Eleanor tried to force a smile to hide her disappointment.
She expected her aunt to open the door, not a guy in a suit.
Eleanor smiled.
The guy looked at her cautiously.
"You must be Eleanor?"
Eleanor was amazed.
"How'd you know?"
"Eugenia told me you were coming."
"You know her!"
The guy nodded.
She studied the guy. He looked in his thirties, maybe, thirty-seven? Brown hair, hazel eyes.
His eyes reminded her of Janiel's.
"Come on in, I have some bandages inside."
Eleanor was puzzled. "Huh?"
"For your hands.... and arms."
"Oh, yeah. "
Eleanor followed the guy inside.
"Is this my aunt's home?"
It was a pretty nice place if you asked Eleanor. Moss green was the color of the walls, and the entire left wall was a giant bookshelf. There were horizontal shelves in all of the wall, and it was all covered with books. The rest of the room seemed opaque compared to the left wall.
The guy turned to look at her, "Who?"
"My aunt, Eugenia, is this where she lives?"
The guy sighed.
"You haven't read the last letter, have you?"
Eleanor shook her head.
"How'd you know she sent me those letters."
"I was there when she was writing them." The guy shook his head.
"Come over here, You need to wash your hands before I can put a bandage on."
"So, how do you know my aunt."
"We met at my job, she went for a in interview, and I was the one who interviewed her."
"Did you give her the job?"
"If I hadn't, she would've never published her book."
"Oh..." That was a long time ago, before Eleanor was even born.
"Then you two must be really close friends."
He nodded. "We got married." he held up his hand, showing his marriage ring,"fifteen years ago."
"Oh..."
His eyes got red and watery, but he looked away from Eleanor, trying not to show weakness toward this sixteen year old girl.
"Come on Eleanor, I need to go to work."
"Can I come as well?"
"You will go. I'll give you some money so you can buy some frozen yogurt in the first floor."
"Okay."
Most of the way to his job was silence.
Eleanor grabbed the fifty dollar bill he had given her.
"It's just frozen yogurt... why this much?"
"Spend it on something nice upstairs. I'll be on the third floor, if you need anything else, just tell the lady you need to contact Gus."
YOU ARE READING
Finding Myself
Horror"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness." Joseph Conrad ..... Eleanor had spent her whole life with her happy-go-lucky family, at least, until a dark June night. The last day of...
