‘Remy… Remy, sweetie, there are some people at the door wanting you, Jack is talking to them right now in the kitchen would you like to come out?’
I open my eyes slowly and rub the sleep out a little, I mumble something and she knew I wanted to be left alone. ‘Just come out whenever you want okay, sorry for waking you up sweetie.’ She says with a concerned frown, I smile, ‘No, no, it’s okay. Thank you.’
She nods and walks out of the door shutting it behind her.
People… people… Oh no, they found me. I knew straight away what this meant – the men in black, they’ve found me.
I get changed into what looks like my clothes when I first came in, from worn out and torn to a perfectly new looking skinny jeans and t-shirt.
When I come out I can immediately hear Daniel's voice, soft and sort of deep. A part of me sinks as I hear Daniel and Jack talking about me; not where I came from or the past that Daniel knows about, but of what Jack knows. Please, please don’t tell him anything – who I know and what we were planning to do today, I pleaded, even though we had nothing planned.
I’m not sure what to do - should I run through the front door letting them all see me and end up getting chased around the whole town or should I sneak through the back door come back late at night and have to tell Jack everything?
I don’t know, I am so confused, I sigh.
‘Jack can you go check if she’s ready?’ I hear Jack jogging around the corner and as soon as I see him I jump out putting my hands over his mouth and whisper, ‘shh’ my finger on my lip to even show him what I meant. He looks at me with an eyebrow up but nods anyway. I let him go and quickly tell him that they’re some sort of spies that work for Nick trying to find me or something but I wasn’t exactly ready to go home. And he believed me.
‘I’m sorry, she’s in the shower right now,’ Jack reports walking back around the corner casually.
‘Okay, I guess we can wait a little longer,’ Daniel says facing towards the tall man I saw from the beach.
The tall guy shakes his head, advising they should leave now, because they didn’t want to bother us, I could see their reflection off a mirror in the hall, thankfully neither of them bothered to look this way.
Neither Daniel nor the tall man is wearing their suits I guess trying to “blend in”. They look kinda funny; I mean I’ve never seen the men in black ever wear anything else especially Daniel. Though the two of them are still wearing the golden ring, what’s with it?
When they finally decide to leave I go to the bathroom wet my hair damp and walk out pretending that I did take a shower, but before Daniel walked out of the house and shut the door I was pretty sure he saw me from the mirror but I jerked out of the reflection as soon as he turned.
‘Sorry Remy, they just left, would you know any of them? One had dark brown hair not that long and a bit older then Jack; he seemed to really want to talk to you, lovely boy I must say. And the other was tall, really tall.’
I force a smile, the thought of Daniel eating into my guts, ‘no never heard of them.’ I say, ‘maybe once in the festival thing though.’ She said okay and left the house to hang some clothes, including my new yellow summer dress.
‘So what's all that about?’ Jack asks as if I hadn’t already told him enough.
‘Can we go upstairs or go for a walk?’ I ask instead, knowing that he wouldn’t drop it. ‘Yeah, sure.’
We went outside and went for a walk through the town stopping every now and then to sit at parks and benches then moving on again.
I came up with a short story about how my father was too protective and we had a fight about something about how he never bothered to see or talk to me but when the time comes to wanting to go out and meet people he’d get angry. And so I ran away, which I guess is partly true.
I hated how I lied to him it didn’t settle well in my stomach, and his assuring smile and warmness just made it even worse. I didn’t like the way he sat so calmly, so understanding, how his eyes never seemed to waver or look elsewhere it just made me want to spill everything that had ever happened to me, the way I felt, the way I used to feel; about my mother leaving, my Dad never talking to me, about Daniel, about him too.
He walked close to me and I wished he would put his calm and gentle arm around me, to make me feel safe again, just once more. ‘Jack,’ I started but I wasn’t sure what to say. He stops and turns a bit to face me, ‘yeah?’ he asks in that soft murmur of his, my spine thrilled and forced me to look him in the eye. I held his assuring, unwavering gaze but it just made me want to cry.
He frowns and his brow furrows, ‘Wh-what’s wrong?’ he asks coming closer to me and not sure where to put his hand which seemed to want to touch my cheek, instead he settled it on my shoulder lightly. I sniffled and realised I was sobbing right in front of everyone, in front of him. I found it embarrassing and looked down forcing myself to stop crying.
‘Remy, I’m sorry, if… if I said something to upset you, I wasn’t meant to make you cry,’ he drawls pulling up my chin to look back into his eyes to show me that he really was sorry.
I shook my head and sniffled some more, ‘no. No, it wasn’t you. It’s... it’s me, I’m sorry, this must be embarrassing for you; me crying in front of everyone like this.’ I forced a laugh and wiped away the last tears before forcing a fake smile, holding his gaze and blinking the tears that threatened to come back again.
This time he was the one who shook his head, ‘don’t be sorry Remy, I may not know why you’re crying but just please don’t cry. It makes me… sad as well. Don’t cry.’ He pleads embracing me in a firm but gentle hug right in the middle of the street – in front of the staring eyes. I leaned my head against his chest and breathed a long and weary sigh. He placed his chin softly on the top of my head and seemed to breathe me in just I was doing a moment later; it was as if we were one person sharing the same sad thoughts.
He lets me go. I let him go. We walk again.
‘I told you my story now you tell me yours,’ I say after a while now looking at the sky as we go to sit in the middle of a park.
‘Story? What story?’ he looks at me pretending that he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, as we settle down in the warm morning-afternoon sun.
‘You never told me why I shouldn’t hang around Billy. You know, Billy Herold,’ he gives me that oh, right, look.
‘Well… Billy Herold… he’s another person you wouldn’t want to hang around with, he’s got a bad reputation, and I mean bad: rebel of the town. A tool. A gang leader. And a…’ he stops and looks at me for a long moment wondering if he should tell me the last one. He doesn’t. ‘And all the bad boys look up to him and he loves it. A lot of the girls like him too until they find out the truth about him; he uses you; nice at the start, and then after, you wouldn’t even want to look at his face.’
I look down at my legs now stretched out in front of me like I was sunbaking, my face reddening embarrassed that I thought Billy was one of the really nice and innocent good guys. The way Jack explains it I already lost most respect.
‘Nobody knows who his parents are, never even seen him around with them once. Billy came into town when he was about 14, alone. And he was pretty much a street kid. No one knew where he came from. How he got here.
‘Money was mysteriously given to him every now and then by an anonymous person and that was the only way he lived. He made friends and enemies in a matter of months – weeks. And he was already well known to nearly every teenager and soon spread to adults. After a while he started to steal as soon as the money started to drop. Everyone knew that he stole, but he was too smart and no one had any proof to take him to the police. And when they did, he always got out.’ He finishes, now looking back at me with them mystifying eyes of his and our gaze lock, for a while nobody spoke and it almost felt as if our bodies became one again and slowly we both lay down on our backs watching the clouds form above us.
We talked for a while sitting under the sun. Kids were running around playing football or soccer laughing and screaming; parents talking around tables and barbecues cooking sausages and hamburgers. But it wasn't them that mattered.
‘Jack, you know how you said that “a lot of girls like him” if everyone in town already knew Billy was a tool, why do they still go for him?’ I ask, ‘I mean now that you told me all that stuff I really wanna… I don’t hit him now for the wrong doings his done, even though he hasn’t done anything to me… yet.’
Jack laughs, his voice echoing inside me and for a moment I shut my eyes until I felt his body shift beside me. He leans on one side with his arm under his head to hold it up before looking down at me. ‘Oh don’t you worry Remy, he gets his way. They may know he’s a tool and everything but Billy always gets what he wants,’ his smile soon passes and he looks almost regretful and sad, but only for a moment until his face becomes neutral.
I look up and think. ‘You guys were friends…’ I state the obvious only just working it out.
For a moment he goes quiet and when I look back to him again his eyes were distant. ‘Yeah, I guess you could say that. But he wasn't always a bad guy,’ he says voice low and flat giving nothing away.