To Be Obscure

| CH. 05

Wednesday came sooner than I anticipated. The remainder of my night had been dreamless, but my muscles ached as if I had slept on stone. There was a faint taste of copper in my mouth. Yet, when I touched my tongue and looked at my hand, there was no blood on my fingers.

It wasn't all bad—if you took out feeling as if I had been beaten in my sleep—my morning started rather lovely.

The smell of bacon and eggs filled the apartment. I found Nathan cooking up a rather large breakfast. There was buttered toast, potato wedges, and sliced fruit. This was very out of the ordinary for Nathan—not only did he never cook, he never ate—but I couldn't complain. It was nice to share breakfast with the man I'd called my best friend for six years.

We ate, laughed about our old neighbors next door who argued about the missing stick of butter, and prepared for the day—though, I wasn't sure what to be prepared for.

Nathan told me to finish reading the journal, but I couldn't. Not after the searing migraine it had led me into the night before. Reading Charlotte's words only brought on memories I had nearly forgotten. If I were to meet this girl—whoever she was—I'd ask her to tell me the rest. No, I'd make her; make her tell me everything because I was sure there were more secrets than what was written in those pages.

Reading it myself or hearing it from her didn't make the slightest difference to Nathan. Either way I decided to go about it, he continued with his internet searches. He insisted that I should read it, but I was as stubborn as I was old, and after saying it twice, he gave up.

By the time 5:30 gleamed its numbers on my digital clock, Nathan had shut off his computer and made a home on the couch with Luther. As he flipped through the channels he never watched, I sat beside him in silence. "I told you to read it," he muttered as he eyed the time on the wall.

I was sure my nervousness was obvious. "You know, I never would have gotten the chance to read it if you had really tossed it."

"But you found it." Nathan looked at me out the corner of his eye.

I could punch him. "What happened to 'you fucked up,' hm?"

"Look," he dropped the tv remote on his lap, his fingers scratching at Luther's ears, "journal or not, you've got a date."

"It isn't a date," I grumbled as I leaned over the armrest of the couch, pulling my shoes across the rug to put them on.

"I'd call it a date with fate."

"Ah, right. Coming from the man who is without religion."

He watched me as I stood, adjusting my laces, and reached for the hoodie I had thrown on one of the kitchen chairs. I fastened a watch to my wrist, glancing down at the time. I could make it to the café in fifteen minutes.

"What do you know about religion?" Nathan asked, pushing his glasses up on his nose. "I've never once heard you talk about it."

I snorted, lifting my hood over my hair. I hadn't bothered to brush it. In truth, I needed to cut it.

"Hundreds of years ago religion was all you had. You were either religious or a witch. And if anyone other than my mother knew of my sensitive existence, I'd have been burned at the stake." I walked towards the door, scratching Luther's ear along the way. My hand settled on the doorknob. "If saying hail Mary and confessing to a priest my minor sins saved my eternal life, then I assure you, I was a religious man."

"Quote something." Nathan leaned over the back of the couch as I opened the door.

The wind swooped in, cold. So cold, poor Luther's ears pressed back on top of his head. I looked over at my cat and the stare of Nathan's anxious eyes. I smirked, "I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil—"