17 Mysteries Piling Up

The next morning, there were bags under my eyes. Julian had never even come up to bed. 'I'll see you', my ass! I looked at my phone. It was 5 in the morning. This bastard had made me so nervous I couldn't sleep. I tossed my phone away to the other side of the bed and covered my face with my hands.

Where was he?

I kicked at the sheets in anger, screaming into my palms. I thought my heart was going to explode last night! A long sigh escaped from beneath my hands. I lay there on the bed, unsure if I should attempt to sleep or if I should get up and get a head start on the day. He really wasn't ever coming.

I rolled over onto my stomach, spreading out as much as I could. Fine. If he wanted me to sleep alone, then I would. I'd sleep all day.

My eyes flew open at the sound of a car engine starting up. I clawed through the bedsheets to find my phone for the time. I managed to find it. '6:27'. This was around the time Julian always left for work. I heard the car start to pull away from the house. Wait!

I rushed to the window and shoved the curtain aside. In the dim morning light I could see Julian's taillights as they disappeared down the driveway.

He had been home after all. He just hadn't wanted to share a bed. I slumped back into the giant bed. It was way too big for one person. I tried to push down the emotion rising in my chest. This wasn't the first disappointment I faced as Julian's wife and I was certain it wouldn't be the last. I forgot for a moment last night how Julian really saw me. That kiss was so out of the blue, I couldn't help but feel it meant something.

I brushed my fingertips over my lips, trying to remember exactly how it had felt. Instead of remembering Julian's lips from last night, I remembered a different kiss.

'The ocean waves crashed against the beach outside. There was a dimly lit hallway. And a man pressed himself against me in the hallway. The smell of alcohol was heavy in the air. I kept pushing at him to get him off, but he wouldn't move. He wouldn't move!'

I shuddered at the memory. When... when did that happen? My fingertips were shaking. I felt an urge to scrub my lips with soap. I struggled to remember more. As gross as the memory made me feel, I needed to know when that had happened. Who was that man?

I stood up from the bed with new determination. Forget my eye bags. Right now, I needed to figure out at least one mystery in my life. There were too many plaguing me. Would they ever stop piling up? This was too frustrating. I resolved myself to solving at least one mystery today, even if it were only a small one.

I opened the master bedroom doors with as little noise as possible and headed down the hall towards a door on the left. This was a room that was always off-limits no matter what. In all my lives, I was always forbidden from entering. I had attempted to peek many times, but always failed. Now, I looked up and down the hallway. I could hear a vacuum running downstairs. Ileana must be cleaning. I tried the handle and was shocked to find it unlocked. Quiet as a mouse, I slipped inside and shut the door carefully behind me.

I found myself in a dark room, lit only by the slivers of dawn breaking through cracks in the curtains. In the center of the room was a large desk with many papers and a computer. On the walls were floor to ceiling shelves filled with books. I spun in a circle. Other than the space for the windows, books covered every wall. This amount of books... could one person really read all these? I knew Julian liked to read, but I didn't realize it was to this extent.

I ran my fingers along some of the spines before I realized what I was doing. I couldn't get distracted! I was on a mission. I needed to stay focused.

I went to the desk first. I pulled open the drawers one by one. The first held nothing but pens and the like. The second were neatly arranged files. After looking them over, I realized they were only business reports. I put them back in place and moved to the third drawer. It was locked. There was a keyhole on the front, but I obviously didn't have any key and it wasn't as if I knew how to pick a lock. I moved onto the fourth drawer.

This one opened to reveal what looked like a junk drawer. There were jars full of paper clips or rubber bands, notepads and spare staples. I couldn't find anything that looked like it might be out of place. I shut the drawer in dejection. There was nothing here.

My eyes moved to the top of the desk. Other than some official-looking work papers I couldn't understand, there was the computer. I turned it on and sat in the large office chair. The computer hadn't been shutdown all the way, only put into sleep mode. A screen came up with the last thing Julian had been doing. There were many windows, most of them drafts of emails to work associates.

I ignored all the windows and opened his computer files. A new window appeared and on the sidebar I saw what I was looking for: 'My Photos'. I double clicked on the small icon and pulled up the contents of his photo folder.