I looked at him shocked at his words. Decklen never talked about his past. He said he didn't remember it. He simply woke up one day not too long ago and no one could see him. He even refused to tell me where he had been born, or when.
He seemed to realize his mistake as he looked at me.
"So, you do know how you got like this." I said accusingly.
He grimaced, "I do not. I remember how it happened that is all. I remember dying and then waking up. It's a gruesome story Rheya, I don't want to relive it."
I stared at him and he me. We always did this.
It was a game of sorts, try to figure out Decklen, the enigma.
We never got far. He would become depressed. As if reading my mind, he stood suddenly.
"You need to get going, you're going to be late for school."
I glanced at the clock.
I wasn’t.
Decklen just wanted to get me out of the house, because we couldn’t talk out there.
Normally we always wanted to be in the house. It was our sanctuary, Decklen could talk and more importantly, I could answer without looking insane.
But sometimes, the questions.
The...unnaturalness of it all. It got to him.
And when that happened, he would rather be anywhere but the house.
Sighing softly, I stood and went into my room. I looked in the mirror and tied my curly mass of hair into a ponytail as I stared at my face. I smiled somewhat grimly. Decklen had been right. I did not look good.
Knowing makeup would fix it and that I was too lazy, I accepted that I would look tired for the whole day and turned away. I grabbed my bag and my eyes caught on the cause of my dream.
Dracula.
It was without a doubt my favorite book. Decklen had been right. I had read it about a million times this past year alone. Somehow, I knew today would definitely be a day when I would need it. I placed the book in my bag. I also glanced at another book.
The Catcher in the Rye.
I grimaced. I usually liked all books, but this one.
God awful.
But, it was a school assignment, so I put it into my bag as well.
Silently I left my room.
Decklen was waiting for me. We didn't speak much as we left my house. Locking the door, I made my way down the walk towards the gate.
I always walked to school. It was better than driving and it was only about a five-minute walk.
"Off to class honey?"
I turned at the voice and saw my neighbor Bea, an older widowed woman who had taken it upon herself to make sure I ate. Her efforts had been doubled when my social worker had told me last year when I turned eighteen, that I would no longer be hers, or the counties problem.
"Yeah."
"Are you working tonight? I'm going to put on a stew. I'll leave a bowl for you." She said from her chair.
"That'll be fine. Thank you." I said.
She waved at me and I continued down the sidewalk.
By the time we arrived, it was just beginning to get noisy from all the other students. Knowing I had awhile before the bell rang, I settled underneath a large tree and pulled out Dracula.
Decklen sat next to me, saw the book and laughed.
"Didn't that cause your nightmare?"
"Nope." I said as I opened the pages to the scene were Jonathan Harper crept into Dracula's lair.
Within minutes, I was submersed and when the bell rang, I looked up from Lucy's death and glanced around dazedly.
"It's time. Come on, don't be late." Decklen said standing.
I followed suit and headed inside the building.
As always, class was boring. I was never someone who cared for math. It was pointless to me, but I still had an A.
I cheated.
Decklen was a math genius, he always gave me the answers. Or at least he would tell me how to work the problems, and by the sounds he would make at my mistakes I usually ended up getting good grades, at least in class. With Decklen next to me, I never had to pay attention.
"You always daydream in math class." Decklen commented as we walked home.
"Yeah." I shrugged nonchalantly expecting him to lecture me.
Today however he surprised me.
"What about?"
"Nothing really, just stuff." I replied.
"Like?" He pressed.
"I don't know, I just start thinking about something simple like how Susan looks good in blue and the next thing I know, I'm a million miles away. Why, it's not like you don't do it." I replied.
He didn't respond.
Once home, I opened my mail box and pulled a stack of envelopes. Walking up to the door I saw a cooler and smiled. Bea had made me dinner after all.
Grabbing the box, I opened my door and deciding to look through the mail later tossed it onto the side table and made my way to the kitchen. After heating up a bowl, I carried it to the table.
Decklen stalked off to the living room as I ate. When I was done, I glanced at the clock and saw with a groan that I had one hour before work. Grumbling slightly, I yawned.
I was exhausted.
A short while later, I came out from my bathroom dressed for work. I had gotten lucky scoring the job. I sat down at my desk that doubled as a vanity. I hated bartending, but the money was great.
I had never been the social type and being behind any bar, well that was almost half of your job. It made things awkward when I ran into someone that had spent almost three hours talking to me the night before and I said next to nothing to them.
I looked once more in my mirror and saw that I still looked tired. Knowing my rent was going to be at stake, I picked up a brush and started to blend. After a few minutes, I leaned away. As I straightened my necklace, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw for once what everyone else did when they looked at me.
A girl with long black curly hair and big tawny eyes.
A pretty girl I had been told by drunk men at the bar. And Decklen.
But those men didn't count or matter. And Decklen, well he didn't count simply because I was the only person he could talk to and upsetting me was never on his agenda.
Almost at the thought of him, he appeared in my doorway. I glanced at him from my mirror and saw he was looking at my reflection with a frown on his face.
He hated where I worked, the people were rude and that was about it.
Decklen hated messiness and rude people.
My job was both and that was reason enough to hate it.
"Your face is going to get stuck like that." I told him.
"Why so dressed up?" He asked me.
"Why not?" I asked.
He smiled, "Touché."
"I have to go." I said yawning.
He frowned once more. "Maybe you should call out? You seem tired."
"Yeah right, rents due."
He didn't answer at first before a defeated, "I'll walk you." Came from him.
"You don't have too." I laughed.
But the glare he gave me told me not to argue. Sometimes Decklen seemed like he came right out from another world. To him chivalry was alive and breathing.
Something to be respected. And sadly to him, something that was disappearing.
A few weeks later, I was coming in from a run to see Decklen approaching me with an envelope in his hand and a frown on his face.
"I found this behind the table by the door." He held it out to me.
Vaguely recalling tossing mail on the table some time ago I took it from him curiously.
The cream-colored paper was heavy and formal. The handwriting too was in a script I didn't recognize, though seemed oddly familiar to me. There was no return address I noted.
Quietly I opened the envelope and pulled out a thick amount of paper. Deciding to read the letter first, I put the rest of the paper down and examined the stationary. It was the same color as the envelope I noted.
Silently I began to read.
A few minutes later, I looked up to see Decklen holding up the rest of the paper.
"A plane ticket. And a check for a thousand dollars." He murmured. Having read the information in the letter, I didn’t speak.
He looked at me, "What's going on?" He asked as I walked over to the couch and sat down.
"So, I have an aunt Cherise." I replied leaning my head back. I felt a very powerful headache coming on.
"An aunt? I thought you were an orphan." He said to me.
"So did I. She's sick and apparently has left me a house as stated in her will."
"A house?" Decklen said bewildered.
"Yeah." I closed me eyes. "A house."
Seeing that he would be unable to get a complete sentence from me, Decklen took the letter from my hand and read it. When he finished he looked at me.
"There is no address, this could be one of those, what do you call them, scams?" He said.
I nodded as a knock came from the door. Startled I opened my eyes and went to answer. Looking through the eyelet, I saw a man in a suit standing there. I opened the door leaving the bolt in place.
"Yes." I said.
"Are you Rheya?" He asked me.
"Depends, whose asking?" I replied.
The man smiled and went into his pocket. He pulled out a badge that had his picture and a name.
"My name is Roger Lark. I'm a P.I hired by your Aunt Cherise to come and find you." He said.
Knowing it was too much of a coincidence that he was suddenly here as I was reading the letter, I stared at the badge quietly while Decklen went through the door. He reached into the man’s pockets and pulled out a phone and to my alarm a gun. Pocketing them, he came back inside to my side.
"One moment, I have to use the bathroom." I said to him.
"You’re not going to run are you? I mean it wasn't that hard to find you. It won't be hard to find you again." He said as I shut the door in his face.
I walked away and Decklen followed me. He set the gun down on the kitchen table as he handed me the phone.
"What is he a drug dealer?" I muttered as I flipped the old school LG open. I scrolled through his call logs until I came to a number labeled Cherise. It was a number I didn't recognize, and I dialed out.
The sounds of dialing hit my ears and just when I was about to give up, it connected.
"Have you found her Mr. Lark? My niece, you must remember, she doesn't know she has any-
Her voice cut off as I slapped the phone closed.
"I take it, that all of this is real then." Decklen stated to my pale face.
"As real as it could be, I guess." I said.
The door knocked again.
"Please open the door, Miss. Rheya. I know you must have a lot of questions."
"You do have his gun, you could shoot him if he tries anything." Decklen said to me.
I nodded in agreement as I went to answer.
The sun was shining brightly as the P.I Roger Lark walked into my home.