"It feels weird" I said, staring at the grave in front of us. Was I a bad person for feeling weird in that situation, or was it normal? I didn't know.
We'd decided to visit Theo's grave. I couldn't tell what drove Indigo and I to make that decision, if the knowledge that it'd been a bit too long since we'd been there, or the simple fact that Joel had lent us his car, making it possible for us to drive there, as it would've normally been quite a long walk.
I didn't really like to go there, but at the same time it would've felt wrong if I hadn't. But at the same time, being there, I didn't really know how to feel, and that felt wrong, too. I'd never dealt with loss that well, and I always preferred to try not to let it affect me, even though at times it just wasn't possible. I didn't know what the right words to say were, if there were right words at all, so I just stood there, hoping that they would've come to me one day. That felt wrong, too.
Indigo gave me a little nod, acknowledging my words, changing the wilted flowers in the vase with the beautiful white ones we'd bought. We stood there for a few, in silence, because she too didn't know what to say. I couldn't help but feel like he deserved better than two friends that couldn't open their mouths in such a situation and say at least something, anything that would've felt right, but at the same time I didn't think that there was anything that would've. Maybe I was just too clueless, or too young, or maybe I was just like that.
It'd always been like that to me, even with my mother. There were never words to say, because none of them would've changed the truth of what had happened. None of them would've made it better, not to me, at least. So what was even the point in speaking, in such a situation? I knew the way I felt, the hurt I felt, how much I missed them and how I wished they'd never left. What was the point in saying it out loud, for the whole world to hear?
"Do you ever regret it?" She asked all of sudden, and I gave her a confused look, not understanding what she was referring to.
"Regret what?" I asked back, glancing at her and waiting for her to clarify.
She shrugged, her blue eyes not meeting mine. "Just... meeting him. We wouldn't be here right now if we'd never met him" she said, her voice low.
"Of course I don't" I was quick to reply. Sure, the situation we were in wasn't the best, but it didn't mean I would've preferred not to ever become his friend. "I don't really think it would've changed anything, too."
She finally looked at me. "How are you so sure about that?"
"What happened, it wasn't our fault, Indigo" I replied, and I would've never thought I would've had to say that. What had happened was terrible, but it certainly wasn't our fault, in any way, and she shouldn't have felt like that.
She sighed, looking down. "I think he was coming to my house" she shared quietly.
"He was?" I asked instantly, letting my curiosity get the best of me. It had been months, and she'd never told me anything about it. I didn't know how to feel about that.
She shook her head, as if she too couldn't make sense of what she knew. "He left a weird voicemail. I don't know."
I furrowed my eyebrows. "What did it say?"
"That he had to talk to me, or something like that" she said with a shrug, looking down again, seeming unsure.
"What about?" I asked her, curious. That didn't sound like something Theo would've done. He certainly wasn't the kind of person that would've left their house late at night to go talk to someone, which meant that whatever had happened that had made him react like that definitely was important.
"I don't know" she said, shrugging. "The point is, he wouldn't have left the house if we hadn't known each other."
"You can't know that" I told her quickly, "And you also can't blame yourself for what happened. You had nothing to do with it, it could've happened to anyone."
She sighed. "I guess." She crouched down in front of the grave, staring at the tombstone with an unreadable look in her eyes. "It's scary, isn't it?"
"What is?"
"As you said, it could've happened to anyone. It's scary to think that we could just... stop being, at any moment" she replied, "one moment we're here, the other we're not. That's scary."
I nodded. It surely was a terrifying thought. "It is." I stared down at her, suddenly remembering something. "Indie?"
She looked up at me as soon as I called her. "Yeah?"
"Do you think there's a possibility that someone knows what happened?" I asked her. I wanted to get a second opinion on whatever was going on with Harry, but at the same time, I didn't know how to ask her directly, without having her asking more questions than I'd be able to answer.
She frowned. "Why did you ask that?" She said, seeming to be bothered by my question.
I shook my head, not wanting her to become suspicious. "No specific reason, I was just... thinking."
She sighed, seeming to relax a bit almost instantly. "I don't think so" she replied, "Like, I'm pretty sure that if someone knew, they would've told the police."
"What if they didn't, though?" I couldn't help but ask. What if Harry was saying the truth, and truly knew what had happened that night? If that was the case, why hadn't he told the police? Was there something he was scared about? It was weird to think about someone like Harry being scared of anything. He never seemed to mind much, just about anything.
She gave me a puzzled glance. "At this point, I'm not sure what you're talking about anymore" she admitted, and I suddenly straightened my position, realising that my questions were starting to concern her.
"Nothing, I was just wondering" I said, shaking my head, but for some reason feeling like I shouldn't have completely let the topic go. "It would be crazy if someone did know... it all, you know? And didn't tell anyone" I ended up saying, and she stood up quickly.
"Don't be ridiculous, why would they have even kept it a secret if that was the case? It makes no sense" she said, sounding a bit aggressive than I would've expected her to be.
"I guess" I said, offering her a little shrug and deciding to drop it, because I didn't really like the direction in which the conversation was going.
She turned her head to look at me, a suspicious look in her eyes. "Is there a reason why you're asking?"
I shook my head, not wanting her to think I'd found out something I shouldn't have discovered, or done something I shouldn't have done - which I most likely had, considering that she didn't want me to talk to Harry, and I'd completely ignored her wishes. "No, I was only thinking about it."
She stared at me for a few seconds, an unreadable glance in her eyes. "Would you tell me, if something weird happened?" She said in the end.
"What do you mean by that?" I asked her, furrowing my eyebrows.
She shrugged. "I mean, if you ended up in... weird situations. If someone told you something strange."
I glanced at her for some seconds, trying to decide what to reply. Would she have told me, if the roles were reversed? I wasn't that sure about it, anymore. "Sure."
She nodded. "Good." She crouched again and brushed away some fallen and crumpled up petals that had fallen from the flowers that were previously there. "Do you think his family still comes?" She asked quietly, and I frowned.
"Of course they do. Why wouldn't they?" I asked, not understanding why she'd ask such a question. There wasn't anything that could've led us to think they didn't, and it surely hadn't been nearly enough time for them to start going there less often.
She shrugged. "I don't know."
I stared at her for a few seconds, trying to determine what was going on. It was clear that she was behaving differently than usual, and I couldn't exactly tell why. It wasn't the first time we went there, and she'd never acted like that before. "Indigo?" I said, but she didn't even glance at me. "Is there something wrong? You're acting a bit weird today" I continued anyway, "asking weird things, too."
"Everything's fine" she replied, standing up fast. "We should go."
She started walking quickly towards the gates, that weren't too far away from us, and I followed her, speeding up my step not to be left behind. We crossed the gates and moved towards the car, and I opened my bag to retrieve the keys as I walked, not wanting to spend a second longer than necessary in the cold weather.
I looked up in the instant I felt my fingers wrap around the cold metal, widening my eyes when I realised that someone was quickly walking towards me, and I moved to the side just in time not to crash against them, sliding the keys into the pocket of my coat.
I heard the sound of steps stop right behind me. "Raine?" The person asked all of sudden, and I turned around fast at the sound of my name being spoken.
"Harry" I said, unable to mask the surprise, not having expected to meet him in such a place.
He stared at me, a frown on his features. "What are you doing here?" He asked, raising his eyebrows in the second the question left his mouth. "Sorry, stupid question."
I shrugged, not minding it that much. I was definitely curious to know what he was doing there as well, so I could understand his interest. "It's fine. And you?"
He let out a sour chuckle, the corners of his lips turning up almost imperceptibly. "That's none of your concern, actually" he replied, the warm tone of his voice making the sentence sound way less insulting than it would've otherwise. His gaze suddenly shifted next to me. "Hey, Indie."
I turned my head quickly, discovering that Indigo had noticed what was going on and had come back towards us, and was now giving Harry a severe stare.
She raised an eyebrow when he greeted her. "Harry."
The little smile on Harry's lips didn't dissipate at her cold greeting, as if there was a certain irony in the situation that I couldn't see. "I've been told you... dislike me, quite a lot" he told her. "That's quite interesting, isn't it?"
She didn't reply, and it was only a matter of seconds before she turned her head to look at me. "Raine, we're leaving" she said, not giving me time to say a single word before grabbing my arm and pulling me away towards the car, rapidly speaking to me as she did so. "Do you know him? Have you talked to him again?"
"Why are you asking?" I questioned her, giving her a weird look, not understanding why she was reacting like that. I knew she didn't want me to talk to him, but that reaction definitely seemed a bit too much.
She raised an eyebrow, giving me a skeptical glance. "He just stopped us" she said, as if that was a perfectly normal reason for her to react like that.
"He called you by your nickname" I told her, pointing the weirdness of it out. "Why did he do that?"
She gave me a shrug. "No reason, I've never even talked to him" she replied quickly. "I suppose Joel let it slip."
I gave her a little nod. "I suppose" I said, not really believing her, but knowing that it would've made no sense to try to push her to tell me the truth. I took the car key out of my pocket and handed it to her before walking to the passenger seat, swiftly looking up as I did just to discover that Harry was long gone.
She unlocked the car and I opened the door and sat inside, instantly melting into the seat when she turned on the engine and the heater turned on as well. I gave her a side-glance as she drove out of the parking spot, suddenly not feeling like hanging out with her anymore. It was clear that there was something she wasn't telling me, we'd been friends since forever and she'd never acted so weirdly, so whatever it was, I knew it was important. I didn't like the way it made me feel to know that I was being left out of something that mattered.
In some weird way, I kind of preferred to spend time with Harry. He too had secrets, but at least he didn't act like he didn't have any. In some way, he managed to be open about it, and openly tell me if there was something he had no intention of sharing, instead of just working around it trying to pretend everything was fine.
"Actually" I said, easily managing to catch her attention, "I know we'd decided to go shopping, but would you mind dropping me off at home? I kind of have a headache." I pressed my lips together, surprised by how little I cared about openly lying to her. I supposed that, since it was quite clear that she was lying to me, it wouldn't have truly mattered if I'd done the same.
She nodded, not seeming to notice that I wasn't telling the truth. "Sure. Need something?"
I shook my head, crossing my arms over my chest and pretending I wasn't feeling that great to sell the lie. "No, just a little rest."
She sent me a little glance, but started driving towards my home anyway.
• • •
"Were you not feeling the rain, Raine?" Harry asked in the second he entered my apartment, and I rolled my eyes at his words. Thinking about it, I should've expected him to make such an idiotic joke in the second it started raining.
I was already starting to regret sending him a text asking him to come to my house later that day, hoping to get some answers on a few things. I didn't know why I kept trying, considering he'd already made it quite obvious he had no intention of telling me, but I couldn't help it.
"Aren't you just hilarious" I commented, closing the door and turning around to look at him. "I actually told Indigo I wasn't feeling well, so you see how it would be a problem if she saw me outside" I explained, "with you."
He let out a chuckle, taking off his black trench coat and throwing it on the couch, revealing the black shirt he was wearing underneath, half unbuttoned down his chest, of a fabric that dangerously looked like silk. "Look at you, being all sneaky and shit" he said, clear sarcasm in his voice. "I have to admit I'm quite proud."
I rolled my eyes for the second time in the span of a few minutes. "Will you just stop?" I replied, finally walking to the couch and sitting down next to his coat, that smelled of rain.
He sat down next to me, definitely a bit closer than he should've, his thigh grazing mine. "A bit nervous, are you?" He asked, looking at me attentively.
"Listen, we only have an hour until Amelie comes home" I told him, even though that wasn't the only reason behind my nervousness. I was also worried that Indigo would've come around and discover that he was in my home, or Joel, or even, of the conversation we were about to have.
Harry raised his eyebrows, a humoured look in his eyes. "Is that your way of asking me to fuck you?"
I almost choked on my own breath as soon as he spoke, glaring at him as he laughed at my reaction. "I bet you think you're so funny, don't you?" I hissed at him. "I want answers."
I definitely wanted answers, about many different things. How he knew what he claimed he did, how he knew Indigo and why she seemed to hate him, why he couldn't tell me anything, why he always talked to Joel and how he'd met him, and even why I felt like my best friends were keeping something from me. They were a bunch of different things, but I couldn't help but wonder, what if they were all interconnected? If that was the case, it meant that he probably knew the answer to them all.
I didn't know why I was asking him, instead of my best friends. The most logic thing would've probably been to talk to my friends about it, but I felt as if I shouldn't have done that, and I didn't know why. It was probably the fact that they kept trying to hide the fact that something was obviously going on, while he just didn't - even though he still didn't seem to have any intention to let me know. But I knew that if I wanted to make sense of what was going on I would've had to start somewhere, and Harry just might have been it.
"You keep asking, and I keep not answering" he replied, the tone of his voice considerably lower than usual. "When will you finally get tired, I wonder?" He asked, and I couldn't help but feel as if there was a mild threat in his words.
"How do you know who killed Theo?" I instantly shot back, not wanting to give myself any time to think about it, because I knew that if I had I would've probably ended up chickening out.
He raised an eyebrow, instantly distancing himself from me, a surprised but somewhat pissed off look on his face. "Pardon?"
"Were you there? Did you see it happen?"
He clenched his jaw, sitting back against the couch, looking at me with a darkened look in his eyes. "I'm afraid I can't answer that, thunderstorm" he said lowly, not giving me a specific reason why he couldn't.
I was tired of everyone treating me like I was a child. Something was clearly going on, and I wasn't being told about it. But I decided to give Harry the benefit of the doubt, mostly because I'd known him for a rather short time, so it could perfectly be that the things he knew truly had nothing to do with me or the people around me. I didn't want to just get mad at him, also because something told me that doing something like that would've resulted in him leaving, which would've inevitably meant I wouldn't have gotten any of the answers I was craving.
"Why?" I decided to ask, trying my best to sound as reasonable as possible.
"Why what?" He replied, and I could tell that he was doing it on purpose, whether to piss me off or waste some time, I didn't know.
I tapped nervously my index on the cushion of the couch we were sitting on, looking down at it. "You can't tell me, you didn't tell the police. Why didn't you?"
"Stop asking questions you know I can't answer to" he said sharply, suddenly sitting up, the bothered look finding its way back into his eyes. It was evident that he was starting to get a bit annoyed, and I knew I should've been careful if I didn't want him to stand up and leave.
"Why can't you answer?" I asked him, quietly and carefully. I wished he would've given me at least one reasonable reason why he was keeping it all a secret.
He sighed. "Listen, Raine" he said, the tone of his voice warmer than I would've expected it to be, considering the situation. "The less you know, the better it is." He ran his fingers through his chestnut curls, seeming a bit uneasy all of sudden. "You know what, forget I ever said that. It was a mistake to ask you about Joel."
I shook my head at his words, looking down again. I felt like, no matter what I did or said, nobody was telling me the truth, and I couldn't understand why. What had even happened, all of sudden? Indigo, Joel and I used to tell each other everything, and now we were just... not, and I couldn't understand why. What was I even doing, sitting on a couch with a boy I barely knew, and that I'd been told to stay away from? The more I thought about it, the less sense it made. It was frustrating and upsetting, but I didn't know what to do about it.
I could've directly asked Joel or Indigo about it, but for some reason I felt as if I shouldn't have. I couldn't tell why. Maybe it was the way they seemed to be so secretive about it that just unsettled me deeply, because why would they? What was there of so bad, or so important, that they couldn't tell me about? Why did they keep insisting I stayed away from Harry, but at the same they never gave me a real reason why I should've done that? What was it about Harry, that they seemed to fear so much?
Was he really as dangerous as they said? The pieces of conversations I've heard between him and Joel were surely a bit weird, but what did they mean? Was Harry blackmailing Joel? Even though it kind of seemed like it, I knew that wasn't it. He wouldn't have needed to ask me anything about my friend, if he was already blackmailing him. So, whatever it was, I knew it was something completely different.
Why had he even asked me about Joel, and then gone back on his words? Had he decided that he didn't need any dirt on him, or had he realised that he didn't want to tell me what he knew? What told me that he hadn't just asked me about it because he was pissed, without really thinking it through, and that was the reason behind his change of mind?
What told me that the things that seemed to be going on weren't all related?
"I feel... put aside" I ended up saying, not lifting my gaze, not feeling like looking at him while saying something like that.
I felt him shift closer to me. "What do you mean?" He asked, quietly and calmly, surprising me a bit. I'd almost expected him to laugh at me.
I gave him a little shrug. "You're clearly keeping something from me. And Indigo is acting weird, and Joel keeps throwing parties for no apparent reason" I said quickly, letting out my frustration. He was the only person I could've shared it with, anyway. "The only normal one left is Callie."
He sent me a puzzled glance. "Callie?"
"You don't know her?" I asked him, instantly nodding to myself when I remembered that she too didn't seem to know who he was, surprisingly enough, considering that both Joel and Indigo seemed to have a very clear idea of who he was.
He gave me a shrug, letting me know that he truly didn't know.
"It's the blonde one" I explained, sure that he would know who I was talking about. At parties he always seemed to stand around in a corner and watch everybody else, so there was no hiding that he had a quite clear idea of who the people I hung out with were, if not by name, at least by sight. "Always pining after Joel. She said she'd move on, but she isn't really doing it, you know."
He hummed. "In love with her best friend" he commented, "that must be awkward."
I sighed, remembering the time she'd cried to me about Joel telling her he liked Indigo. "It surely is. It sucks."
"I bet."
I nodded, side-glancing at him. He wasn't looking at me as he spoke, but seemed to be playing around with the sleeve of his black silky shirt, mindlessly rolling it up in the way he preferred, his position seeming to be relaxed again, which meant that he was quite comfortable in that moment. "Harry?" I called him, and he looked up at me. "Would you ever tell me, if there was something I needed to know?"
He gave me an unreadable glance. "There's nothing you need to know."
I stared at him for a few seconds, trying to decide if I should've believed him or not, just to realise that I would've probably never known whether it was the truth or not. "Alright" I ended up saying, opting for moving the conversation towards a less relevant topic, hoping to at least get some of the answers I'd hoped to get. "How do you know Indigo?"
"Why don't you ask her?"
I gave him an exhausted glance, starting to get a bit tired of the way he always seemed to deflect every single question that was thrown his way. "She said she doesn't know you."
He chuckled. "Of course she did" he commented, glancing down for a second.
"Did you have sex with her?" I couldn't help but ask, wondering if that was what was truly going on between the two of them, and he quickly looked up at me.
"Why would you ask that?" He asked, frowning, a hint of annoyance in his voice. "I didn't."
I nodded, knowing he was telling the truth. He definitely wasn't afraid to admit he'd had sex with someone - or was about to - as I knew from experience, which meant that if he was saying he didn't, there was a very low chance that he was lying. "I just... I'm so confused" I told him. "I feel like there's something I should know, something she's not telling me. So many weird things are happening, but I just can't seem to make sense of it all."
"That's an awful feeling" he simply said, and he was definitely right about that.
"It is" I said, nodding.
He hummed, looking at his phone for a second before suddenly standing up. "I'll go, now. Wouldn't want to meet Amelie again."
I let out a chuckle at his words. "Sure" I replied, following him to the door, and I couldn't quite tell why I felt a bit sad at the thought of him leaving.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter. x
Miki