Lee still lived next door. We could see into each other's rooms from our windows. I hated to admit it but always seeing into his bedroom, where he lied on his bed in the morning, brightened my day. It's more than you can even imagine. I wanted to talk to Lee and ask him for a ride to school today.
"Lee?" I texted him. I just wanted a ride to school.
"Kylie? What's wrong?" He replied.
"Why do you always assume something is wrong whenever I text you?" I questioned.
"Because I have always texted you first unless you needed something," he claimed.
"Ah, ok. I need a ride to school. I don't want to ride the bus. The bus driver made me sick with his driving, starting then stopping, constantly," I explained.
"That's what bus drivers do, Kylie. They start the bus, drive, stop the bus and pick up someone. It is how a bus ride is." He said mischievously as I could see the laughter in his words.
"Haha. Not funny" I replied, secretly thinking it was really funny. Lee was always such a character, trying always to make me laugh.
"Yes, I can give you a ride. Because I think we are still friends and all."He started driving me to school, and we were almost there when another stoplight stopped us. In the other car were Aaron and Neisha. Again. Talking about Deja vu.
"Why do we always catch each other at stoplights?" questioned Aaron.
"I don't know; it feels like that scene from Fast and Furious seven," replied Lee.
"I hated that scene because Paul Walker died, and it was just so sad. I cried for a long time after he died because he added such a plot twist to the movies, and then he suddenly died," said Neisha.
"Can we not talk about death?" I questioned.
"Oh, yea. Still a little touchy subject for you?" questioned Neisha.
"Yea," I said glumly, as I thought about death.
"Sorry." She apologized.
"It's okay," I confirmed.
"Since when did you two become all buddy-buddy? I thought you guys hated each other. At least last time I checked, Neisha was always picking on you and taunting you, and you always took her crap and dealt with it?" Lee questioned.
"We just grew together after Kyle's death. She helped me through the grieving process; we've been pretty close since then. She was here when I was avoiding Marissa and you."
"Oh, okay, but why were you avoiding us?" Lee questioned.
"That's a long story. It has to do with Kyle and you. It's just way too much to get into right now." I replied. I didn't want to think of Kyle, but for some reason, I always managed to think of him.
"Okay, alright. Well, tell me when you have the time." Lee answered back.
"You are lucky. Lately, I'm always busy. The only time I have is tonight." I replied.
"Tonight doesn't work for me. I have to go out of town for personal reasons." Lee spoke quietly to me.
When the light was green, we raced, this time, Lee had beaten Aaron, and we were at school in a heartbeat. I couldn't shake the feeling that something was going on with Lee. I texted Marissa.
"Remember when I told you to investigate, and then you said you would tell me if you found anything?" I was hoping she had dug up some dirt on Lee.
"Yes," I received a reply not even a minute later. I was on the edge of my seat as I stared at my phone waiting for her next answer.
"Did you ever look into Lee's background, follow him, or anything like that?" I questioned.
"No." She replied.
"But you should follow him tonight. He told me he has to go out of town for personal reasons," I told her what little information I had.
"Do you want to go with me?" She questioned
"Yea, I'll go," I replied, scared to find out what was on the horizon.
After school, I took a ride from Marissa, but Lee had offered me one before doing his mystery errand. Marissa and I got in the car, and although we were following Lee, we were jamming out to a musical high school and a mile of a thousand.
We had to make it seem like we were casual people, not stalking my ex-boyfriend. We were a few cars behind him, so he couldn't see what we were doing. We got a little suspicious when we saw him pull into a vacant parking lot. We stayed far back enough so that he couldn't see us. We looked toward him with our binoculars. He was speaking to a woman. I was ready to confront him and ask him what he was doing there, but then we would have to explain why I was following him. I was doing something that friends don't usually do to other friends they trust. I was suspicious. I guess I must have no trust. I still didn't believe he broke up after having sex with me.
Marissa drove back a little more when she saw the woman come outside and go to Lee's car.
"Who are you? What do you want?" The woman asked Lee.
"Do you remember me?" He questioned.
"I don't even know you!" She exclaimed.
"Yes, you do. It's me, Lionel." He clarified.
"Link as in Lionel Carewell?"
"Yes, it is me!" Lee replied.
"How? Lionel Carewell died; I saw the body!" she exclaimed
"I can explain it later, but I need your number." he clarified
"Why?" she interrogated, and she was confused.
"Long story. Give me your number, and I will text it to you."
The lady wrote her phone number down on a sheet of paper, and Lee drove off. We followed behind him, but we knew he was headed toward home. I will admit that hearing that conversation, almost anybody would be suspicious, so I wanted facts before I confronted him.
I went home, and I searched the internet for the name. Lionel Carewell. He was a doctor in a car wreck, much like Kyle. Was this a setup? Was he using a fake name? What was happening? I went to ancester.com to see if Lee wasn't who he said he was, and he's just had surgery to make himself fit his supposed age better. But no, Link Carewell didn't exist, only Liam. It made no sense to me.
The next day I had Marissa pick me up for school, I had all my classes with Lee, and I had to get something to prove his identity. I asked him what he was doing tonight, and he said he was going to the local YMCA and playing basketball with his aunt and uncle. I thought it was a perfect time to snoop in the house and see if I could find anything he'd been hiding from us. I would never trust or talk to him again if he were a completely different person. If my first love lied to me about something so important, I would do anything to get away from them so that I would never have to see their lying face again. I snuck into the house with Marissa, and we started under his bed, there was a locked box, and we couldn't unlock it because it was bolted shut. We shook it and heard the sound of money jingling. So there wasn't anything alarming about that. I checked his desk drawer, and there was a picture of what appeared to be his uncle. On the other side of the room was a basketball trophy, and it was addressed to Lee.
I couldn't find anything suspicious or out of the ordinary. I just had a feeling he was hiding something from me. That deep-down gut feeling that almost made me puke. Like watching a horror movie and you know the girl is going to trip on a branch or get her foot stuck on the train track as a train comes and runs her over, or the other scenario the knight in shining white armor saves the damsel in distress. Both scenarios make you want to hurl because they are so common. That is the same feeling I was getting. . I searched in his backpack, and nothing was there. I searched in his sock drawer, and nothing was there. Marissa and I searched for papers or anything that could signify a different identity, and nothing was there either. Perhaps my gut was wrong, and Lee was trustworthy.
Besides him saying, "I only told you I loved you so I could have sex with you," he never did anything wrong to me. That was a pretty wrong thing to do on a scale of one to ten, probably a 9.5. I'll never know what drove him to such distress to say and do that. Marissa and I were both done searching and went first to check and ensure nobody was there. We didn't have time to clean up, so we took some things from the house to make it look like they had been robbed. I grabbed a necklace from his aunt's jewelry box. On our way out the back door, Marissa almost fell into a hole that some creature probably dug. We went to my house and drove off in our cars. We went to the park, and we played on the swings. We just swung up and down, and that whole time I was thinking, I hope nothing wrong happened. We searched through the necklace, and it was a locket.