Chapter 2- Hera

It is definitely a whole different kind of isolation when you are not just left to languish in a Back of Beyond, but in addition, no one cares that you are there. For one, they won't feel your wrath as they should. And while my parents don't know this, the calls once every week to check that I was still alive, where I used to verbalize my annoyance at being brought here, helped me in unpacking some of the fury. Now I cannot even do that anymore. The answering machines have permanently taken over and they have a strong tolerance for teenage vituperations, unlike my parents apparently.

No doubt, my life sounds like a sensationalist headline: 'Peculiar Eighteen-Year-Old Heiress Spoiled Rotten Since Birth Irate at Parents' Abandonment in a No-name Town.' Practically anybody would come to this conclusion.

And while accurate, they do not even know the half of it. Pampered? I never lacked what money could buy. An urban princess in a neon-streaked metropolitan kingdom rife with the beauty of artificiality, brimming with comfort and luxury that would overwhelm anyone and plagued with the wiles of blood-sucking capitalists, unrelenting hopefuls, and scheming desperadoes.

Bizzare? I prefer 'gifted.' And it is true. Despite my obvious apathy when it comes to human interactions, I speak ten languages fluently, am a twelve-instrument virtuoso and can pilot a plane. Strange, yes, for a person my age. For some reason, my parents insisted I took classes and unfortunately for me, I excelled at them so they kept wasting their money on information that is definitely knowledge wasted in the boondocks- where they have brought me- because this town barely even has good cars, not to talk of an airport. And my parents' aircrafts? On helipads over our penthouses in Manhattan or inside hangars in Washington, while I am here, fading away, blending into the nothingness. Angry.

What do I want?

I desire to be seen, noticed, too good at vanishing, disappearing until I become as invisible as the common sense most people claim to have. Two years ago, my parents started to overlook me, began to miss my presence like it was a grain of sand on the beach. I must have depleted until I was nothing but the ghost of a life we once used to live in their eyes. They grew distant. Agitated.

It seemed like they were always running. From Bangkok to Bermuda. The Maldives to the Isle of Man. I have been almost everywhere along the Pacific as a result of this monster that didn't like them staying in one place long. And I think they deposited me in Novadale because of it, guilty at how unstable they were making my life. But why here? Of all the places in the world, it had to be a Godforsaken backcountry without a proper transport system. It almost felt like they were trying to… hide me.

As for what they were running from… It must have finally caught up with them. Almost three months ago, they stopped calling to find out if I hadn't wasted to dust while here. And when I tried reaching them, they never picked up. I know the recording on their answering machines by heart at this point, each word always on the verge of rolling off my tongue every time I hear it, the minuscule inflections in the voices lingering long after the reel is done. Months after it started, it hasn't ended. I still haven't heard from them.

Apologies? Zero. Explanations? Nil. Just jarring silence.

But now, I am no longer the little girl begging for the attention of her parents. I am an adult demanding responsibility from two others that identify as such. And that is why, even though Mr and Mrs North are missing, they will be found. The police are on it, and I have a whole room set up to investigate their disappearance in my own way. I have profiles of likely suspects in their disappearance- friends, business associates they know here and elsewhere- timelines and a host of other devices tuned to trace them. I am the last person they will be able to hide from.

And my thoughts on love? I have tried it. I don't recommend. Pop-culture makes you think it is the best thing out there- enduring, beautiful, unconditional. It is not.

The concept is pointless. Overrated. Horrible. Always dancing on the edge of a truly cruel heartbreak.

I want obsession. Compulsive. Manic. Maybe a little neurotic. Maddening. The kind that rolls you off the deep end, the breath knocked out of your lungs. So that when it all fades away- as always, nothing lasts, especially relationships- a part of you is so morphed it cannot ever be the same again... Impact that survives long after everything ends. I desire to be someone's fetish, their passion. I crave dangerous fixation.

That would definitely be a welcome break from the monotony.

It is a new day again in this wasteland swarming with emptiness and small dreams. I am standing in the cold air, working up the nerve to appear at second day of senior year, watching the grounds in the early morning quiet- a ritual I haven't grown tired of yet, unlike everything else.

Silence hangs heavy in the air and the fog is light, the chill piercing. Typical. But there is something new in the distance. Just beyond the rail gates, a figure stands, slightly concealed by the bushes, hood drawn low, black nose mask covering the rest of his face. Despite the distance, his height is obvious, the broadness of those shoulders unmistakable. He is quiet, unmoving, much like a predator waiting for some luckless prey to come sauntering by.

And while I can't see his features given the all-black ensemble crafted to obscure, something tells me he sees me. The realization has my skin tingling, crawling. But it is the kind that should have me running, but for some unexplainable reason, I find myself… drawn.

There is something in that relaxed posture, plain like the calm that surrounds him like an aura. It reminds me of a wild cat. Lithe, calculating, ruthless. I see all of that as the silence stretches between us- punctuated only by chirping birds- and I should run into the house to call the police because someone is outside my property watching me, but instead, I head for the wrought-iron gates, curious. Impatient.

Minutes after pounding across the gravel floor in boots as high as my knees, a checkered skirt that flares at the waist and a peach blouse with a laced-up front, he is gone like he was never there; as if he had just been a figment of my imagination.

I stare out at the stretch of vegetation beyond the gates, across the service road, breaths harsh from running, heart thumping with my pulse, willing him to rematerialize, but he doesn't.

A Mercedes rolls down the asphalt soon after.

Odd.

No one drives by here. In fact, nothing makes the error of ending up on this hill- with the woods just too close for comfort and the presumed ghosts of the former owners said to still inhabit the manor- except, well, animals that have very little instincts for self-preservation, random people who think my parents' house is an ancient haunted relic to be visited during halloween, the two friends I have, and now, the stranger that had been watching me.

Something tells me I am going to see him again.