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If chloe had to decide what made her notice she would’ve had a hard time. Perhaps it was the silence when she came in the door or maybe it was sharas homework sprawled out across the kitchen table unfinished and perhaps it was when Chloe called shara and found her phone vibrating on the couch.
However she noticed though she came home that day to find shara gone.
Chloe and shara had been visiting false beach as they normally lived together in New York. They were in chloes childhood home with her moms being on a trip together now Chloe had moved out they were on trips often and their house was empty for the two to inhabit. Or at least it had been until chloe came home from visiting Georgia one day to find an empty house. No sign of shara was present at first but after some fairly frantic searching chloe found something that made her cry before she’d even opened it.
A pink envelope.
It was with shaking hands that chloe picked it up but turning it over she noticed something her name on the front wasn’t in sharas handwriting but someone else’s slightly different more curly writing. Curiosity was now taking over fear as she ripped the envelope open to find a letter addressed to her in the same writing.
Dear chloe,
We are very sorry for any panic we have caused you however Shara has rejoined our family and will not be continuing to see you. We apologise for your loss of a friend.
Mr and Mrs wheeler
Chloe dropped the letter. After a few solid seconds of standing there she threw herself backwards onto the couch and breathed out to try and calm herself. She looked at the letter again and found herself having mixed feelings about it. Chloe wanted to cry at ‘shara has rejoined our family’ and yet ‘a friend’ made her laugh sharas parents knew Chloe wasn’t her friend they’d made that very clear.
Despite laughing about the whole friend situation chloe knew something had to happen now. She shoved the letter into her trouser pocket and stomped back into the hallway. She picked up her keys on their heart shaped carabiner and stomped out the house and to her car.
Chloe drove like well she drove like an upset shara just off her usual perfection and with even the occasional swerve as she let her thoughts take control. Chloe gritted her teeth and drove to the wheeler house.
She parked her car half on the road half on the sidewalk and leaped out jogging up to Rory’s house. She didn’t bother knocking knowing Rory and smith were currently having their own cute couples visit at smiths college the thought of them happy making her breath quicker as she grabbed the ladder and went round to sharas house.
She climbed the ladder quickly and this time made it to the top without falling. She looked around but didn’t see shara in the remnants of her room. It was like looking at a ghost of sharas past the gaps in her room obvious as she took stuff away but chloe found it eerie how untouched the room was other then that. Her own room had been repurposed into the spare room the same week she left the house and her stuff either taken with her or put into storage not like this frozen in time portrait that sharas room had been left as.
Chloe hesitantly walked over to the door or at least the frame the actual door was still missing as it had been so long ago. She looked into the hall and saw nothing. Chloe could only hear the faint murmur of voices downstairs but even from this distance she could tell none of them belonged to shara. So chloe braved the hall and stepped out.
She was very much lucky to tell the truth. She had no way of knowing shara was locked from the outside into that box room but she pulled the door open all the same to find shara on the floor her face red as if with stress and boxes piled up to a closed window as well as fingernail scratches on the door. The sight made Chloe feel sick but she placed a finger to her lips and gently scooped the barely conscious Shara up in her arms before leaving the box room. She stood there in the hall unsure of what to do now she couldn’t get shara down the ladder like this and she didn’t want to risk going downstairs.
After a bit more deliberation and a groan from shara in her arms chloe chose the stairs and carefully carried shara down them. She knew this could easily go wrong but she remembered the layout of sharas house and finding the door to the living room closed with the voices clearly in there she breathed a sigh of relief and tiptoed as best as she could with shara in her arms to the front door. A simple click open and she stepped out gently shutting the door behind her so they wouldn’t be alerted to her presence.
Chloe carried shara down the drive and then gently placed her in the passenger seat before running to dump the ladder in Rory’s front yard and then jumping into her car.
Right as she did she heard a man’s yell from inside the house and she immediately began driving. She knew the wheelers wouldn’t recognise her new car and so she looked in the wing mirror to see Mrs wheeler run (or as close to what an inactive fifty year old can do to a run) onto the road and look around. Chloe reached over to hold sharas hand and slammed on the gas boosting the car away from the wheeler residence and back to her parents house.
“Don’t worry shara i’ve got you” shara moaned and rolled over in her lap “i’ve always got you” chloe promised brushing her hair out the way and pressing a kiss to her sweaty forehead. “I love you” she admitted to no one as shara un hearing groaned into her shoulder.