The Angel of the Ocean

The Boy?

Danger! Love! The town words cascaded through my mind throughout the following days. Comprehension of them appeared to be far beyond me, but yet I craved it more than anything in the world.

My mind felt overwhelmed. It had spent every day since her death questioning itself and every answer it managed to find only fuelled its desire for further answers. More questions seemed to be born with each passing second.

After several days of almost becoming a hermit again as I contemplated recent events in my own solitude, I decided that I needed to take action.

My hand shook slightly as I knocked on the driveway. The car lay motionless in the driveway so I already knew he was home. From what I had heard though I should have already expecting him. I heard hushed whispers between my mother and her friends that he wasn't coping; that "he never bothered to leave the house anymore," and that "he can't cope with the real world."

As the door opened I wasn't surprised to see that just like the previous time I had visited nothing had changed. I wondered if he even bothered to tidy the house from time to time. If I came back in several years would her memory still be preserved under years of grime and dust. The thing that did surprise me was how old he now looked.

It was true that immediately after her passing, the grey hairs had begun to appear and the fall in his face as if he could no longer smile had appeared. Now however, he was an anguished man who's face was filled with lines and creases of far beyond his years. His eyes no longer had a spark and a few bald patches were clear to see where the greying hair must have fallen out.

"What brings you here?" He asked. There was no malice in his voice, simply a saddened hint of confusion as if a small part of him had expected it to be someone else. To be Drew.

"Can I come in?" I replied. Zach's words were ringing in my ears; his warning not to speak about him, that it was too dangerous. Yet, by those words and his actions he had left me with no alternative.

The almost bedraggled man didn't reply as he stepped to the side to allow me enter. He cocked an eyebrow questioningly at me as I sat on the seat opposite him.

"Did you know that she had a boyfriend?" The question erupted from me, a tone of anger erupting through the words. I still struggled to believe that it was even a possible, surely she would have told me, she would have had to. Friends couldn't keep secrets like that from one another. Could they?

He remained silent for several minutes. His eyes studied my face as if shocked that I would even ask such a question.

"She had a boyfriend?" He returned the question to me, pressing me further. It was immediately clear that he had never heard anything about it.

She had always been close to her father. It was a relationship that stretched far beyond parent and child. I could remember the day several years previous that with an embarrassed look on her face she had concluded that after me her father was probably her best friend.

"Apparently," I stated, unsure of what else to say. I wondered if I had made the wrong decision by going to him.

"What do you mean? You know everything about her, ye were two peas in a pod." His eyes scanned the chair where she had always sat, where the book that she had been reading still remained open."She told you everything."

"Apparently not." It was a struggle to hold back the tears. I had become a ball of emotions. There was a constant volcano of them inside me that always remained on the brink of eruption. I no longer knew how to stop it.

"Is there something you aren't telling me?" He pressed the issue. I was not certain that once again I had made the wrong decision, what good would knowing any of the information I knew do for him. It was too late now though, I couldn't just leave him without explaining at least some of what he knew. Would he father really want to know that his beautiful angelic daughter was in a secret relationship with a potentially dangerous boy, someone who we knew nothing about.

"I met him at the grave, he was crying."

"Who was it?" He interjected as I paused for a moment trying to straighten my thoughts in my own mind.

"I have no idea, I had never seen him before. Anyway, it was clear that he knew her well from how upset he was, but he left before I could properly speak to him."

"That could have been anyone. What makes you think they were together?"

"A few days ago he showed up at my house. I don't know why he did or even how he knew where I lived, but he did. He told me that they had been going on for months, but that he had made her promise not to tell anyone."

"Why would he do that? She was terrible at keeping secrets everyone knew that." It was true, of course there was secrets I told her that never left her mouth, but she was incapable of keeping anything of importance to herself. She would have told us.

"He said it was too dangerous, that people couldn't find out about him, about them. He told me not to tell anyone, but that she had saved him somehow."

At these words, her father's eyes immediately widened. It was as if something inside his brain had clicked.

"Emilia." He stood up and began walking to the door and I followed afterwards. "I need you to promise me you'll stay away from that boy, if he tries to contact you again tell me, but otherwise stay away. Alright?"

"Okay." I had no idea how I was supposed to respond to his reaction. It was as if everybody but me knew what was going on.

"Now go home and don't tell anyone else." He almost shoved me out the door in his haste to get rid of me. The man who had always been a father to me was also now hiding something from me.

I began walking home slowly. My head was pounding with each step. I couldn't remember the last time I could think clearly. I tried to think back to the good times with Drew, but everything was clouded now as I wondered how long she had been lying to me for.

I felt it before I saw it. A hand had grabbed my wrist, pulling me to the edge of the path where it was lined with trees.

My heart hammered against my chest, my breathing had become ragged. I desperately wanted to scream, but something inside me prevented me doing so.

"I told you not to tell anyone. You promised me." His grip loosened marginally on my wrist, but remained tight enough that I knew with certainty that he was in control.

"But none of it makes any sense. She would have told me. I know she would have."

"You should have asked me so because you really have no idea how much danger you've put us both in now." There was a slight tinge of venom to his words.

"What do you mean? Leave me go home" I demanded as I tried to wrench my hand from him which caused him to dramatically tighten his grip and seize my second arm, bending it behind me.

"I can't allow you to go home now, it's no longer safe."