. I walked back inside the house and to my office. Looking at the paper scattered over the desk detectives provide me with. They rose nothing but more doubts if I was ever going to find her. It has been two years since I last saw her. Two years since she left. Two years since I secretly watched her walk out of this house. And every time I close my eyes to see her smiling face but instead her blank face and eyes come in front of my vision, reminding me of the cause behind those dead eyes. I'm the one who made her suffer, made her life worse than hell. The whole and sole reason for her misery. What I did to her was beyond the torture demon gives in hell. Even the slightest thought of the sins I did, makes my heart swell with regret. My chest burns whenever her teary eyes cloud my brain. I wiped my tears with the back of my hand and took a deep breath to ease the pain in my chest, but nothing happened, and my tears didn't stop flowing. I sat down and went through the paper again, hope again if there was something. An address or a recent picture of her, but there was nothing in them about her. The more I went through these papers, the more helpless I become. I threw the papers in frustration. "Damn! Those detectives are of no f*****g use. They can't even find one single woman, and they say they are the best detectives in the world." I ran my hand through my hair, getting irritated. My gaze went towards the photo frame kept on my table. My irritation instantly reduced looking at those beautiful eyes and that breathtaking smile with dimples. Taking the frame in my hand, I caressed Adrianna's cheek through the glass. "Come back. Please come back. I beg you, baby. Please." I pleaded in a dark room, hoping she would hear my begging and me. I know it is useless talking to her picture, but it helps me not to go insane without her. It helps me to not give up. She is my one true love, and I have to find her and beg her for forgiveness, but I know that will be too difficult. It will be too difficult for her, but I still want to erase everything and make sure she is happy. I still remember how she used to beg me to believe her, but I never did instead, I tortured her more whenever she would say that she's innocent and didn't do anything. How could I do that? How did I hurt her? The guilt was eating me alive every day. Slowly, painfully, and I didn’t know how to make it go away. I wish I believed her than the lies that were told to me. That’s all I’m doing. All I do is wish, and I know if the roles were reversed, Adrianna would have believed me. She would have stood beside me, always.