The next morning, I woke up to find my roommate gone from the cell. Officer Cameron was walking by, but stopped at my door to check in with me.
"How's it feel in there?" she asked, noticing I didn't look her straight in the eye.
"It doesn't feel right at all," I answered. "You ever have sympathy for any of the prisoners in the jail?"
"Only one, but that doesn't mean he won't get into trouble if I let him go."
There was an awkward silence between us before she continued.
"Something tells me I should trust him because somewhere in my heart, I believe every word he said. I'm just too professional to know that no kid would ever want to hurt anyone, though he might have committed the crime." She opened up the cell door.
I was extremely confused. I thought she was talking about someone else entirely. I never knew she meant me.
I felt so relieved she was letting me go. I jumped out of the bunk, got my things and was ready to go. Cameron stopped me halfway down the hall. She gave me a business card and told me, "If you need anything, just let me know."
Finally, I thought to myself, free at last. Now, the only thing I have left to do is to tell everyone the truth, even if it means no one believes me.
This is going to be a long night, I thought.
I came out of the prison to find that I didn't miss anything after going in. The streets were still as crowded as ever, and things seemed normal. It wasn't like anything would happen after 2 days, I thought. Little did I know, things were about to get much worse.
A pitch-black motorcycle pulled up in front of me as I was about to go out into the street. The driver jumped off the seat and ran towards me, lifting her helmet off.
I instantly recognized the face from the jail the night before. "What's wrong?" I asked out of concern.
"It's something about your brothers and your friends," she replied, still running towards me. "I need you to come back to your place with me."
"Alright. I was heading home, anyway." I tried to sound sincere. I really was about to go home.
The both of us ran back to her bike, my ex-roommate getting on the front seat and me getting in the sidecar. She ignited the engine, pulled out of her homemade parking space, and drove us out of downtown L.A.
"I never got your name back at the jail," I said.
"Oh, sorry," came her reply. "I'm Allycia. You?"
"Simon."
"Stupid me. I should've known that. I've seen you around here before. So, did you ever look at the pictures I slipped into your scrapbook last night?"
I felt so stupid after those words left her mouth. I had completely forgotten about that. I pulled out the album from my bag, flipping through the pages to find where she put the pictures. There was an envelope stuffed inside the first empty page of the scrapbook. Assuming that this was what she put in there, I took it out and opened it up. There were tons of pictures of her with a group of boys. Somehow, all of these pictures brought back memories of the year my brothers, the Chipettes and I met Ally.
I looked at one of Allycia and her friends, only I had my suspicions that these boys weren't just friends. The one in green hugging her kind of resembled Theodore, the one with the backwards "A" cap definitely looked like Alvin, and the one with the huge glasses was somewhat like... me. I could've sworn I was losing my mind, but these pictures were vaguely familiar.
I kept looking at the pictures over and over again until we reached my place. I fished out my spare key to open the door for her. Outside the house, I didn't hear Alvin playing a video game with Brittany or Theodore and Eleanor cooking in the kitchen. Something's wrong, I thought. Something's really wrong.
We entered the house, looking at what I left behind the day after Ms. Miller's death. After a minute of searching, we found out no one was home. I started to feel so anxious of where everyone was that I could barely breathe.
"What happened?" I managed to ask, having no idea what was going on.
"Dave's not the only one missing anymore," she replied.
"You mean... my entire family is gone? I'm the only one left in my entire family not missing?"
"Everyone's gone but one person. You just haven't seen her too much."
I had a hunch about who it was. "You mean Vinny, right? My mom?"
"No, there's one more person. She's been away for quite some time."
I was extremely confused now. "Who's that?"
"You're looking at her."
Wait a minute, I thought. She is not related to me in any way whatsoever. She's lying. I thought about those pictures again. Was she really related to me?
All of a sudden, it hit me. All this time, I thought she would never come back, but she did.
Allycia meant Ally - my Ally - and she was standing right in front of me.
