Chapter 6
Lapizo looked at Mimi. "What are you trying to imply, Mimi? Why would he run away from his problems?"
Mimi shrugged helplessly. "I'm not saying that he did nothing wrong. I just meant… Look, what do I know? All I know is that you have to forgive him someday. It doesn't always work when you keep pushing away people, you know. Sometimes it helps for you to see their true colors and figure them out."
"But he's my best friend! I can't possibly push away someone who cares about me. Someone who I know loves me and would never hurt me. Even if that person wasn't my best friend, it just isn't in our nature! Besides, I can't exactly ask him for forgiveness, considering that it's kind of impossible. No offense. But I can't just suddenly apologize and start being nice to him again either. That would be weird."
"I understand, but I'm not saying you have to apologize or anything like that. I just thought maybe you might want to give him another chance."
"Mimi, I can't. I just can't…"
Mimi leaned forward and put her arms around Lapizo. Lapizo returned the hug hesitantly, but finally wrapped his arms tightly around her. Mimi hugged him back fiercely, as though afraid that he might slip away any second.
After a few moments, Mimi reluctantly released him from her grip. Mimi looked up into Lapizo's eyes and stared into them. There was something in them, something that Mimi recognised; there was something dark and empty, like a void of darkness. But it had a bright light shining through, like the starlight that shone from the night sky. A tear ran silently down Lapizo's cheek.
He wiped it away angrily. "Goddamn it. Don't look at me like that."
"Like what? Like I hate seeing you cry. I don't hate it at all."
"I wish I could tell you what I am feeling right now is anger and betrayal, but I can't. It hurts too much. It feels like I lost something that I didn't even realize I was carrying in my pocket. And I feel bad for taking my anger out on you. This is all very confusing to me and hard for me to deal with, and I think it's just making it worse. So please stop worrying and stop asking so many questions."
Mimi sighed, knowing he probably hadn't meant any of those things to sound as harsh and rude as they had, but he had a point. She had asked enough questions, and he had already answered most of them. There was one question that remained unanswered: why was he crying?
There was another knock on the door. Mimi stood up and walked over to it, pulling it open. Standing there was a police officer. He looked up at Mimi with his signature smile.
"Is Lapizo home? We need to speak to him urgently," He said as he handed Mimi an official-looking document. She took it carefully and read over the page carefully. The police officer looked concerned. "Is something the matter?"
Mimi tore her gaze away from the piece of paper and looked at the policeman. He was staring at her expectantly. She gulped and smiled reassuringly. "Yeah. It's alright. I'll go get him."
The policeman nodded slightly, still slightly suspicious. Mimi shut the door behind her. Her legs were shaky as she ran towards the stairs. She took the steps two at a time, then stopped abruptly, almost tripping over herself in the process. Her breathing ragged, she reached out to grab the railing to steady herself. After taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, she slowly made her way upstairs, careful not to trip on any more uneven patches of carpet. By the time she reached the top of the stairs, she realized that she had completely forgotten how to breathe.
She took a step closer to the door and reached for the knob. She pulled the door open and froze. She could hear voices coming from inside the bedroom. She held her hand over her mouth. She was sure that if she opened the door at that moment, she would wake Lapizo, and there was no way she wanted that.
Slowly, as carefully as possible, she backed away from the door and tiptoed toward the couch. Once there, she lowered herself onto the sofa and curled up beside Lapizo once again. Lapizo stirred and stretched, waking himself up and rubbing his eyes sleepily. When he noticed that Mimi wasn't sitting next to him, he raised himself upright. "Mimi?" His voice seemed hoarse.
When she looked at him, Lapizo couldn't tell if he was upset with her for waking him up, mad at her for leaving without telling him what was going on, angry at her for not telling him sooner, or just surprised by this sudden turn of events. He watched her anxiously as she stared at him for several minutes.
Then she broke the silence. "I need to talk to you. Can you come sit next to me?"
Lapizo hesitated for a moment, but eventually got off the bed and came closer to Mimi. She let him lie down and snuggled against him gently. He wrapped his arm around her and held her close, waiting patiently for her to start speaking.
"It's been three days, and I haven't seen him," Mimi said quietly. "We searched everywhere we could, but we still didn't find him. We don't know what to do, and we have no idea what happened to him."
"Have you talked to the police yet?" Lapizo suggested. "They have to do something."
Mimi sighed. "Yes, we've talked to them… They seem to think he might be gone permanently."
Lapizo frowned worriedly. "How will they handle this if he really does decide to leave?"
Mimi shook her head sadly and rested her chin on Lapizo's chest. "They're not sure, so they're giving it time to calm down before they make any decisions."
"I don't know what else to say. Nothing has changed except for that stupid decision. How can I fix it if I don't know what the problem actually is? If the situation were different, I would try to help them. But they won't listen to me."
Mimi turned her head to look Lapizo in the eyes. "If you really feel this way, you should talk to your parents."
Lapizo shook his head. "I don't want to. They won't listen to me either. I told them that if they won't change their minds, they better find someone else to blame for the mess."
"That doesn't make sense. They can't simply ignore the fact that there was somebody involved and assume that it was their fault alone. I'm not convinced that they're guilty."
Lapizo snorted. "I know. I'm not sure myself what they think. However, they are definitely not willing to risk their lives for some guy they don't know."