Chapter 11

My mind concocted various reasons why Anna would run away from me. I connected the dots to the day when I found bruises on her face.

Was she in trouble?

The very thought that she could be in trouble and I had been doing nothing to help her, killed my insides. I redialed her number only to find it going straight to voicemail.

"Hey, Anna! How are you? I thought I saw you at the club but couldn't reach you. There are so many things I need to tell you. Call me.", I sent the voice mail.

I made sure that I did not sound worried but in reality, I was freaking out.  My mind made up all indifferent scenarios just to make it worse for my sanity. Eventually, a sense of realization struck me when I remembered her boyfriend, Kyle.

Did he do something to hurt her?

I pushed past the crowd and came outside the party to get some fresh air. Everything around me seemed to move pretty fast that there was no moment to breathe. My sabotaged place, the cryptic note, Aiden, and whatever Anna was going through. All of these had filled my mind those past weeks.

After a lot of thought, I decided to tell Anna about everything.  I knew she would not take it positively but I had to do it. Hiding things from her was confusing me more than it was confusing her. Before I left another voice mail to Anna, I decided to tell Aiden.

"Hello", he picked up right after the second ring, his voice low and serious.

I gulped before speaking into the phone.

"Hey, it's me", I said, expecting him to recognize me and mentally face palming for sounding dumb. "Haven", I added.

"What happened?", he asked. But before I could respond, he continued. " What's that noise?"

The initial thought that struck me was, how could he hear the party when I was out of it. Maybe he knew that his house was as quiet as a graveyard and even the slightest noise could be sensed with ease.

"I-uhm, I came out with Lisa.", I said, knowing he would not be happy to know where exactly.

"Where?", he said, as expected and I almost mouthed it with him.

"Bloodentine Club?", I said, which sounded more like a question.

I heard him mutter a curse word and I could actually imagine him running his hand through his hair.

"What the fuck are you doing there, Haven?", he said, exasperated. "Is Lisa around you?"

"Uhm no, I came outside to get some air.", I said, meekly.

"Fuck! Go find her right now. I will tell her to take you home.", he said, in a hurry, probably because he was going to call Lisa.

"Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something.", I said, before he could hang up.

"Haven. We will talk tonight okay? I have to do something.", he said, leaving me slightly disappointed. However, I decided to talk to him about it later.

"Sure", I replied.

After hanging up, I paced around for a little bit before diverging into the crowd in search of Lisa. It took me a while, but I found her dancing on the dance floor until her phone interrupted her time. I guessed it was Aiden and I was right.

She talked with a serious expression and raised her eyes, trailing them like she was searching for something. Probably searching for me. I made my way toward her to let her find me.

She rushed past the crowd and reached me.

"We should go. Aiden is being a buzzkill and wants us there soon.", she said, probably annoyed that he had disrupted her fun time.

I nodded and walked with her outside.

.

.

.

Aiden still did not reach home. Home. It had only been a few days since I stayed at his place. Yet, it is bizarre how we usually refer to it as home. Maybe my language was too fucked up, or I started to consider this vast mansion home.

I ruffled the pages of the book that I was planning to read before placing it on the side table and deciding to take a nap. However, I woke up to the front door opening before I could even close my eyes. I got up and set my hair, contemplating whether I should go out and meet him.

Without any other thoughts, I opened the door and made my way towards the front door, and found him removing his jacket. He saw me and put his whole attention towards me before speaking.

"You're still awake.", he said, scrutinizing my condition.

"Yeah, I really need to tell you something.", I said, parallelly forming the right sentences to narrate the whole thing.

I told Aiden everything. I told him about the first time I saw those bruises on Anna and about yesterday. While telling him, I reminisced about the way she reacted every time I asked her about the wounds.

Aiden listened to me with utmost concentration with a frown plastered on his face. We stayed quiet until he processed the information.

"I will look into it.", he said, still frowning.

"I am planning to tell her everything.", I said, finally coming to the point.

He looked at me like I was deranged.

"Tell me, Haven. How, in your weird sense, do you think it can help?", he said, probably annoyed with me and disguising it with sarcasm.

"I don't know, Aiden. It is so confusing. I just think that if I am honest with her, she will be honest with me. I hate the fact that whatever she is going through, she is going through it alone. And she does not trust me enough to tell me what it is. But again, maybe she is not telling me to protect me. See, I can completely understand that because that is what I am doing. But, in my case, I have you Aiden. I don't know if she has someone to take care of her or help her. All those bruises on her are just proving me otherwise. I-", I completed my rant with a huge sigh, realizing I must be sounding stupid.

Aiden listened to me with utmost patience without interrupting me. He ruffled my hair and brought his hand closer to my cheek to caress it. In all ways, I found comfort in his touch.

"Sh, it is going to be alright, Haven.", he said. "Tell me this. Do you trust me?"

He looked into my eyes waiting for my answer. I nodded my head and responded to his question.

"Yes", I whispered, "I trust you."

"Then trust me when I say this,", he said, "I will do everything in my power to figure out what's happening with Anna and help her."

Those words brought me immediate relief. I could not think of any moment or any person who brought me this kind of security and a whirling sense of passion. Before I could think further about the beautiful man in front of me, I needed to know the answer to my upcoming question.

"Why?", I said, genuinely curious. "Why are you doing this for me, Aiden?"

I knew that letting me stay at his place was driven by guilt as he believed that it was because of him. But, Anna? I wanted to know why he would go to extreme lengths to make sure Anna was safe and make me feel reassured.

"Don't ask me, Haven.", he replied. "It makes me mad that I don't the answer to it as well."