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T
he apartment was more like a matchbox with clothes and empty beer bottles sprawled across the floor. The tiny kitchen by the living room was lined with boxes of ready-to-make pasta, and the rest of the area was generally filled with clutter to the core. The boy noticed that she was looking around, and he cleared his throat instantly as he spoke up.
"I'm sorry about the mess. I have kind of been preoccupied lately."
He gestured towards the couch by the wall, and Angela took a seat. Silence spilled into the small space as she wondered what exactly she was doing and why she was there in the first place. He walked towards the other side of the pocket-sized living room; he stopped right by the open kitchen and yelled towards Angela.
“How many cubes of sugar do you take in your coffee?”
She was suddenly pulled out of her thoughts; she turned around to face him and tried her best to keep a straight face as she told him that she didn't take any sugar in her coffee. He gave her a nod. He was still pouring boiling water from the kettle into the mugs on the countertop when Angela spoke up without waiting for him to even cross the area to walk towards her.
“I really thought that I had concealed the whole case.”
He raised an eyebrow as he focused on the cups on the countertop; she could see the shift in his expression; she knew that he was holding back information, and she hated the fact that it was the only thing that was keeping her there.
It was almost like he had leverage over her head, and she hated every second of it, but at the same time, the curiosity was getting to her, and she couldn't even sit straight without her mind running in circles.
She heard silence on the other end, and it was starting to get to her head. Just when she was about to say something else, she looked up from the ground, and she saw him walking towards her from the other side of the lounge. He had two cups clinging to his hands as he tried his best not to let the coffee spill from the corners of the mugs. He placed them on the small, cracked coffee table in the middle of the two sofas in the lounge. She watched as he took a seat and exhaled loudly. He gestured towards the mug that was placed closer to her and spoke.
“I hope you enjoy it.”
He noticed the rather tense look come over her face, and just as she reached forward to grab the mug of warm liquid, he spoke up.
"I know that you sealed the documents, but come on, you were a hero to so many people. Do you really think that we all just forget everything you did?”
She almost spilled her coffee and allowed it to drop from her lips as she contained herself; he took a break before he kept on speaking.
"I was supposed to graduate from Stanford this year, you know? The people there worship you. When I got into this mess, I knew that you would be the only one who would be able to help me out of it, and I came running to you."
Angela carefully placed her coffee mug on the coffee table by her side; she made sure to be gentle with him as she spoke.
"Look, Toby, you seem like a nice kid, and I'm sure you have a lot of potential. I don't understand why you're throwing your life away over this."
Before she could go on, she noticed that he got up from the couch and made his way towards the end of the room; she didn't know what he was doing. As he slowly began to make his way back to her, he had something in his hand. She realized that it was a picture frame. As he placed it in her palms carefully, the heavy glass frame was now before her, and she could see two people in the frame.
Toby stood next to a boy who looked to be a few inches shorter than him. He had blond hair pushed back, revealing his forehead. They both had wide smiles on their faces as the sunlight in the distance caused them to squeeze their eyes. She had instantly realized the place the picture was taken, and she looked up at him with the frame still held in her hands as she spoke.
"This was taken by the east stairwell in the corner building at Stanford, right?"
He nodded his head; she could sense a bit of hurt in his tone when he pointed towards the other boy in the picture, and when he spoke, she instantly picked up on the fact that his voice cracked a little, but she ignored it as she focused on his words instead.
"Meet Daren. We grew up together, did everything together, we even got into our dream university, the plan was to become great lawyers and start our own firm, and then the worst of the worst happened. It was supposed to be great news, we were in our last year, and we both applied for internships at the one and only Haywire Industries...a few weeks passed by, and then we heard back from them. He was accepted, and I wasn't...."
She noticed the way his voice trailed off like he just couldn't talk anymore; she knew that the bad part was coming, and her breath hitched as she was about to ask if he was okay; he cut her off and spoke up once again.
"You know, when he found out he was the only one who was selected, he told me he wasn't going to go. We had a fight about it, and I made him go, I made him do the stupid internship, and to this day, I wish I hadn't."
Angela noticed the way there were tears lining the corners of his eyes, and she took a deep breath, trying her best to make sure that he was okay. He reached forward and placed her hand over his; he was quick to brush it away. He wiped the tears falling from the corner of his eyes as he spoke up.
“It was fall of this year; ever since he started the stupid internship, I stopped seeing him all at once. It was like he was gone. He stopped talking to me, he stopped texting me, and I got worried. It was like he was a stranger, like I had lost the boy I had grown up with. He would make excuses and tell me that he was busy, but Angela, I swear I knew that something was wrong, I could just feel it in my bones that something was off with him."
Angela was listening to each word that left the boy’s mouth, and it seemed that he was being honest; she could see it on his face and hear it in the words he spoke; the pain was so evident that she didn't say a word; she waited for him to catch his breath as he continued again.
"I swear I knew that something was wrong with him. I just didn't push too much; I was afraid of losing him, but I wish I would have just said something; I wish I would have tried harder."
Angela's breath hitched; she had a feeling she knew what he was going to say next, and the fear rushed up to her spine as he continued.
"Two weeks ago, he called me; in all the time I had known him, I had never heard him that way. His voice was shaking; he was afraid for his life, and he told me about the owner of Haywire Industries, and he said that he saw something he wasn't supposed to, and now they were after him."
Angela's eyes widened; she couldn't hold it in anymore as she spoke up right away.
“What did he see?”
Toby shook his head; he shifted in his seat and wiped some of the tears falling from the corners of his eyes as he spoke.
"Angela, I swear to God I rushed to his apartment as soon as I could, but by the time I got there, it was too late."
His voice had fully cracked, and the tears were pouring from his eyes and clinging to his skin; he tried to get a hold of himself. He flipped the picture frame upside down, and she came face-to-face with what seemed to be a newspaper article, and she recognized the picture of the boy right away. She took a deep breath as she looked at it, and she didn't know what to say. The words were caught in the back of her throat. The boy in front of her gave her a firm nod as he spoke.
"I was the one who found the body.... they said he killed himself; he was hung in the middle of the apartment, but...."
She didn't wait for him to finish; she spoke up right away without doubting him for a single second. The news article was stuck in the back of her mind as she spoke up.
"He didn't really kill himself, did he?"
He looked up and hope glimmered within his eyes; before she knew it, he pushed his body forward and fell into her arms. She held him quietly and allowed him to break down; darkness spread through the apartment as the words left her mouth before she could think of taking them back at all.
"Buckle up; we're about to sue Haywire Industries."
He looked up at her with bewilderment in his eyes, almost as if he couldn't believe the words that had fallen out of her mouth. He was about to scramble to his feet as he spoke, not even knowing how on Earth this could have happened in the first place.
"Wait...I...um, I have proof of some things that I've gathered; it's all in the other room. Should I go get it now?"
He looked nervous and scared, and she smiled in the sweetest manner she possibly could as she spoke.
"Not tonight. I think you should rest, and we'll start working on this case tomorrow morning."
He gave her a nod as she gently placed her hand on his back, he looked up at her, and she made him a promise now that she wasn't even sure she could keep. She just knew she needed to help it. It was all that mattered at the time.
