Extenuating circumstances

Jason spent the entire day waiting to share the details with his neighbor about what had happened today. He couldn't believe it had happened to him, and he knew Becca wouldn't either.

He grabbed a soda from his fridge and went out onto his apartment patio, sat down and waited. He only had to wait a few minutes, then sure as rain she walked out and sat down on her seat with a beer in hand.

"Hey Becca, you will not believe what happened to me today.' He took a sip of his soda before continuing, 'I was at work when some law officers showed up. I mean one was a Fed and the other a regular cop, but it was so weird."

She looked at him for a second, then started to laugh. "What did you do this time? Didn't you just get you license back?"

"No, it wasn't something that I had done. They started asking me about a phone number that I haven't had in years. When they first asked me if I knew the number I spaced on it, until I remembered it was the number I had changed because of that crazy stalker I used to know.'

'I asked what it was in regards to, and they avoided the question instead asking me if I knew a girl named Cynthia Bailar. I told them it didn't ring any bells, but I would ask around."

Becca sat there with her beer halfway lifted, mouth agape, and eyes wide as an anime characters.

He furrowed his brows and asked, "Are you OK?"

"Cynthia Bailar?' She seemed extremely agitated all of a sudden, 'What did they tell you was the reason for asking?"

Still confused he answered, "Well I asked again why thy wanted to know, and they informed me that my name was the last one associated with that phone number, but it has been actively used within the last year. Apparently it was the last phone number to call this Cynthia girl before she went missing."

"And you are sure that you don't still have the number or know who does?"

Jason shook his head in the negative. "Why does this bother you so much?"

Becca took a deep breath calming herself down before continuing, 'Cynthia Bailar was a cousin of mine whom I was very close to, and was found murdered last year."

Jason took a few seconds to process the information before spitting out, "I swear I had no idea, nor do I know anything about who has that number!' Then he squinted a bit and pondered the oddity of the situation. 'What kind of twisted world do we live in that my abandoned phone number ends up connected to the murder of my best gossip buddy?"

She sat perfectly still pondering what that could mean. "We haven't heard anything about her murder in almost 10 months. I figured they had just given up on trying to figure out what has happened. I guess I should let the family know that they are still looking into it after all.' She put her bottle down, got up, and headed towards her door. "Look Jason, I need to go take care of this. I'm not real sure if I'll be up for our usual gossip sessions for a bit."

"Sure thing, you go do what you need to. I'm here if you want to talk anymore." With that Becca went inside to relay what she had just found out, and Jason sat back thinking about all the ways this day has slapped him with a surprise.

Later that night he heard a light tapping on his patio door. He peeked out and saw Becca had leaned across from her patio to get his attention. "Can we talk Jason?"

"Sure.' He stepped out and leaned over giving her a hug first before going on, 'Are you doing alright? How did they take the news?"

She had red rings under her eyes as if she had been crying recently, and looked liked she was on her last leg of sanity. "Well, first there was slight sighs of relief. Then there was a lot of old wounds being reopened seeing as how everyone had given up any hope of finding out anything. So now I'm the horrible witch who brought up these horrible memories.' She took a sip of whatever amber liquid was currently soothing her aches, 'As if I was the one who killed her to begin with. She and I where best friends! I lost her too, yet I'm expected to suck it up and pretend like I'm alright."

"That sucks. Why do you have to be the strong one for this? I mean I get that everyone grieves differently, but expecting one person to just suck it up is complete bullshit."

He stood there for a few minutes trying to decide what he should do, but before he could say anything else she spoke up, "Well if you ask me, I think it's because her parents always thought I was a bad influence on her. They always berated her for being my friend and associating with me. Well what the fuck else where we supposed to do? We were family, and saw each other at EVERY family get together. Where we supposed to just ignore one another and act as if the other didn't exist?"

Jason felt his mental cogs slip trying to follow what she was saying. He couldn't figure out if she was upset about her cousin's death, or being the "problem" that lead to it. He just knew that all he could do was be there for her as she dealt with her grief.

Finally Becca flopped down in her chair spilling her drink, and Jason realized she was severely hammered. So he went inside and grabbed a blanket, that he handed to her and then he sat down and just stared off into the night. Waiting to see if she had anymore to say, but all he got was a quiet little snoring. Sure enough she had fallen asleep the moment the blanket was situated.

"Goodnight Becca. I'm sorry," was all he could say.