Page 6 of Unharmed

Now, everything was a mess. It was like losing Graham all over again, if everything I’d surmised from his video was the case. If he was murdered and not the unsuspecting andunfortunate victim of a snake bite, how could I just go on like it was all the same?

What was I supposed to do?

I’d tried for three whole days to come up with a solution. A plan. Anything that seemed appropriate in this situation.

I came up with nothing.

I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I had far too many possibilities as options.

Should I go to the police? It seemed like the most obvious choice. It was logical; it made sense. Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling very compelled to take that road for a multitude of reasons.

So, I considered another option. I could try to research it on my own first, without involving the authorities. The problem was that I didn’t have a clue as to where I’d even start. I didn’t exactly know the first thing about private investigation when it came to an actual criminal case.

And it was that thought which had me considering another slew of questions.

With all that he didn’t manage to share on the video he’d left for me, there was one thing Graham had made clear. He believed I might be in danger. Heck, he’d claimed he’d done something he wasn’t proud of just to try to protect me.

Was I still in danger?

I sighed for what felt like the millionth time in a matter of days.

Why did this have to happen to me?

All I’d been hoping to do was get my life started again. I was supposed to be looking for a job. This shocking video had put a halt to that, because I couldn’t manage to focus on anything for the last three days other than watchingthat video over and over and asking myself a bunch of questions that didn’t seem to have any answers.

Realizing that no matter what I ultimately decided to do about Graham’s video, there was one thing that wasn’t going to change.

I desperately needed a job. And while I looked for one, I needed to make sure it was inconspicuous. I had to make sure I found a job that wouldn’t make me any more vulnerable than I might have already been.

God, I wished I had more time.

Time to figure this out.

Time to just be.

I no longer had that option, though, because I’d been forced into this situation by Graham’s family.

Despite the plan Graham and I had for our future, his family—namely his mom and his sister—put a stop to that.

My fiancé and I had talked at great length about what we wanted, about the life we wanted to live together, and he had this overwhelming desire to want to take care of me. I wasn’t opposed to working, but the idea of being home to take care of my husband and the family we’d eventually have was far more enticing to me than the job I had been working for years at a company which provided businesses with solutions for the data and analytics within their company.

The job had paid decently enough and offered benefits and retirement options, but it wasn’t a job I was even remotely close to being in love with. And while money was necessary, happiness was far more important to me.

I knew not everyone would have agreed with my life choices, but I was happy with the way things were. I liked my life just like it was when Graham was alive. But apparently, it was possible for happiness to overshadowjudgment. Because if one thing was true, it was obvious I had been foolish.

No matter what Graham and I had wanted and discussed regarding our lives and future together, nothing was solidified. We weren’t married yet, and nothing had been documented. So, I had no claim to anything other than the joint checking and savings accounts we had. Between the two accounts, I had about thirty thousand dollars, and when the rest of his assets went to his blood relatives, I was too distraught over losing him and Henry to fight them for it.

That’s why I packed up what I could that meant something to me from the house and moved into my own apartment. But the money I had was only going to last so long, which was why I needed a job again.

If only things had been better with his family, I might have been in a different situation. I might have told them about the video and shared it with them. We could have decided together what the best course of action was. I could have leaned on them for support throughout this nightmare; we could have relied on one another.

Over the last three days, I had briefly considered sharing Graham’s video with them, but as quickly as the thought popped into my mind, it was gone.

Because I remembered how it had been and recalled how much stress the whole situation had created for Graham and me just months before he died.

Even now, I could remember some of our conversations about his family like they had happened yesterday.

“I don’t know what else I can do. I’m trying my best,” I said after we’d gotten back from dinner one night. Graham had invited his family out for dinner, so we could share the news of our engagement.