Crashing Into You

Music recommendation - Tell me where you've been by M.bronx

It was a Sunday but none like any other Sundays. This one had a group of people standing in an old cemetery all in black with umbrellas as the rain drizzled down, each saying their goodbyes and dropping flowers on a grave with sad looks on everyone's faces.

Camille stood in the middle of it all with unshed tears in her already swollen eyes. Her and her sister Dora stood there and watched everyone say goodbye and leave one by one before Camille stepped forward and crouched in front of her mother's grave. She caressed the engraved name ' Ryan Grace Meridith ' and sniffled.

"Mum". She whispered and smiled sadly.

Dora stepped forward and they both crouched down there together in silence, each to their own thoughts, but if you looked closely you could see they were silently giving each other comfort so easily.

"Goodbye Mum." Camille whispered and dropped her flowers before standing up and helping Dora stand up too.

She waited for Dora to also drop her flowers and say her last goodbyes before they walked to the car together. The drive home was quiet and even went on after the whole get-together at the house as they all ate and drank in the memory of their Mum with the church choir doing some numbers and the priest praying and blessing the occasion. Camille was quiet through it all and just nodded when concerned people walked up to her and her sister to render their condolences and offer kind words in memory of her mother..

"Thank you." Camille would whisper and try to smile.

When they were finally done for the day and thanked the last group of people to leave, Camille finally slumped on the couch and sighed out loud.

"Long day yeah?" Dora asked and sat down opposite her.

"Very long." Camille said and sighed again.

After sitting in silence for awhile, Dora finally stood up and grabbed her purse.

"Going to get a drink uptown." she said.

"Okay." Camille answered.

"Wanna come?" she asked.

"Nahhh I'll pass." Camille answered and smiled faintly.

"Okay." Dora said and left the house.

When Dora finally left, Camille stood up and went to the rooftop to get some fresh air and sat down to see Dora driving out of the premises. She thought back on how she had brought her mother severally to this same place every evening so they could watch the stars together. Thinking back to those times, Camille could have sworn that everything was perfect till that fateful evening when her mother had made the maids cook an extravagant dinner and made her wait for her sister only to say the words that still haunts Camille's sleep.

"You're adopted."

"You're adopted my sweet girl, I have been waiting for a perfect time when you become all grown up to tell you, but your father died and everything went to hell, so I decided to wait a little bit for you to heal but even after that I still didn't find the right time my dear. So now that I'm dying, I couldn't think of a better time to tell you my love." her mother had said.

Camille sighed as the words filtered into her ears again before closing her eyes to enjoy the evening breeze. As the wind brushed past her face, she thought of how relevant it was to find her birth mother and if she should really embark on the journey like her mother had asked her to before she died. Another thing Camille didn't quite understand was why her Mum so much encouraged her to go. She shook her head and sighed as she heard a car pull up in front of the house. She got up to check and saw it was Dora. Only then did it occur to her how long she had been sitting out there in the cold.

She returned to sitting down again because for some reason, the cold seemed to numb out some of the pain she was feeling.

"Still out here huh?" Dora said from behind her, disrupting her thoughts.

"It's better than getting soggy inside the house." Camille replied and smiled.

"You're damn right." Dora said and sighed before sitting next to her.

"Well you can always step outside for a drink and fresh air." she added.

"And get myself cramped up in a space with drunk sad middle-aged men, no thanks." Camille replied and scoffed.

"Proud rat." Dora said under her breath and Camille just chuckled from her sister's show of defeat.

Dora was always one to go out and go on vacations here and there, claiming traveling had some healing powers. Camille on the other hand found traveling very stressful and energy consuming, let alone the danger it could mean for her skin because she had a really sensitive skin.

"Guess we'll still have to face reality someday huh." Dora suddenly said, jolting her from her thoughts.

"By that you mean?" Camille asked with a raised brow.

"Mr Duncan was telling me about his house in Smallville estate he wants to put on lease very soon, like as soon as possible." Dora said, referring to the one client Camille never wanted to deal with personally so she always pushed him to Dora so much that the man was already aware so he never came to her.

Mr Duncan never approaches her for anything and would rather wait eternity for her sister because that's the only person he could push around as he liked.

"And he was telling you all of these where?" Camille asked with disgust in her voice.

"In church during mum's awakening." Dora said and sighed.

"That guy's a shell head." Camille said and shook her head slowly.

"Don't blame him much, he's just trying to pay for his grandson's chemo sessions." Dora said.

"You don't have to always defend him Dora, he doesn't have to be a dick to everyone for that." Camille said and sighed.

"Yeah you're right." Dora said and stood up to stretch before heading inside the house.

"Come in when you're ready, but don't freeze to death." Dora said at the doorway before stepping inside the house.

Camille sighed and finally got up to go inside as tomorrow was work day. Her and Dora had decided to resume work immediately after the burial and not drown in their sorrows.

With that last thought for the day, she decided to retire for the night to bed.

It was early in the morning and the only thing that was ringing with a shrill sound was the bell on Camille's table.

"Turn that damn thing off Camille, it's not like it helps, you're close to a dead body when you sleep!!!!!!!!!!!!" Dora yelled from her room and sighed, waking Camille up.

Camille sighed and hit the bell till it fell to the ground and became quiet again.

"Sorry Dora." she apologized out loud as usual and shook her head before getting up and opening the curtains so daylight could stream into the room.

She turned on the radio and yawned before going into the bathroom to have her bath. When she was done, she stepped out and was drying her hair and combing it out while she unconsciously listened to the news on the radio about a break at the city's jail. She shook her head and switched the radio to a channel that played country music every morning and started to waltz to the song as she got ready for the day.

"At least that's better than that damn bell." Dora said from the doorway.

"Sorry." Camille whispered with slight regret and remorse in her voice as she smiled at her sister and continued to waltz to the song. Dora laughed and ran in to join her as they spent minutes dancing together and singing along with the song.

It was their mother's favorite in the morning before starting the day and they were already very accustomed to playing it to start up their mood.

"Music for the soul." Their mother would say as she screamed at the top of her voice and danced away.

Dora suddenly stopped dancing and picked up their mother's picture from Camille's side table and stared at it with a distant smile.

"I miss her too." Camille said as she came up behind her sister and took the picture from her before turning off the radio.

"Me too." Dora said and sighed.

"Well let's start our day before my mood drops." Camille said and started to pick out an outfit for the day.

"We certainly cannot let that happen Her Majesty." Dora said dramatically and ran out of the room.

Camille burst into fits of laughter before finally getting ready and with one last look at her hair and outfit, she left the room and almost bumped into Dora in the hallway.

"So how tight is our schedule today?" Camille asked as they got into their cars and got ready to drive out.

"We have up to 15 clients ready to be seen." Dora answered as she went through her tablet quietly.

"Okay, take care of Mr Duncan and I'll take care of the rest." Camille said with a scowl.

"That bad huh?" Dora asked and chuckled before driving out.

It was almost mid-day by the time Camille finished with the clients on ground, promising to look into the properties another day as she had something she had in mind to do. So after the sessions with the clients, she checked out and stopped by Dora's office before heading out. The sisters had had their own real estate private firm since they graduated college and had been thriving in the city since then. Their firm was well known and very reliable too as they were rooted in the area since they grew up there.

Camille smiled as she looked at the two storey building with the sign D&C real estate services. They really had come a long way from college since their little dream was established.

The drive home was pretty long as Camille's mind was pretty much occupied. She had sent several letters to Keene, trying to meet and talk to the town's registry's secretary about her biological mother as stated in the adoption papers, but nothing ever came back, no response at all.

At first Camille had thought that she made a mistake in the postal code or something but after confirming and sending mails to the same office severally, she realized that she was right but might just be getting ignored.

A day to the night her mother died, she had gone online and tried to do some research on the town to see if there was another registry in the town but came across none. She even saw the same Post address there online and sighed in frustration as she took more hours to try to understand why she was being ignored.

Back to the present, she sighed again and shook her head as she drove through the busy streets of New York City.

Finally getting home she slumped on the bed and sighed as she closed her eyes to calm down from all the stress of the day. After laying there for awhile, she stood up and went to the drawers beneath her wardrobe and brought out a big envelope before sitting on the bed.

She opened it and sighed as she brought out a picture of a woman smiling with a baby in hand. She had the most pretty hazel eyes you'd find anywhere and that suddenly made sense since Camille always wondered where she got her's from as her parents didn't have hazel eyes. She looked through the contents of the envelope again for the hundredth time since her late mother gave her the envelope.

She placed the envelope back in the drawer and decided to have a hot bath before trying the registry's line again.

When she was done, she sat on the bed and dialed the number again. It rang and rang continuously as usual until someone finally picked up. Camille was completely ecstatic but tried to regain composure so she didn't tick the person off after weeks of trying to reach out.

"Hello?" A woman's voice filtered through the line.

"Hello, my name is Ryan Camille." Camille said immediately, suddenly scared that the woman might suddenly cut off and not pick up again.

"My name is Ember Rose, how may I be of assistance to you ma'am?" The woman asked politely.

"Well I've been trying to reach out for weeks now concerning an adoption matter that was settled in Keene years ago." Camille said, suddenly feeling unsure.

"Okay, so if I'm correct, you want me to help find this person?" The woman asked.

"Yes exactly, I'd really appreciate that." Camille answered quickly.

"Well you'll have to be around for the process to be more easy since it's almost the holidays and I might be off duty soon." The woman answered and Camille's excitement dropped.

There was a long silence on the line as Camille completely became deep in thoughts. This meant she was going to have to leave her life in NYC to this town in her search for answers. She'd have to leave work and everything she loved to move to this remote town for God knows how long.

"Hello, are you there?" The woman's voice filtered through the line, disrupting her thoughts.

"Ohh I'm so sorry, I'm still here." Camille answered.

"Yeah so I was saying it would be beneficial that way so you can really use my assistance effectively as we don't know how long it might take to look for this person because Keene is not a very plain place to look for people since it's tourist packed and many of them don't bother to come and register anymore. The town is a ghost of what it used to be." Rose said in a sad tone.

"Alright, I completely understand, I'll get back to you soon about that." Camille said, suddenly feeling sorry for the said town.

Aside what Rose said, Camille still heard the town came alive during holidays.

"Alright then, have a good day ma'am." the woman said.

"You too, thank you." Camille replied and was about to drop the call when Rose asked another question that seemed very odd to answer since Camille was still questioning the reality of it.

"Who's the person to you ma'am?" Rose asked.

A strange silence issued on the call as Camille tried to answer the question in her head enough to convince herself before answering Rose.

"My mother." she finally managed to say.

Camille jolted back to reality as loud honks of cars surrounded her with the driver cussing loudly at the man in front of him. She sighed as she sat there in a cab at the middle of a cranked up highway, trying to rethink if she had made the right decision when she agreed with Dora to come to Keene in search of her mother and enjoy the holiday. Thinking back just now to events of the last few months, she didn't think she was ready for this journey at all.

She sighed in frustration and looked out the window to see tons of cars cranked up on the road ahead.

"What's going on?" She asked the driver in frustration.

"They're saying sum 'bout the road getting blocked from all that blizzard last night Miss." The driver answered and shook his head slightly.

"Like this could get any more worse." She said under her breath and sighed before sitting back and turning her phone on.

She was immediately bombarded with missed calls from Dora as the phone came on. She sighed and decided to call her back before she became a bad sister overnight in Dora's goodie books.

"Hey grumpy." was the first thing Dora said when she picked up.

"Hey goodie shoes." Camille said and sighed tiredly.

"What's with the mood?, Already hate the place?" Dora asked and chuckled down the line.

Camille looked around her and couldn't say she loved the place yet or even relate to the pretty images she saw online at the moment.

"I think I'm going to be sitting in this taxi for a long time, so the last thing on my mind right now is tryna give credit to the place." Camille answered and sighed again.

"What happened though?" Dora asked, with concern etched on her voice.

"There seems to be a snow slide situation up front and we're in the mountains, like the highway so the authorities think it's dangerous to proceed till everything's cleared out and inspected I guess." She answered and heard Dora sigh in exasperation.

"Babes that has to hurt, and it's gonna take like forever though." Dora answered like she was the one stuck in the situation.

Dora was pretty always like that from little, she was very empathetic and had this superpower to take on people's pain, unlike herself that didn't give a shit about anything that wasn't chasing her dreams aggressively.

"Yeah it's gonna take awhile but I'll be fine I guess." She answered.

"Okay then, I gotta go, so many clients came in today and the intern is really got some muscles for real." She said and chuckled lightly.

"I knew she'd come in handy." Camille said and said bye to her sister before facing the situation at hand again.

It was already late in the evening when the highway was finally cleared and ready to be used. By then, Camille was already exhausted and she could bet that her backside already had dents and bruises on them by now because they felt like they were on fire.

They finally left the mountains and soon enough, they were in the city, driving through streets and tons of people going about their activities.

Camille's mood elevated at some point as she saw the beautiful things the city had to offer to the eyes. It was literally like it fell from a Disney movie or something. The place was beautiful with nature popping here and there and houses over here were not as classy as the city but it was warm looking and cozy too.

As they left the busy Town and drove deep into Keene, Camille started to see more of hills and trees and cabins. Everything was so beautiful at this point and it wasn't even morning yet. She smiled finally and relaxed from not just the feeling of home the place brought but also the fact that she was finally going to crash for the day in comfort and anywhere except this car seats right now.

They drove up to a cabin down the road and stopped. The place was as beautiful as the others they passed on the road and looked well kept too. Camille thanked and paid the cab man after he helped her with her luggages and closed the door before collapsing on the sofa close to the fireplace.

What a day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. She screamed in her head before standing up to put all her luggages in and take a bath.

Camille stepped into the bathroom and was very impressed with the bathtub. It had a very high class and taste to it and didn't seem like something that should be in a cabin at all. Impressed with the tub, she filled it with water and put in some soothing oils and bath jelly before stepping in and letting the water soothe her bones and nerves.

"That's more like it." She whispered and sighed out loud in satisfaction.

Camille sat there, oblivious of time and just enjoyed the comfort the warm soak was giving. She tuned out of this world till the water became cold, sending signals to her brain. She stepped out of the tub and wrapped herself in a towel before drying her hair and wrapping it in a towel.

She wrapped another towel around her body and decided to go sit by the fireplace for sometime before thinking of opening her luggages and taking out a nightdress.

She checked her phone and saw several missed calls from the host of the Airbnb she was in at the moment and sighed tiredly. She decided she was going to call her tomorrow morning after a good rest. With that already decided, she threw her phone back on the bed and walked back into the living room, almost jumping out of her skin when she saw a stranger sitting there by the fireplace.

"Who are you?" She whispered, still shaking from the shock.

The man just looked up and grinned in the most devilish and beautiful way she had ever seen.