Chapter 12: The emerald bracelet

"Take me to Grimrock"

At least if Phil understood me, as he claimed, then he had to do me this favour. Which is why his heavy sigh irritated me.

"Phil, please!" I begged, staring at him piercingly. But he avoided my gaze. Instead, he gazed thoughtfully into the darkness.

"Please, I have to go there," was my next attempt to convince him.

"I see" he said in a strangely calm tone.

" Well, Let's go." My euphoria quickly awoke.

"No", with this harsh word I got brought back down to earth.

"Why?" I had tears in my eyes once again.

"It's the middle of the night. You're drunk." As Phil spoke, he glanced at my feet. "And you're not even wearing shoes."

"I don't care"

"But I care!"

"Phil," I said reproachfully, "I thought you would understand me."

"I do!"

" Why wouldn't you help me if you did?"

Phil snorted. "It's far too dangerous!"

"Because it's night?" My euphoria had returned. "Then let's go tomorrow!"

"[MC]..." Phil exhaled sadly.

"Please!"

" Even in daylight, it's too dangerous..."

" I have to take the risk." My counterpart remained silent.

"Phil," I pleaded.

I heard him sigh heavily: "The mines are in serious danger of collapsing."

" It's fine if you drop me off there. I'll go in on my own."

"That's not the point!" Phil's voice had changed to a more serious tone.

I snorted angrily. Phil's opinion didn't change: "Something could happen to you! And as much as I understand your motives, I can't do you this favour. I'm sorry."

" What happens to me, it's none of your business!" I shouted my despair at him.

" It's not," he said calmly. "Look at the whole thing from my point of view. I've already lost one, actually two, people who were important to me. So I'm just supposed to stand by and watch you run to your destruction?"

He made a short speaking pause. Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to say anything. "And then for what? Just to give you a trauma so that, in the worst case, you're the one who finds your boyfriend's dead body?"

"Maybe..." was the only word I could get out through my tears.

Phil smiled gently. "He certainly couldn't have survived two months down there without food."

His words cut off my breath.

"I'm sorry. I can understand you wanting to find him. But it's too dangerous at Grimrock, and especially in the mines. And that's for an answer you don't actually want."

My eyes couldn't stop crying. Gently, Phil pats my back.

" Not that I wouldn't want to help you. But I can't support the fact that you're putting yourself in senseless danger. I'm sure your boyfriend would agree with me."

A slight smile formed at one side of my mouth. Jake would agree. After all, he was always eager to protect me. Having to agree with Phil's statement, however, was something Jake could barely tolerate without grumbling.

"Can I get another cigarette?" Phil looked at me in irritation after I had asked him.

"Yeah, sure," he finally said and handed me the packet. I took a cigarette and Phil lit it for me once again. This time it didn't taste so awful.

"Jake would agree with you," I said calmly, exhaling the cigarette smoke. " He just went into that stupid mine to protect me in the first place." I paused for a moment to take another drag of my cigarette. "I'm so angry with him!"

Phil's reaction was a slight, tender chuckle. "I sent Jennifer angry messages back then because I thought she'd stood me up," he spoke as he rummaged for his cigarettes. "Even after it was obvious she'd really disappeared. I didn't want to believe that. So I convinced myself that she'd just not shown up at her father's place just because she was ashamed of having stood me up. As time went on, I blamed her for not letting me pick her up."

Phil lit himself a cigarette. "'Cause I didn't want to admit how angry I was with myself." He took a drag on his cigarette. "So [MC], why are you angry with yourself?"

""Because I knew all along something was going to happen to him."" I drew in a sharp breath. "I should have been more insistent that he didn't go."

Phil smiled gently at me. "You already told me that." I frowned in confusion. "I don't know to what you're leading up to."

"I'm not getting to anything in particular. Actually, I just want you to analyse your feelings."

I looked at the floor. "Hm...? Perhaps it's because I've spent the last two months lying in my flat like a miserable heap instead of doing something about it. I probably should of travelled to Duskwood a lot sooner."

"You don't have to find an answer right now. I suppose it's a good start, though. Still, can I ask why you felt you should have travelled earlier?" Phil sighed before continuing, "Don't get me wrong, but you don't exactly seem happy."

I shrugged my shoulders. "I should probably take care of the others much sooner!"

"Even though you're obviously in such a bad mood?" Phil asked worriedly.

I shrugged my shoulders again.

My feelings didn't really matter?

"And don't tell me your feelings are irrelevant," Phil said, as if he had read my thoughts. "It's commendable you want to try and support the rest of us. But since you're obviously in such a bad mood, you should have said that you needed a little relaxation with your friends."

Lost in thought, I took a drag on my cigarette and looked at him with emptiness in my eyes.

I didn't know what I had earned to deserve to get a happy time.

After all the drama I had caused in the last few days!

Which I had caused my whole life...

And above all, the suffering I had brought upon my supposed friends! Just by interfering in Hannah's missing case. I was surprised they didn't hate me.

They should...

They had to!

I was the one who was to blame for everything!

"I can't ignore these things!" Phil snapped me out of my thoughts with a harsh tone. " With Michael, I did, until one day I found his will in the Aurora."

I could see the feelings of guilt in his brown eyes.

"He was there for me all the time, even though his guilt was burning him up from the inside. Maybe that's why he was so eager to help me get back on my feet."

"So Michael is really dead..." I whispered to myself.

"Yes," Phil replied curtly. I could feel his skeptical gaze resting on me.

My heart was racing nervously. But this time it wasn't because of the sexual tension between us. To be fair, it had disappeared completely in nothing.

" May I ask you something?" I nodded, even though Phil's question was meant to be rhetorical.

"The Michael you expected to see at Grimrock instead of Richy might have been Michael Hanson?"

Again, I nodded briefly in confirmation.

"May I ask why you suspect him?" Phil also meant this question rhetorically. Nevertheless, or precisely because I didn't want to answer this question, I shook my head vehemently.

"When I was arrested, I was told that I was a prime suspect because of my connection to Michael Hanson."

"I had nothing to do with it," I squeaked, shocked. " It was just because- " I started, but I didn't have the heart to tell him the truth.

"Because Amy was found at Jennifer's memorial stone?" Phil asked.

"Yes?", unintentionally my voice was more questioning than authoritative as I had planned.

" Isn't it something more?" Phil said calmly. I nodded. "And you don't want to tell me?" Phil concluded based on my reaction.

I shook my head: " Not like that."

I couldn't breathe easily all of a sudden. Out of the blue, the memory of the attack on Jessy at night flashed in my mind's eye.

It was all my fault!

I had made everything worse.

"I'm just not the right person to tell you the whole truth," I lied more to myself than to Phil.

He looked at me. However, my mind kept replaying the scenes of the man without a face, Richy, attacking Jessy from behind.

I gasped for air. "It's all my fault!" This statement earned me an irritated look from Phil.

"Your sister was attacked because of me! Just to stop me from investigating further! I shouldn't have ignored it any more! If I had, Richy would never have had to raise suspicions about you. You'd never have gone to jail!" I gushed.

" Hey, hold on!" Phil interrupted me. "[MC], wait a minute. None of this is your fault!"

"Yes it is!" I sobbed. "My meddling only provoked the whole thing."

"You just wanted to help..." Phil tried to comfort me.

"That's all Richy wanted too!"

"By kidnapping Hannah?" Phil asked skeptically.

"Yes!" I managed to get out before my tears choked my voice.

Phil, confused by my words, gently patted my back. As I began to calm down again, Phil asked lovingly: "You're beautiful and clever, but I can't understand you without the context. Would you like to explain it to me?"

I wrinkled my nose in response. Phil, in turn, smiled at me just as lovingly as he had spoken to me.

I wiped my tears away. Admittedly, it was a superfluous action as my eyes immediately filled with the salty liquid again.

"I'm so sorry, Phil," I began. He deserved the truth. Even if I wasn't the right person to reveal facts to him. But I had reasonable doubts as to whether he would ever find out the whole story of his girlfriend's accidental death otherwise.

Since I'd made this decision, the images of Jessy's attack had disappeared from my mind's eye.

Once again, I took a deep breath to calm myself down. Next, I started babbling frantically: "Richy insisted he, Hannah and Amy confess. He had given Hannah the AMC Gremlin ten years ago. And Hannah did...she did..."

I gasped in panic.

"Hannah hit Jennifer?" Phil added questioningly in an unusually calm tone.

I nodded in confirmation. " Thanks for telling me." Phil's voice remained calm.

We remained silent. Through the uncomfortable silence, I could hear my breaths rushing.

"And that's why you thought Michael is behind all of this," Phil finally concluded, breaking the silence.

Again, I nodded in confirmation. To my surprise, he grinned. "If you knew Michael, you'd know how absurd that thought is." I shrugged my shoulders.

"You're not mad at me?" I asked after a few seconds of silence.

"I don't see any reason to be mad at you. About nothing you've told me tonight."

"But..." I began, sobbing.

"I'm grateful to you for telling me the truth. Even though it was so obviously difficult for you." He fumbled for his cigarettes again. But this time he automatically handed me one too. "Otherwise I would probably never have found out."

He lights my cigarette, then his.

"Maybe Hannah wanted to tell you when she asked you about the bracelet," I wondered out loud

""Which bracelet?" Phil said, puzzled. "Hannah definitely never spoke to me about Jennifer."

I swallowed nervously. "Hannah found out that you'd left Jennifer's bracelet at the pawnbrokers. Which is why she wanted to meet you."

I was silent for a few seconds. "Why did you hand it in to the pawnbroker in the first place?"

"I thought it was about time I got closure on her death." Phil paused for a moment. "Still, I kind of kept a loophole open by only dropping it off at Mr. Oakley's."

Lost in thought, I took a drag on my cigarette. "You haven't moved on yet, have you?"

Phil smiled at me with sad eyes.

" Does anyone ever do so?" His voice was melancholy.

"I don't think so," I replied in the same tone.

We remained silent until the end of the cigarette. I was grateful for Phil's honesty. Even though I would probably never get over Jake's disappearance, his supposed death, it was comforting to think that it would eventually become somewhat bearable.

At some point in the distant future...

But on the other hand, knowing I would never really get over it was a relief. I was never going to allow myself to forget Jake. Or even my feelings for him.

"Thanks, Phil," I said as I tossed the cigarette stub on the ground. "For everything, I guess."

He smiled at me. "That's what you have friends for."

I nodded.

" I should get you to your friends soon," Phil said as he stood up.

"Yeah, I guess so," I sighed.

"You can spend the night at my place as well... And don't worry, I'll sleep on the couch and let you have my bed, like a gentleman."

My expression went blank without me noticing. Phil grinned broadly at me. "You're afraid he might walk by my apartment tomorrow morning and come to the wrong conclusion, aren't you?"

Ashamed, I looked down.

"Life can have the craziest coincidences." Phil held out his hand to help me stand up. " Well, I'd better take you to the lodge to see your friend."

We climbed into Phil's van. He didn't miss the opportunity to open the passenger door for me, though. Before we drove off, he called Jessy on his hands-free phone.

"Oh my God, Phil! Please tell me you've found her," his little sister literally screamed into the phone.

" Yeah, don't worry. She's fine as well. "

"Thank you, Phil," I heard Jessy sob.

A guilty conscience flooded my body and I couldn't stop myself from crying again.

What a terrible person I was to have caused my friends such worry...

"[MC]!" Jessy screamed my name as Phil put his hand on my thigh to reassure me.

"I'm going to the hut right now. I'll see you there." Without waiting for an answer, he hung up.

"Are you all right?" he asked when he started the engine a few minutes later.

"Yes," I said curtly.

"It's okay that you're not feeling well at the moment, understandable actually. I know from my own experience that talking won't make the world all right. But if in doubt, I'd rather be woken up by your call than let your problems take over. Before I end up standing at your funeral."

"I'm not feeling so bad either," I tried to reassure him.

"You don't seem like that at all," Phil said sternly. "As fast as you keep getting upset."

"It doesn't matter," I replied.

" No, it does matter! You blame yourself for everything that's happened. Even if you're not at all to blame. Michael did the same and at some point he couldn't take it anymore... Just promise me that you'll get in touch if you need someone to talk to."

"I promise," I mumbled and lowered my eyes. "But you'll get in touch if you need someone to talk to. No matters how I might be... I mean... including about Jennifer and the whole Hannah thing."

"Don't worry about that." Phil smiled. "But yes, if I feel the need to talk about it, I'll get in touch with you."