Kindred Spirits Announcement
(still a work in progress)
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10
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Part 1: A New Beginning
When
I rolled out of bed at noon on one early spring day, beard unkempt and
shaggy, I loathed the idea of meeting my best friend Mahli at my old
favorite café. My life was messier than the apartment I somehow called
home. I dragged myself into the shower for the first time in a week. I
burned myself on the water, but it felt cathartic, like I was searing my
misery off of my skin. As nice as the shower felt though, there has
never been a simple solution to heartbreak.
When it happened, my world came crashing down around me in a cacophony of screams and tears. I would have never admitted it, but I thought my future was with her, with Solenne. I put so much importance on our relationship that for months later, it haunted me and tormented me. So much time was spent in front of the mirror, staring at the dying stars of my eyes, searching for something worth saving. I missed her, but most of all, I missed the way she looked at me.
That particular afternoon as I stared at my clean but wet rat self in the mirror, I wouldn’t have guessed that I was so wrong about everything, that a couple hours later I would meet someone that would upset the very fabric of my reality. If I had known in advance, maybe I would have cut my long pale brown hair that looked like it belonged to an anime protagonist, or found a razer and got my beard off of my neck. But I guess there is a beauty in not knowing when your life is about to turn around. It could happen in any moment, at any place. There could be a moment of clarity, or a familiar stranger at a café.
Winter was only just passing then. Piles of snow rested on every lawn, only roads and roofs were cleared, water running down the hills and down the drains, a constant babbling brook wherever you went. The buds had yet to brave the cold and appear on the trees, and only little patches of brown grass could be seen in places where the snow had been thin. The birds had returned, though mostly crows and seagulls could be heard in the city.
It was sunny that day, and warm compared to what we had gotten used to. People were out on every street, whether it meant kids biking around on the wet roads, or older couples going for walks now that they can. Some smaller children were bundled up in winter jackets by their cautious and caring parents, which they promptly abandoned the moment they were out of sight. The air was fresh, rejuvenating, and welcoming. It was a reminder that every winter comes to an end, a herald of the summer to come.
The café I was meeting Mahli at was in the heart of downtown, but in an older district. The building itself dated back a couple hundred years or so, built of brick, stone, and now-degrading wood. Most of the other ones nearby had been demolished to build office buildings or parking lots, but this one was declared a historic site before that could happen, making it this little two story brick home surrounded by a world its builders would have never imagined possible. Mahli called it poetic, a sanctuary amongst the rush and panic of the modern day. I just thought it was cozy with good coffee.
As I approached, I spotted Mahli reading away through the window. He stopped for a moment to push up his big round hipster glasses. I couldn’t see what he was reading, but I guessed it was probably some romantic poetry. He’s a sucker for it, and when he’s unsure about things, he reads it for inspiration or clarity.
I slipped in and went straight to his table by the front window, my favorite spot. He didn’t notice me right away, so I casually placed my hand on the page he was reading. Initially surprised, he looked up at me and then shook his head.
“Glad to see you,” he said sincerely, but the phrase made me uneasy. We never spoke like that when we were younger, but once we became adults those cookie-cutter polite phrases suddenly were everywhere.
“You too, been a while,” I answered before glancing over my shoulder at the counter. “I’m going to go order something. I’ll be right back.”
“Sure thing."
“Well look who it is,” a familiar voice called out to me from behind the barista counter. I peered over and saw the always friend Farah. She made her way to the cash and smiled at me. “And here I thought you found yourself a new café and we’d never see you again.”
“Actually it was Mahli’s idea to come here,” I joked playfully. “I just haven’t been out much in a while. It’s basically just work and groceries.”
“Well, welcome back to the world of writers and students hanging out for hours, what can I get you? The usual strongest coffee we have?”
“You know me so well.” I chuckled and nodded.
“It’s the only thing I’ve ever seen you order. Maybe I don’t know you at all, and you’re just boring.”
“Ouch,” I said, clutching my heart in feigned pain.
She laughed and rolled her eyes at me as she often did. She handed me the coffee, I handed her exact change (plus tip), and headed back to Mahli’s table. I walked over, my eyes locked on my mug, careful not to spill a drop. As I placed the mug down next to one of his books, I noticed it was a book of poetry by William Blake.
“I thought Blake wasn’t really a romantic poet?” I asked, wondering why Mahli’s even reading it.
“He’s not, but I thought some change of pace might help with the writing,” he explained with his usual quiet tone. The first time we met, it took me three tries to hear what his name was because he was so hushed about it. “Haven’t written a line in weeks.”
“At least your life doesn’t depend on your poetry,” I reminded him, hopeful that it would relieve some of the pressure off of him.
He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess you’re right…” He shuffled his papers together, shut and stacked his books. “So how have you been?”
Our conversation continued on like that for a little while. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, the truth was that the dreams of Solenne had stopped but I found myself missing them. Mahli tried to be comforting, to give me some hope, but sometimes words can never be enough.
As I sipped the last drops of my coffee, my eyes were drawn to a figure that suddenly appeared through the door. It was a woman of about my age with a messy pale brown ponytail. I don’t know exactly what caught my eye about her, but it was enough that I wasn’t paying attention when putting my mug down. Distracted, I let go of the mug and it fell to the ground, shattering with a loud crash.
Everyone’s eyes suddenly shifted to me, including hers. That was the first time I saw Holly’s all-too-familiar eyes. Like mine, they were a dark mahogany with a ring of orange around the pupil like some sort of solar eclipse. It was like looking in the mirror, like all of a sudden my reflection had come to life and left to get coffee.
“Is everything okay?” Farah asked in a concerned tone as she ran over with the broom, pulling my attention off of the familiar stranger.
“Sorry, I thought my hand was over the table,” I apologized, getting to my feet and sweeping up some of the ceramic pieces with my foot.
“It’s alright! Accidents happen,” she assured me as she gently pushed me to the side so she could properly sweep up the mess.
Once that was all sorted out, I looked around for the stranger with my eyes, but she was nowhere to be found. It was like she just popped into existence and right back out of it. Or maybe that was just my imagination acting up.
“Are you alright? You’ve been somewhere else for a while,” Mahli questioned after a while of me clearly not paying attention to anything.
“There was a woman here just as I dropped my mug who had eyes just like mine,” I told him with that tone in my voice that implied some greater purpose.
“Do you have any lost siblings?”
I shrugged. “I guess it’s possible. It’s not like I knew my parents or anything. Maybe my mom knows about it.”
“Worth asking. Who knows? Maybe you just spotted your long lost sister.” A look of excitement crossed his face, a flash of inspiration. “I hope if it’s okay if I write a poem about that.”
It was a small bungalow, one that looks like it could be a converted trailer from the road. Instead of a lawn, my father had put together a wildlife garden of sorts, but had to tone it down because the neighbours thought wild plants left to live was unkempt.
A stone path led from the driveway up to the front door, a nice little addition my father did after getting rid of the standard looking concrete slabs that were all the rage in the 90’s or something along those lines. On the side of the house, not far from the side door was the garbage containers along with their compost bin that fed most of their plants in the backyard. My parents seemed so normal to me growing up, but it was only once I hit school did I realize how radical they were. Since I was young, they were open about the fact that I was adopted, that they weren’t my biological parents, but that never seemed to matter to me. Beyond that, for a while they were the only people who thought having vegetable gardens shouldn’t be illegal, and until other people thought the same, had to fight just to keep their single tomato plant in the backyard of my childhood home.
All these things flew through my mind as I walked up to their front door, mostly unannounced. It’s just that for so much of my life I didn’t care who my biological family was. Now suddenly, I was coming to them to try and figure it out, all because I saw someone at a café that I thought could have been another version of myself. I was chasing after imaginary geese ,but it was a welcome distraction from the cycle of self-hatred that I had fallen into. For once, my whole life didn’t seem to revolve around Solenne and the pain associated. There was a mystery to be had, and an investigation only I could undertake. There was more to life
My dad answered the door with his burly hairy arms, thick red mustache, and dirt on his knees. “Well, look who it is!” he exclaimed happily before patting me on the shoulder and welcoming me in. “Well don’t just stand there. Come on in, son!”
My mom came around the corner with her round black reading glasses on. She had a round face with shoulder-length brown hair that somehow hadn't turned grey yet. “It’s so nice to see you!” she cried out as she wrapped her arms around me in a tight embrace. “What brings you to us today?”
“Can’t I just visit you whenever?” I questioned jokingly. She side-eyed me and let out a playful sigh.
“Sometimes I regret letting you pick up on sarcasm. You’ve been a little smart-ass since.”
“A loving little smart-ass, at least,” I added as I took off my shoes and followed the two of them into the adjacent living room. “So why are you covered in dirt, Dad? Doing work out back?”
He glanced down at himself and seemed to have a moment of concern. “I didn’t realize I had so much of it on myself,” he admitted. “I had been working on the crawlspace, and happened to come out to grab a snack when you knocked.”
My mom plopped down on the couch. My father sat down next to her and I took the armchair that they kept because it was my favorite seat. My dad had even embroidered my name into the back, though it was usually covered by a blanket thrown across the top.
“So to what do we owe this visit?” My mom asked again, knowing better than to take my sarcasm as an answer.
“I was actually wondering a bit about my biological family,” I confessed to them with an odd amount of guilt and shame in me. I had spent so long not thinking about it that now that I was asking about it, it felt wrong. Like I was betraying my parents or something.
“I told you he’d ask eventually,” Dad said as if he just won a bet.
“I hate it when you’re right,” Mom muttered in response, poking him in the ribs before returning her attention to me. “What do you want to know?”
“Did I have a sister?” I asked, but I could tell by their immediate reaction that the answer was no.
“Goodness no, otherwise we’d have two children. Why? What gave you that idea?” My mom questioned in turn.
“I saw this girl at the café, and she had eyes exactly like mine. Hair kind of like mine too. Mahli suggested she might be a lost sibling or something.”
“Well, to be honest, we don’t know a lot about your biological family,” my dad informed me. “All we were told was that your mother had passed away in childbirth and that your father couldn’t bear to keep you after the event.”
“Maybe she’s a cousin or something on that side!” My mom suggested with a hopeful tone. “Here, I’ll give you the documents from the adoption agency so you can have all the information we do about your biological family.”
She got up and walked out of the room, leaving me alone with my dad. After a moment of silence, he cleared his voice and asked, “so how have you been? Work good?”
“Good enough, nothing really worth mentioning,” I half-answered. Once adulthood had settled in, I found myself with so little to say. I got into a routine and months passed without much change besides the seasons. I no longer had projects to work on, or new classes and topics to think about. It was the same tasks day by day. There wasn’t necessarily anything bad about it, but it felt alien to me. Alien and wrong.
“How about you?” I returned.
“We’ve been good. Looking forward to spring. We’re expecting a couple of lilies to pop up this year, bloom and all. Excited for that,” he told me. There was legitimate excitement in his voice, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was trying to fill the silence. Luckily for him, it wasn’t long until Mom came down the hallway with a folder in hand.
“Found it!” she called out to us. She plopped it down on my lap before taking her seat next to my dad.
“Found it? Did you lose it?” I questioned playfully as my eyes desperately searched the surface of the folder for answers, too unsure to open it just yet.
“Are you going to look at it?” she inquired after a couple moments of me just staring at it.
“It’s a little surreal, that’s all,” I confessed, “to have the papers that made you my parents sitting on my lap…” I took a deep breath and opened up the folder.
The papers were clearly old but well-kept. Most of them were legal stuff that I didn’t bother reading through, assuming it had something to do with their legal responsibilities as guardians and so on. Finally, I found a sheet that described my condition when being adopted.
“Born at 6 pounds at 4:23 am on April 1st, 1993, as Arthur Holtz, with father Richard Holtz and mother Holly Holtz,” the detailed sheet described. “Mother died during childbirth at home, grief-stricken father unable to care for child given the conditions.”
I searched through the sheets for a number to contact my biological father with, but none was to be found. All I had to find him with was his name, which didn’t seem promising. After a few moments of shuffling through the papers, I decided to head home to try and get more answers. I kissed and hugged my parents goodbye, and thought about all the possible ways that stranger could be connected to me. Maybe there was a second baby that they didn’t know about. Maybe she’s my cousin. Or maybe my imagination created the likeness between us.
On the bus home, I updated Mahli with my progress, adding, “it’s weird to see my name as Arthur Holtz and not Arthur Compton.”
“We associate so much meaning to the sounds we call ourselves,” he answered in his usual poetic way of texting, “but knowing of another name does not change who you are.” I could tell he was writing a poem about identity at the time.
“You’ll have a book of poetry ready to go by the time this is done,” I joked.
“I don’t know about that. How long do you intend on pursuing this?”
I knew the question wasn’t meant to be terribly serious, but it struck me. It was a moment of clarity, a moment where I found myself looking in the mirror and asking how long I’m going to be chasing a distraction just to get away from it all. It was a question I didn’t have an answer for, and one I didn’t want to answer.
“We’ll see how far it goes,” I replied instead. “Maybe this will be a dead end and I’ll find out it was probably just a coincidence.”
“Or maybe you’ll expose some government plot that your bio-father was trying to cover up by separating you from him, or protect you from,” he suggested.
“Are you going to start writing novels now?” I joked.
“No, thanks, novelists are the type to talk a lot about nothing at all.”
As I got home and turned on my computer for full-blown research mode, I couldn’t help but to think of his suggestion that my bio-father had separated us for some higher reason. At the end of the day, I was abandoned by him. The idea that it was to prevent some evil plot really made it seem better, even though I had no doubts that I had the best parents I could have had. It was exciting, had more meaning than the explanation the agency provided.
When I searched his name online though, I found more than I had imagined, though I couldn’t be sure if it really was the right guy or not. There were countless new articles about a scientist named Richard Holtz who had gone missing after the death of his wife and partner, a death that many believed wasn’t an accident after all.
But it was too hard to believe that anything else was true, especially when I clicked on one of the many articles and started reading through it. "Physicists Richard Holtz and Holly Holtz gave birth to a child during an experiment on quantum mechanics, authorities reported. The baby was unharmed, but the mother, Holly, passed away in childbirth. Shortly after giving up the child for adoption, Richard Holtz vanished, leading authorities to believe that there was foul play in the experiment that lead to his wife’s death. While a warrant for his arrest is out, he has yet to be spotted. If you have any information about the whereabouts of this man, please contact the police and provide your information."
I had all the information right there in front of me about my birth. My father was a wanted man for killing his wife, after giving me up he ran off, leaving the last remaining member of his family to fend for themselves. It gave me so many answers about things I didn’t really want to know about. I wanted to know if there was another child, a way to contact him that would give me the answer I was looking for, but instead I got a police report with the assertion that he was a murderer on the run.
All of this information and I hadn’t a single clue as to the identity of the lookalike I spotted in the café. It’d be hard to say that it was anything short of coincidence at this point. I was ready to disregard the whole thing until I scrolled down and saw a picture of my mother at the bottom of the article. Surely enough, I found myself looking into a familiar face, one that I could have sworn I saw in a café only a couple days before.
It seemed impossible that it was her though. She died twenty-five years ago, and even if she didn’t, it’s been twenty-five years. There’s no way she’d look like a twenty-five year old after all this time. She’d be at least fifty, if not sixty, since it’s likely the picture was old at the time.
I sat there at my computer for a long time staring at the old picture of my biological mother. My mind couldn’t wrap around the idea that I had seen her just the day before, that this picture was real, that any of this was real. I thought I was going to find out I had a long lost sister, but instead I found out that the woman I thought I saw could be my biological mother who somehow remained un-aged after all these years. Nothing made sense anymore, so I sent it to Mahli to get his opinion, adding, “that’s the woman I saw at the café.”
His response was what you would expect, “are you sure? It says here she died twenty-five years ago.”
“I’m positive. Don’t you see the resemblance?”
“I do, and it’s uncanny. But…” he didn’t finish that text message, leaving just that little bit to know that he had doubts and worries about the whole thing, doubts and worries that he didn’t feel comfortable putting out in the air.
“I’m going back to the café. Maybe she’ll show up again,” I told him.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Isn’t it kind of like chasing a ghost?”
“Is that any better than sitting around here wasting away pining over Solenne after she was clear she wanted nothing to do with me?”
“You’ve got a point there… When are you planning on going? I’ll meet you there.”
“Tomorrow, same time as yesterday?”
“It’s a date.”
I sent him a joking winking face emoji in response. We stopped talking about it then, changing the subject to other things as we usually do, but my mind was somewhere else. Though I can’t say that it wasn’t in a better place than usual. For the first time in forever, I felt like there was something to my life, something interesting that made it worth living, a mystery that only I could solve.
I got to the café long before Mahli. I didn’t want to miss her and I had trouble sleeping out of excitement so I got there a couple hours in advance. It was business as usual at the café, people coming in and out with coffee, some staying to study, write, draw, or read. Someone I didn’t recognize was working so I didn’t have the chance to see Farah again and ask her if she had seen the woman who looked like me again.
When Mahli arrived a full half-hour before we were supposed to meet, he jumped in shock when he saw me already sitting down. He rushed to the table. “Did I get the times wrong? I’m so sorry about that! I could have sworn we met at 1 the other day.”
“Calm down, it’s okay,” I told him in a reassuring tone. “I came a couple hours early because I woke up early and didn’t know what else to do with myself.”
“Oh thank god. I don’t know if I could endure that kind of mistake.”
“You could turn those feelings into a poem. Boom, it’s a profitable thing to feel bad about being late. Imagine that.”
“You have an odd idea of how profitable poetry is,” he chuckled before putting down his big heavy school bag on the chair and motioning at the counter. “I’m going to get something. Want a refill?”
“Sure, thanks.” I handed him my mug and watched him go.
As he was being served by the new girl, the mysterious woman walked in and got in line behind him. I wanted to jump up and talk to her, but I was overcome by nervousness. As much as I was certain that she and I were somehow connected, that there was no way she bore such a resemblance to both me and my bio-mother by coincidence alone, I couldn’t just thrust that on her so aggressively. Instead, I texted Mahli, “she’s right behind you,” only for his phone to vibrate in his backpack on the chair. I sighed and leaned back in my chair, keeping my eyes locked on her, trying to piece together how this could be real.
“What’s with you?” Mahli asked a couple minutes later as he handed me my mug of black coffee. He looked over his shoulder and then turned back to me. “Is that her?”
I nodded. “Recognize her from the picture?”
He shook his head in disbelief. “It’s uncanny. It’s like it’s a picture of her…” He looked back at me. “Alright, I buy it. This is something else entirely.” He paused, still standing with his hot mug in hand. His hand started shaking a little from holding it up for so long.
“Put your drink down and sit,” I reminded him. He glanced back at me and nodded. He carelessly put down his mug, spilling his latte a little on the table, and nearly sat down on his bag, but it was big enough to fight him off.
Without saying a word, he moved it to the floor, sat down, and turned around to stare more at the mysterious stranger. Her gaze seemed like it was about to come in our direction, so the two of us shifted rapidly so as not to get caught staring at a stranger.
“What are we going to do?” he asked me in a hushed tone, leaning across the table.
“I don’t know,” I answered, shaking my head.
“What if you called her over?” he suggested.
“Why don’t you?” I replied.
“You know I couldn’t if I wanted to,” he reminded me, “but maybe she’ll respond to your bio-mom’s name. If she doesn’t, then you can just say she looked like someone you knew and it’s not weird. Or as weird.”
“You’ve thought about these things a lot, haven’t you?” I questioned as my gaze drifted away from him. She was paying. “Alright, fine. I’ll do it.”
I took a deep breath before getting up and calling out, “oh, Holly? Is that you?”
She turned her head in surprise and our eyes locked. “Do I know you?” she asked, with some fear in her tone.
It was at this moment that I realized we hadn’t spoken about what to do if her name was Holly. Panicked and unprepared, I stumbled over my words as I tried to answer her question. “Umm, yes, I mean, no, but…”
“How did you know my name then?” she questioned, eyebrow raised and suspicion in her tone. I stood there petrified, wishing I hadn’t listened to Mahli.
“Sorry, but is this you?” he squealed as he held up his laptop on the picture from the article.
She glanced down at it and her expression shifted radically. “It sure does look like me, doesn’t it?” she commented in surprise and confusion. “I don’t remember that picture though.”
“It’s an old picture of my mother,” I confessed to her, my panicking mind no longer willing to withhold information, just wanting this situation to end.
“And her name is Holly?” she continued to question.
I nodded. “After I saw you in here the other day, and saw your eyes, I decided to look into my biological family, and this is what I found. I don’t know how you look so much like her, or how you have the same name, but…”
“But it’s too weird to be accidental…” she finished my thought. We all stood there in silence. Well, Mahli was sitting and put his laptop back, but quietly. After thinking for a bit, she said, “okay, I’m here with a friend right now. I’m going to bring my drink over there then tell her what just happened, and then come back so we can talk about this more.”
I was in shock (obviously). I desperately wanted to see her eyes, to know what they were trying to say, but she had already denied me that benefit. So I looked around, checking for on-lookers to see how loud I could be. I took a deep breath and tried to hold back the tears that were welling up with all the quiet force of a flower bursting through the soil.
“Why?” I said between poor attempts at not sobbing so pathetically.
“There’s a thousand reasons,” she answered, shaking her head. “But we’re miserable together. I’m your answer for everything, but that’s not how things should be. I’m sick of having to be myself and the rest of you all the time. I shouldn’t have to carry that burden…” She paused. “I had hoped that these weeks apart might have helped with that, but instead all you do is sit around and wait for me to respond to your texts.” She moved to get up.
“Wait, don’t go,” I cried out louder than I should have. She let out a heavy sigh as she looked down at me, eyes concealed by big flashy sunglasses.
“I’m sorry, Arthur. Goodbye.”
I watched powerless as she walked down the stairs onto the street below. She didn’t look back. She just kept walking. I don’t know exactly how long I sat there, my eyes locked on the horizon that had once been graced with her figure, but eventually Farah came by, having been checking the outside table for dishes.
“Arthur? Are you okay?” she asked as she reached over the table and grabbed my long empty mug.
I snapped back to reality, leaving the spiraling thoughts of all the things I had done wrong for another time. I blinked and wiped away the tears that had wet my face without my noticing. I choked out a small fake laugh and nodded.
“Yeah, I’m okay, just spaced out for a while there is all,” I lied.
She gave me a sad knowing look. “How about a refill?” she offered. “On me.”
“It’s okay,” I reassured her. “I-”
“You know what, you’ve never tried anything more interesting on the menu,” she suddenly declared, cutting me off. “I am going to treat you to a cappuccino. Don’t fight it, it’s already been decided. Just stay here and try not to space out anymore. I’ll be right back.”
“Alright…” I muttered. I watched her leave through the corner of my eye, unwilling to move my head much farther from the position that it was in when Solenne left.
When Farah returned with the cappuccino, I was ready to drift off again into sad thoughts of Solenne, but instead she sat down across from me, blocking my vision with her dark brown hair and understanding eyes.
“Shouldn’t you get back to work?” I questioned, a part of me desperate to get rid of her.
“I’m on a break,” she informed me with a small smile. “Figured I’d spend it hanging out with you. Let’s talk. About anything, it doesn’t matter.”
So we talked. At first it was slow coming and difficult, but after a few minutes, we found the stride that we always managed to find. It was nice, freeing, and liberating. For about 15 minutes, I almost forgot about what just happened and found solace in a friend. We haven’t spoken about that day since, but I’m reminded of it every time I go to the cafe. It’s one of the reasons I can still manage to go there after what happened.
“Ready to meet my parents?” Holly asked me as we met at the cafe that fateful early Sunday afternoon.
“I am a little uncomfortable with that question. The last time I met a girl’s parents, well, it didn’t go well,” I answered with a light chuckle.
“Well we’re not dating, so hopefully that will help,” she commented as she led me to her car. “I’m parked just over here. Do you drive?”
“Me? No. Never got around to it. I think I just got used to taking the bus and stuff. Makes it easier not to have as much of a carbon footprint.”
“I’m not sure it counts as a good lifestyle choice when it’s just out of laziness,” she teased, laughing as she unlocked her little white Prius.
“How far is the drive?” I asked as I carefully got into the passenger seat.
“Only about an hour.”
“Only? That’s a while.”
“Oh you haven’t seen anything. This is a big country, lots of places are farther than that. Haven’t you been to literally any other city before? The closest one is like 2 hours away.”
“Maybe when I was a kid?” I answered, realizing that I hadn’t left the city in years. I got settled here and never thought about venturing out. Like a boring person.
“You know there’s a whole world out there, right?” she questioned as we pulled out of the parking lot. “Lots to see and do.”
“I can do basically everything I want here, and I’m pretty content with what I’ve seen.”
“I don’t think I fully understand you,” she said in a joking tone but I could tell she was serious and just avoiding conflict with a new person.
A while of silence passed between us. Well, a while of a radio station occasionally playing songs but mostly their radio host being annoying with poor jokes and the kind of bubbly personality that makes you want to walk away, but I couldn’t cause I was stuck in the car.
The city blur outside gradually changed from tall buildings to suburban neighbourhoods just off of the highway. After a little bit, those become farms, and those farms turn to wilderness. A part of me has always loved the idea of the woods on the outskirts of a city, where the touch of mankind stops and the nature begins again. But in reality, there’s always something behind those trees that we don’t know about, whether that is somebody’s house or a sleeping bear, though the first is more likely.
“So what’s on your mind?” Holly asked about halfway through the long quiet journey. I glanced over at her and shrugged.
“I don’t know. Trees and stuff, I guess,” I answered but my mind had found its way back to Solenne.
“Yeah, sure you are,” she replied, chuckling though there seemed to be a little frustration in it.
“What about you? What are you thinking about?”
“I’m having a lot of second thoughts about this, honestly,” she told me following it with an honest sigh.
I didn’t respond. I knew the whole thing seemed like a bad idea. Is the truth really worth risking her relationship with her parents? I don’t know, yet here we are, preparing to do exactly that. I felt selfish. If it wasn’t for me and my wants, none of this would be happening. She could have just gone on with her life instead of chasing after a truth that might not be worth knowing.
“So what do you think they’ll say?” I questioned instead. “Like when they see me?”
“Do you think we’ll have to tell them about the similarities?” she questioned in return. “Or do you think they’ll look at you and know I wasn’t lying?”
“I have no idea,” I answered. “I don’t know your parents, but I feel like we look enough alike to make anyone do a double-take.” I took a deep breath and decided to get honest. “Look, you don’t have to go through with this. I know I just popped up and started causing trouble. You don’t have to-”
“It’s not only about you,” she reminded me with a sharp tone, her eyes still locked on the road ahead of us. “You may have started this, but they’ve hid my past from me for too long. I deserve to know the truth.”
“Sorry for trying to apologize then,” I said in a confused questioning tone. She briefly glances in my direction and grins.
“Just behave yourself around my parents and we’ll be fine,” she told me in a playful tone. “No loud outbursts, and no insisting anything. I’ll handle it.”
“You got it, Holly,” I agreed, saying her name just to say it. I was still grasping with the idea that she shared her name with my mother, and it was a nice name.
It was another twenty minutes of driving once we pulled off of the highway. Farms and fields covered the landscape, with a couple misplaced looking mountains far in the distance, two twin peaks among an otherwise flat land. They were still covered in snow, two white giants above the spring melt.
She pulled into a dirt driveway and motioned at the house at the end of the ridiculously long driveway. “That’s home. Or my childhood home. It’s not much, but it did the job.”
“It’s nice,” I said sincerely, looking at the well-kept farmhouse surrounded by apple trees getting ready to grow apples. Just past it is a small shed where the tools are kept, and out in the now-wild field on the right, a broken and beaten down barn stood ready to collapse.
“You think it’s nice now, but my dad’s really hard headed so they never got air conditioning and still heat the house with a wood stove. You do not want to be here in a summer like the one we had last year,” she informed me, reminding me of the heat that had separated Solenne and I.
I pushed those thoughts far out of my mind as I slipped out of her little white car. The spring sun was right at the top of the sky, trying to melt away all the snow as fast as possible so life can continue on again. Some birds I can’t name were chirping and singing from somewhere, but I couldn’t say where. Their songs just echoed through the air until they found me.
“Are you ready for this?” Holly questioned with the sun making her pale brown hair look almost blonde.
“I don’t think it matters if I am,” I responded with a chuckle. “We’re here. They’re bound to notice us standing out here eventually.”
She chuckled. “I like that you’re keeping the humor alive. You look nervous.”
“I think I’ve explained this to you before. Last time it didn’t go well.”
“What happened? Just a brief version before we go in.”
I didn’t want to tell her the brief version, but there was no point in hiding it. “Her parents thought I was a deadbeat with no goals of my own.”
“Wow, they figured that out with the first meeting? That’s rough,” she said sympathetically. “Is it true though?”
“I guess it was,” I answered with a shrug. “Let’s go in.”
She nodded and led me to the front door. She knocked, and then entered. I awkwardly followed after her. The interior of the house looked like a stereotypical grandparent’s house. Old photographs in frames dotted the wall, from war photos to family photos. The moment we entered, I noticed a bunch of them leading up the classic wooden staircase on the right that were just pictures of Holly as she grew up. If she was actually my mother sent forward in time and un-aged, then her parents must have gone through the same thing.
“Hey, it’s me! I brought a friend over!” she called out into the house, buzzing with the noise from a TV just out of range to make out what’s on it.
An older woman of about seventy appeared in the doorway at the end of the hallway. She had curly grey hair, was wearing a knitted sweater and old loose jeans. She was a thin woman and not terribly tall either. She wasn’t wearing glasses, but besides that she was almost a cookie-cutter grandma. A look of surprise shot across her face when she saw me pop up from behind Holly.
“Is this..?” she muttered before a smaller likewise old and grey man wandered up behind her, poking his head over her shoulder.
Part 4: Meeting the Parents
Part 5: Coffee with the Ex
We set a date and two days later, the four of us met up at the diner down the street. It had a retro style going on, just like every diner seemed to need to. It was a popular place, but we were going a little later in the night so we missed most of the crowd. Mahli was the first one to get there, even though we both agreed to show up together, he didn’t want to have even me waiting.
“Hey, I figured you’d be here,” I commented with a chuckle before looking at him more closely. “You’re all dressed up. I’d recognize your nice shoes anywhere, and is that a blazer you’re wearing?” I took a closer look. “And a little bit of eyeliner. Man, you must really want to make a good impression on her.”
He immediately blushed and turned away from me. “I just… I just thought that it was appropriate to make myself as presentable as possible. I don’t want to make them feel like they’re not worth the effort,” he said in an attempt to defend himself from someone who wasn’t attacking him.
“Looks like you’re not the only one…” I muttered as I looked past him and saw the two girls walking towards us.
Both Holly and Evette were more properly dressed up. They had their makeup done just the way they like it, and coordinated their outfits. Evette was wearing a simple red dress with a black leather jacket, and Holly was wearing ripped black jeans with a slightly oversized grey sweater on top. I was the only one who came as if it was no more than a usual trip to the coffee shop.
“Wow,” I said as they drew near, approaching them with a smile on my face. “The two of you look nice!”
“We know,” Evette replied with a grin.
“Well you’re not the only ones,” I told her. “Not me, of course, but Mahli thought the same as you. Look at him.”
“No, it’s really nothing, I just-” he muttered as I stepped back and pushed him in front of me. He looked up at Evette shyly and smiled. “Hi.”
“You weren’t kidding,” Holly said as she examined Mahli. “You really are the only slob here, Arthur.” This seemed to take some of the pressure of off Mahli, who laughed along with the other two at my expense.
We went in and had a pretty wonderful time at dinner. Mahli and Evette were hitting it off decent enough. It seemed like she adjusted the way she acted to accommodate the way he is more. I thought that was sweet. He was right about her though. Exuberant was definitely an accurate description. Sometimes I was worried I should feel embarrassed because she was so unabashedly herself. But it was refreshing.
At the end of diner, Mahli and I offered to walk them back to their car, just for the sake of conversation. Mahli walked up in front with Evette, and I watched from behind with Holly. All we could hear of their conversation was mumbles and the occasional outburst of laughter or otherwise.
“So this went well,” Holly said with a grin on her face.
“I think so too,” I responded, smiling and looking up at the clouded night sky above us. I let out a deep sigh and looked over at her. “Look, I’m sorry about the other day. I know that I was being a little unreasonable. This matters even if I’m with someone.”
“Thank you,” she said with a knowing tone, “but it’s okay. I think we have about as many answers as we’ll be able to get. And that’s something we can’t control.”
“So have we landed on the census that we’re siblings?” I questioned.
She took a moment and then shrugged. “I guess so. Not like it’d hurt to assume that much. From what we know, it’s the most likely scenario.” She gently punches me in the arm. “Besides, I think I’d like having a brother. If you behave yourself, at least.”
“I’ll try not to be too much trouble,” I told her before looking ahead of us and seeing that the pair had disappeared. “Um, where did they go?”
Holly looked around. “Maybe they ran ahead to get some more alone time?” she suggested.
I searched the area for any sign of them but the city streets weren’t even crowded enough to conceal them. I looked behind us, just in case. A man was sprinting towards us, his face concealed by darkness and a hood. Instinctively, I grabbed Holly by the arm and pulled her out of the way.
“What?” she yelped as she spun towards me. The man lunged at the spot where she had been and fell to the ground, his knife falling out of his hands and sliding into the street.
We stood there and stared at him for a moment before he scrambled to his feet. We didn’t say anything, but our eyes met with his before he ran off, leaving his knife behind on the city street. It was an older man, of at least fifty, with a crazed look in his eyes. I couldn’t help but feel like none of this was an accident.
“Are you okay?” I asked Holly after he was fully out of sight.
“What just happened? Who was that man?” she asked in response, clearly shaking from the event.
“I don’t know…” I muttered, staring down the street where he had disappeared to. “But I think he was waiting for us.”
“What?” she exclaimed. “What makes you think that?”
“The look in his eyes. There was something in them that made me uneasy…” I explained as I headed towards the knife that he had dropped. “Besides, the chances of randomly being attacked on the side of the road by a stranger like that are ridiculously low…”
“We should call the police,” she reminded me.
“Good idea,” I said as I stared at the knife. It was a surprisingly long knife. It wasn’t from a kitchen and wasn’t a pocket knife. It wasn’t something just anyone would carry on them for no reason.
“What’s keeping you guys?” Evette asked as she crossed the street from the parking lot with Mahli trailing behind her.
“We were attacked,” I answered. “Holly’s calling the police right now.”
“Oh my god, are you okay?” Mahli questioned with a louder tone than I’ve ever heard from him.
“We’re fine. I happened to notice him at the last moment. He tripped and dropped his knife before running off.” I took a deep breath. “At the very most, we’re a little shaken up. Where did you two get to? All of a sudden you weren’t in front of us anymore.”
“Sorry…” Mahli muttered. “Evette challenged me to a race back to the car.”
“He couldn’t resist the challenge,” Evette said with a proud and somewhat silly voice. “Even though he didn’t know what the car looked like.”
“Wishing I didn’t agree to it now…” he muttered under his breath.
“It’s okay,” I assured him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “If you were here, it wouldn’t have gone much differently. No one got hurt and he ran off. It’s okay.”
The four of us hung out until the police came by. It was only a couple of minutes even though it wasn’t an emergency. Downtown always had at least one patrol unit around just in case. They collected all of our statements. I pointed them towards the knife, told them my suspicions about it not being a random attack, and they took it in as evidence, but were very clear in saying, “these sorts of things happen from time to time. He was likely having an episode and lashing out at the first person around.” Then they added. “We’ll do our due diligence and check what little prints we can pull from the knife against our records.”
Because of what happened, Holly insisted that she drive the two of us home. We were mostly silent the whole time, with Holly and I sitting up front and Evette and Mahli sitting in the back together. Mahli was the first to get out, followed by Evette. Once we had driven a bit from Evette’s apartment building, Holly pulled over.
“What are you pulling over for?” I questioned in a concerned tone. “Are you feeling alright?”
“I just realized where I saw that man’s face before…” she muttered before pulling out her phone. She was on it for a moment or two before holding up a picture of a man in his 30’s. “Do you recognize him?”
“That’s… my biological father…” I answered in surprise, realizing that I had barely even looked at his picture this whole time. “Those eyes…”
The eyes weren’t as unique as my mother’s, as ours, but they were unique enough to be identified. If not for the eyes, everything else looked like him. If not more worn and crazed.
“So let’s say that was him,” I posited with some doubt in my tone. I didn’t want to fall into the trap of attributing everything to our personal story, “what does that mean for us?”
“It means he’s still alive…” Holly muttered. “And that he does not want us alive.”
“Maybe it’s because we’ve been looking into him?” I suggested.
She shook her head. “I don’t think he would care if someone was investigating him if he had successfully fallen off the face of the earth…”
I knew what she was about to suggest, what she was afraid to think. That he resurfaced because he found out she was still alive and intended on finishing the job. But I wanted to believe that there was something better to it, something not as sad, though I had no other options.
“I guess that could be true.”
“Only one way to find out…” she muttered before looking over at me with a determined look in her eyes. “We’re going to draw him out again. If it was just a random attack, then it won’t be an issue. But if we’re ready for him, we can catch him and find the answers that we were trying to get this whole time.”
I was not in the mood to go chasing after a guy who may or may not exist anymore. I just wanted to go home and try to forget that it had ever happened. But as I looked into Holly’s eyes - my eyes - I saw something that I hadn’t seen in my own in so long. It was what had always separated her from me, the thing that made her gaze seem so uncanny and uncomfortable. My eyes were broken and defeated, trying desperately to cling to something to avoid falling apart entirely. She wasn’t a fragmented mess. She was put together. A force to be reckoned with.
“This is a crazy idea,” I reminded her before letting out a defeated sigh. I knew that there was only one good answer here, one answer that could help me grow as a person. “But I guess we have to do it.”
“That’s the spirit!” she exclaimed with an odd amount of excitement. “I’ll bring you home and then we can plan another time to meet to talk.”
“Why not do it over the phone?” I questioned. “Or messenger pigeon?”
“How would he have known that we were downtown tonight? How would he have known where we were?” she reminded me. “I think he might have found a way to listen in on our conversations and read our text messages.”
“That, or it was a coincidence,” I suggested, but immediately felt foolish.
“I don’t think he was just wandering the streets with a knife like that hoping that he’d bump into us,” she told me as she ignited the engine.
“Yeah, you’re probably right about that.” I admitted defeat, but I couldn’t help but to wonder how he would have been able to do that. It wasn’t like he was a member of a spy agency or anything, or even someone who studied computer engineering. He was a physicist, not a hacker.
I waved goodbye to Holly as I watched her drive away from my apartment building. Once she was gone, I ran up to the front door, slipped in, and headed to my apartment. Despite the time, there was a surprising amount of noise in the hall, probably because it was the weekend and people liked to socialize. Holly and I planned our next meeting to be at her apartment, a place I had yet to see that was a bit further out than my own from downtown. Explained why she drove everywhere.
I was hanging at Solenne’s before our planned meeting. Things were still kind of weird between us, but they were getting better. “Do you want another drink?” she offered me as she got up and headed for the kitchen.
“No, I think I’m good, thanks,” I responded. “Besides, I gotta head out soon to meet with Holly.”
“Oh yeah, that’s a thing now, isn’t it?” she replied in a deadpan tone as she disappeared behind the kitchen doorway. “Why are you two meeting anyways?”
I didn’t want to tell her the truth. It felt too unbelievable that she would assume I was lying and that was the last thing I wanted. “We’re going to try to figure out a way to find our father,” I explained.
“Why can’t you do that over text or something?” she questioned. She didn’t want me to leave.
“Holly said she found something that I should see instead of her just telling me about it,” I lied. “Besides, it’s probably a good idea for the two of us to get to know each other in person, since we are siblings and all.”
“I better not find out she’s not actually your sister and you’ve been lying to me this whole time,” she grumbled as she sat back down in her seat with a gin and lemonade in hand. “Though that would explain why you haven’t introduced me to her yet.”
“I haven’t even brought her to my adoptive parents yet,” I said in my defense. “We’re going to try to sort out this biological family stuff out first before branching out.”
“That’s weird,” she said in a disapproving tone.
“Right, well…” I slapped my knees and got to my feet. “I should probably get going. The bus ride is decently long from here and all.”
“Have fun with your sister,” she muttered with a fake smile on her face.
“I will, thanks,” I said as sincerely as I could muster in the situation.
Once out of the apartment, I picked up my pace and hurried out of the building. I could feel my face turning red, my heart-rate increasing. Who was she to question my every move? I would never cheat on her, and she should have known that by then. I was willing to give her everything. Why couldn’t she see that?
Holly’s apartment was in a poorer part of town, similar to my own neighbourbood. It was filled with old brick four-story apartment complexes surrounded by either street or parking lot. I could count the amount of trees on one hand, and they were all on a steep hill where no cars could park. Around her own building, there were a number of stumps, which made me wonder if something had happened to get them all cut down.
I could hear some children playing soccer in one of the parking lots. Down the road was another few kids on little bikes with brightly colored helmets on their heads. The fresh spring air was welcoming everyone out into the world again after the long winter we had. We got a night of snow a few nights prior, but it was warm enough during the day to melt it all away and pretend that summer was closer than it really was.
I slid into the door of Holly’s apartment building, only to find the second door left ajar with a sign on it reading, “do not close”. Unsure about entering without permission, I tried to buzz her apartment, but it seemed like the buzzer was broken. My first apartment was like this, a little worn but good enough I guessed. I slipped in and headed down the stairs to apartment 2.
I knocked and waited. The door opened, and I was expecting to find myself looking into my own eyes but instead some other young woman was in her place.
“Oh, sorry,” I said instinctively. “I must have gotten the address wrong.”
“You didn’t!” Holly called out from deep inside the apartment. She ran around the corner of the hallway. “That’s my roommate, Audrey!”
Audrey was a bit taller than Holly and had auburn hair in a pixie cut. Her eyes were a mix of brown and blue, like the horizon split by a coast on one side and ocean on the other.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said with a polite smile, extending out a hand.
“You too,” she replied in a deadpan tone before turning around and walking back into her apartment. Holly slipped by her and ushered me in.
“Sorry if she was a bit cold,” she apologized quietly as I took off my shoes. “She is not a fan of strangers. Especially not strange men.”
“That’s fair, I think,” I answered with a relaxed grin. “It’s really no problem. Just a little confusing.”
“So welcome to Casa a Holly and Audrey,” she said to me as she motioned to the nearby living room like a real-estate agent.
“The name could use some work,” I joked, chuckling.
Unlike Solenne’s apartment, Holly and Audrey’s was filled with things. A good portion of space by the balcony door, which was dug into the ground since their apartment was somewhat underground, was filled with various plants of all sorts, many of them tropical.
It was clear by the living room alone that they decorated with what they could find and made the best with what they had. Their living room lamp looked like an antique. A lot of their furniture had at least some worn wood on it, making the whole room feel kind of warm and cozy. It was a little messy, but clean enough.
“I thought about cleaning up before you got here,” she explained to me. “But then I figured I could spend that time relaxing instead.”
“Living a stressful life?” I joked.
She shrugged her shoulders. “I mean, we were attacked on the street the other day. That was stressful.”
“You make a good point there. So did you want to plan here?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I have stuff set up in my bedroom, but first you have to promise not to judge.”
“Judge what?”
“How messy it is. The planning got a little out of hand,” she answered.
I laughed. “You have no idea how much of a mess my room is. I won’t judge you.”
She led me to her room, and surely enough it was a mess greater than I had expected. Crumpled and flattened papers lay all over the floor, and her blankets were laying all around the base of the bed, which had been overtaken by a number of papers and pictures. I immediately recognized the two pictures. One of them was of my mother, and the other of my father, well, my biological parents.
“Oh wow, you weren’t kidding,” I muttered as I tried to enter the room without stepping on too many papers, worried I might ruin something carefully placed. “I didn’t expect the planning to look so intense or chaotic.”
“Yeah, well, we have to be ready for someone to come and try to murder us, so I wanted to try to make sure we were prepared for everything.”
“I’m pretty sure this is a fire hazard,” I commented as I made my way over to the bed and looked at her oddly formed plan scattered all over it. “Okay, so you’re going to have to explain this to me.”
“I got really into the details here, but basically what we’re going to do is try to recreate the other day. Obviously not exactly, but we’ll go out later at night to a place downtown with Mahli and Evette. But we’ll be the ones in front, and they’ll hang back and look out for him. We’ll walk as normal, and when he shows up, they’ll let us know, and we’ll try to catch him.”
“What if this time he brings something more than a knife?” I questioned.
She let out a sigh. “I couldn’t figure out a single scenario where he has a gun and a clear shot that doesn’t end with the shot going off.”
“It’s like Chekhov's gun,” I joked, only to get a sharp glance from her. “Maybe we should pretend like he has a gun and try not to get him to attack us again. It’s starting to sound like an awful plan.”
She let out a sigh. “I know… I just want to know the truth, why he wants me dead. Why he left me there…”
I put a hand on her shoulder. Any deviation from the plan could mean utter disaster, but I couldn’t think of another plan. I couldn’t think of a way to make her feel better any short of confronting him and finding the truth.
“How about we pick up all these extra papers and then talk to the others about the plan?” I suggested, motioning a the floor that was making me uncomfortable.
“No, it’s okay,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll take care of it later. Do you want a cup of tea?”
I nodded. “I could go for one, yeah.”
We left the room and headed into the kitchen, where we found her roommate picking at a sad looking cactus on the windowsill.
“Why don’t you just accept that he’s never going to recover?” Holly asked her as she brushed by her to get a couple of mugs from the cupboards.
“He’s not dead yet,” Audrey replied. “There’s always hope. No point in just letting him go without a fight. Now if only I knew what was wrong…” She looked up and saw me standing there. “You a plant guy by any chance?”
“I know a couple things,” I answered with a shrug. “But it looks like you’d know more than I would.”
“Well, it’s worth a shot,” she admitted with a grim tone. “What do you think is wrong with it?”
The cactus was yellow and almost swollen. It was withering, that was for sure, but it was a cactus. What could kill it besides a lack of sunlight and water? So I said that.
“That’s just it,” she said with a sigh, leaning back onto the counter, dangerously close to the kettle’s spout. “I water this guy every week, and he doesn’t leave the windowsill. We’ve only had him a month or so. I don’t get how he’s already dying.”
“Aren’t cacti supposed to get watered only once every few weeks?” I questioned, prompting a wide-eyed expression to cross her face.
“I can’t believe I forgot that. Jesus Christ, how dumb am I?” she said in a grumpy mood before placing the cactus back on the windowsill. “Hey, there’s some dude out there.”
“So? People are allowed in the yard,” Holly questioned in response, not even bothering to look.
“I think he’s holding a gas can though… Look. He’s walking around all weird.”
Holly leaned towards the window. “It looks like he’s pouring something out of it…”
I’d like to say that our minds clicked and we realized what was going on before anything happened, but we didn’t. We were just confused until a fire appeared all along the walls of the apartment.
“Oh shit!” Audrey exclaimed. She grabbed the cactus and ran for the fire alarm. She hopped up and pressed the button on it, initiating the test. The apartment was filled with a beeping noise as the three of us ran to get out before the fire could find a way in.
Just as we got to the front door, the sound of breaking windows echoed through the apartment. We didn’t have time to investigate. We ran out into the shared hallway and up the stairs, only to find that both of the entrances were covered in flames. The glass doors that used to show the outside world were just blue, orange, and red hot. The flames hadn’t made their way in yet, but it was only a matter of time before they did.
“Why did you come here then?” I questioned as I stared him down. I didn’t trust him. How could I?
She
half-smiled. I returned it and got out of the car. Just before she
drove away, I noticed the quantum flux device resting in the side of her
car door. I didn’t know what to think about that at first. My mind was
spinning and dizzy. I just wanted to sleep, to lie down and turn off my
brain for a bit. I slugged my way into my apartment, fell onto my bed,
and gave myself to the darkness.
“Yeah, I figured as much,” I said with a sigh. There was something about it that was sadder than when Solenne broke up with me here almost a year ago. No one expects to say this to a sibling.
“A car came flying at us,” I told her with bated breath. I looked out of the hole in the wall at the little bit of grass leading up to the window. “There are even tire tracks…” I muttered as I stepped back and away from Holly.
When it happened, my world came crashing down around me in a cacophony of screams and tears. I would have never admitted it, but I thought my future was with her, with Solenne. I put so much importance on our relationship that for months later, it haunted me and tormented me. So much time was spent in front of the mirror, staring at the dying stars of my eyes, searching for something worth saving. I missed her, but most of all, I missed the way she looked at me.
That particular afternoon as I stared at my clean but wet rat self in the mirror, I wouldn’t have guessed that I was so wrong about everything, that a couple hours later I would meet someone that would upset the very fabric of my reality. If I had known in advance, maybe I would have cut my long pale brown hair that looked like it belonged to an anime protagonist, or found a razer and got my beard off of my neck. But I guess there is a beauty in not knowing when your life is about to turn around. It could happen in any moment, at any place. There could be a moment of clarity, or a familiar stranger at a café.
Winter was only just passing then. Piles of snow rested on every lawn, only roads and roofs were cleared, water running down the hills and down the drains, a constant babbling brook wherever you went. The buds had yet to brave the cold and appear on the trees, and only little patches of brown grass could be seen in places where the snow had been thin. The birds had returned, though mostly crows and seagulls could be heard in the city.
It was sunny that day, and warm compared to what we had gotten used to. People were out on every street, whether it meant kids biking around on the wet roads, or older couples going for walks now that they can. Some smaller children were bundled up in winter jackets by their cautious and caring parents, which they promptly abandoned the moment they were out of sight. The air was fresh, rejuvenating, and welcoming. It was a reminder that every winter comes to an end, a herald of the summer to come.
The café I was meeting Mahli at was in the heart of downtown, but in an older district. The building itself dated back a couple hundred years or so, built of brick, stone, and now-degrading wood. Most of the other ones nearby had been demolished to build office buildings or parking lots, but this one was declared a historic site before that could happen, making it this little two story brick home surrounded by a world its builders would have never imagined possible. Mahli called it poetic, a sanctuary amongst the rush and panic of the modern day. I just thought it was cozy with good coffee.
As I approached, I spotted Mahli reading away through the window. He stopped for a moment to push up his big round hipster glasses. I couldn’t see what he was reading, but I guessed it was probably some romantic poetry. He’s a sucker for it, and when he’s unsure about things, he reads it for inspiration or clarity.
I slipped in and went straight to his table by the front window, my favorite spot. He didn’t notice me right away, so I casually placed my hand on the page he was reading. Initially surprised, he looked up at me and then shook his head.
“Glad to see you,” he said sincerely, but the phrase made me uneasy. We never spoke like that when we were younger, but once we became adults those cookie-cutter polite phrases suddenly were everywhere.
“You too, been a while,” I answered before glancing over my shoulder at the counter. “I’m going to go order something. I’ll be right back.”
“Sure thing."
“Well look who it is,” a familiar voice called out to me from behind the barista counter. I peered over and saw the always friend Farah. She made her way to the cash and smiled at me. “And here I thought you found yourself a new café and we’d never see you again.”
“Actually it was Mahli’s idea to come here,” I joked playfully. “I just haven’t been out much in a while. It’s basically just work and groceries.”
“Well, welcome back to the world of writers and students hanging out for hours, what can I get you? The usual strongest coffee we have?”
“You know me so well.” I chuckled and nodded.
“It’s the only thing I’ve ever seen you order. Maybe I don’t know you at all, and you’re just boring.”
“Ouch,” I said, clutching my heart in feigned pain.
She laughed and rolled her eyes at me as she often did. She handed me the coffee, I handed her exact change (plus tip), and headed back to Mahli’s table. I walked over, my eyes locked on my mug, careful not to spill a drop. As I placed the mug down next to one of his books, I noticed it was a book of poetry by William Blake.
“I thought Blake wasn’t really a romantic poet?” I asked, wondering why Mahli’s even reading it.
“He’s not, but I thought some change of pace might help with the writing,” he explained with his usual quiet tone. The first time we met, it took me three tries to hear what his name was because he was so hushed about it. “Haven’t written a line in weeks.”
“At least your life doesn’t depend on your poetry,” I reminded him, hopeful that it would relieve some of the pressure off of him.
He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess you’re right…” He shuffled his papers together, shut and stacked his books. “So how have you been?”
Our conversation continued on like that for a little while. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, the truth was that the dreams of Solenne had stopped but I found myself missing them. Mahli tried to be comforting, to give me some hope, but sometimes words can never be enough.
As I sipped the last drops of my coffee, my eyes were drawn to a figure that suddenly appeared through the door. It was a woman of about my age with a messy pale brown ponytail. I don’t know exactly what caught my eye about her, but it was enough that I wasn’t paying attention when putting my mug down. Distracted, I let go of the mug and it fell to the ground, shattering with a loud crash.
Everyone’s eyes suddenly shifted to me, including hers. That was the first time I saw Holly’s all-too-familiar eyes. Like mine, they were a dark mahogany with a ring of orange around the pupil like some sort of solar eclipse. It was like looking in the mirror, like all of a sudden my reflection had come to life and left to get coffee.
“Is everything okay?” Farah asked in a concerned tone as she ran over with the broom, pulling my attention off of the familiar stranger.
“Sorry, I thought my hand was over the table,” I apologized, getting to my feet and sweeping up some of the ceramic pieces with my foot.
“It’s alright! Accidents happen,” she assured me as she gently pushed me to the side so she could properly sweep up the mess.
Once that was all sorted out, I looked around for the stranger with my eyes, but she was nowhere to be found. It was like she just popped into existence and right back out of it. Or maybe that was just my imagination acting up.
“Are you alright? You’ve been somewhere else for a while,” Mahli questioned after a while of me clearly not paying attention to anything.
“There was a woman here just as I dropped my mug who had eyes just like mine,” I told him with that tone in my voice that implied some greater purpose.
“Do you have any lost siblings?”
I shrugged. “I guess it’s possible. It’s not like I knew my parents or anything. Maybe my mom knows about it.”
“Worth asking. Who knows? Maybe you just spotted your long lost sister.” A look of excitement crossed his face, a flash of inspiration. “I hope if it’s okay if I write a poem about that.”
“Of
course, poetic license and all that,” I answered with a smile as I
quietly planned a visit to my parents’ house. It had been a while since I
last saw them, mostly just because I didn’t want them to see what a
mess I had become.
The next morning I dusted off my razor and trimmed down my beard to make myself more presentable. Good parents will love their child regardless of how they look, but it’s always nice not to have them worry about you. I took a bus out to their little suburban home on the east end of the city. It’s not where I grew up, but my parents had a way of making any place feel like home.
It was a small bungalow, one that looks like it could be a converted trailer from the road. Instead of a lawn, my father had put together a wildlife garden of sorts, but had to tone it down because the neighbours thought wild plants left to live was unkempt.
A stone path led from the driveway up to the front door, a nice little addition my father did after getting rid of the standard looking concrete slabs that were all the rage in the 90’s or something along those lines. On the side of the house, not far from the side door was the garbage containers along with their compost bin that fed most of their plants in the backyard. My parents seemed so normal to me growing up, but it was only once I hit school did I realize how radical they were. Since I was young, they were open about the fact that I was adopted, that they weren’t my biological parents, but that never seemed to matter to me. Beyond that, for a while they were the only people who thought having vegetable gardens shouldn’t be illegal, and until other people thought the same, had to fight just to keep their single tomato plant in the backyard of my childhood home.
All these things flew through my mind as I walked up to their front door, mostly unannounced. It’s just that for so much of my life I didn’t care who my biological family was. Now suddenly, I was coming to them to try and figure it out, all because I saw someone at a café that I thought could have been another version of myself. I was chasing after imaginary geese ,but it was a welcome distraction from the cycle of self-hatred that I had fallen into. For once, my whole life didn’t seem to revolve around Solenne and the pain associated. There was a mystery to be had, and an investigation only I could undertake. There was more to life
My dad answered the door with his burly hairy arms, thick red mustache, and dirt on his knees. “Well, look who it is!” he exclaimed happily before patting me on the shoulder and welcoming me in. “Well don’t just stand there. Come on in, son!”
My mom came around the corner with her round black reading glasses on. She had a round face with shoulder-length brown hair that somehow hadn't turned grey yet. “It’s so nice to see you!” she cried out as she wrapped her arms around me in a tight embrace. “What brings you to us today?”
“Can’t I just visit you whenever?” I questioned jokingly. She side-eyed me and let out a playful sigh.
“Sometimes I regret letting you pick up on sarcasm. You’ve been a little smart-ass since.”
“A loving little smart-ass, at least,” I added as I took off my shoes and followed the two of them into the adjacent living room. “So why are you covered in dirt, Dad? Doing work out back?”
He glanced down at himself and seemed to have a moment of concern. “I didn’t realize I had so much of it on myself,” he admitted. “I had been working on the crawlspace, and happened to come out to grab a snack when you knocked.”
My mom plopped down on the couch. My father sat down next to her and I took the armchair that they kept because it was my favorite seat. My dad had even embroidered my name into the back, though it was usually covered by a blanket thrown across the top.
“So to what do we owe this visit?” My mom asked again, knowing better than to take my sarcasm as an answer.
“I was actually wondering a bit about my biological family,” I confessed to them with an odd amount of guilt and shame in me. I had spent so long not thinking about it that now that I was asking about it, it felt wrong. Like I was betraying my parents or something.
“I told you he’d ask eventually,” Dad said as if he just won a bet.
“I hate it when you’re right,” Mom muttered in response, poking him in the ribs before returning her attention to me. “What do you want to know?”
“Did I have a sister?” I asked, but I could tell by their immediate reaction that the answer was no.
“Goodness no, otherwise we’d have two children. Why? What gave you that idea?” My mom questioned in turn.
“I saw this girl at the café, and she had eyes exactly like mine. Hair kind of like mine too. Mahli suggested she might be a lost sibling or something.”
“Well, to be honest, we don’t know a lot about your biological family,” my dad informed me. “All we were told was that your mother had passed away in childbirth and that your father couldn’t bear to keep you after the event.”
“Maybe she’s a cousin or something on that side!” My mom suggested with a hopeful tone. “Here, I’ll give you the documents from the adoption agency so you can have all the information we do about your biological family.”
She got up and walked out of the room, leaving me alone with my dad. After a moment of silence, he cleared his voice and asked, “so how have you been? Work good?”
“Good enough, nothing really worth mentioning,” I half-answered. Once adulthood had settled in, I found myself with so little to say. I got into a routine and months passed without much change besides the seasons. I no longer had projects to work on, or new classes and topics to think about. It was the same tasks day by day. There wasn’t necessarily anything bad about it, but it felt alien to me. Alien and wrong.
“How about you?” I returned.
“We’ve been good. Looking forward to spring. We’re expecting a couple of lilies to pop up this year, bloom and all. Excited for that,” he told me. There was legitimate excitement in his voice, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was trying to fill the silence. Luckily for him, it wasn’t long until Mom came down the hallway with a folder in hand.
“Found it!” she called out to us. She plopped it down on my lap before taking her seat next to my dad.
“Found it? Did you lose it?” I questioned playfully as my eyes desperately searched the surface of the folder for answers, too unsure to open it just yet.
“Are you going to look at it?” she inquired after a couple moments of me just staring at it.
“It’s a little surreal, that’s all,” I confessed, “to have the papers that made you my parents sitting on my lap…” I took a deep breath and opened up the folder.
The papers were clearly old but well-kept. Most of them were legal stuff that I didn’t bother reading through, assuming it had something to do with their legal responsibilities as guardians and so on. Finally, I found a sheet that described my condition when being adopted.
“Born at 6 pounds at 4:23 am on April 1st, 1993, as Arthur Holtz, with father Richard Holtz and mother Holly Holtz,” the detailed sheet described. “Mother died during childbirth at home, grief-stricken father unable to care for child given the conditions.”
I searched through the sheets for a number to contact my biological father with, but none was to be found. All I had to find him with was his name, which didn’t seem promising. After a few moments of shuffling through the papers, I decided to head home to try and get more answers. I kissed and hugged my parents goodbye, and thought about all the possible ways that stranger could be connected to me. Maybe there was a second baby that they didn’t know about. Maybe she’s my cousin. Or maybe my imagination created the likeness between us.
On the bus home, I updated Mahli with my progress, adding, “it’s weird to see my name as Arthur Holtz and not Arthur Compton.”
“We associate so much meaning to the sounds we call ourselves,” he answered in his usual poetic way of texting, “but knowing of another name does not change who you are.” I could tell he was writing a poem about identity at the time.
“You’ll have a book of poetry ready to go by the time this is done,” I joked.
“I don’t know about that. How long do you intend on pursuing this?”
I knew the question wasn’t meant to be terribly serious, but it struck me. It was a moment of clarity, a moment where I found myself looking in the mirror and asking how long I’m going to be chasing a distraction just to get away from it all. It was a question I didn’t have an answer for, and one I didn’t want to answer.
“We’ll see how far it goes,” I replied instead. “Maybe this will be a dead end and I’ll find out it was probably just a coincidence.”
“Or maybe you’ll expose some government plot that your bio-father was trying to cover up by separating you from him, or protect you from,” he suggested.
“Are you going to start writing novels now?” I joked.
“No, thanks, novelists are the type to talk a lot about nothing at all.”
As I got home and turned on my computer for full-blown research mode, I couldn’t help but to think of his suggestion that my bio-father had separated us for some higher reason. At the end of the day, I was abandoned by him. The idea that it was to prevent some evil plot really made it seem better, even though I had no doubts that I had the best parents I could have had. It was exciting, had more meaning than the explanation the agency provided.
When I searched his name online though, I found more than I had imagined, though I couldn’t be sure if it really was the right guy or not. There were countless new articles about a scientist named Richard Holtz who had gone missing after the death of his wife and partner, a death that many believed wasn’t an accident after all.
But it was too hard to believe that anything else was true, especially when I clicked on one of the many articles and started reading through it. "Physicists Richard Holtz and Holly Holtz gave birth to a child during an experiment on quantum mechanics, authorities reported. The baby was unharmed, but the mother, Holly, passed away in childbirth. Shortly after giving up the child for adoption, Richard Holtz vanished, leading authorities to believe that there was foul play in the experiment that lead to his wife’s death. While a warrant for his arrest is out, he has yet to be spotted. If you have any information about the whereabouts of this man, please contact the police and provide your information."
I had all the information right there in front of me about my birth. My father was a wanted man for killing his wife, after giving me up he ran off, leaving the last remaining member of his family to fend for themselves. It gave me so many answers about things I didn’t really want to know about. I wanted to know if there was another child, a way to contact him that would give me the answer I was looking for, but instead I got a police report with the assertion that he was a murderer on the run.
All of this information and I hadn’t a single clue as to the identity of the lookalike I spotted in the café. It’d be hard to say that it was anything short of coincidence at this point. I was ready to disregard the whole thing until I scrolled down and saw a picture of my mother at the bottom of the article. Surely enough, I found myself looking into a familiar face, one that I could have sworn I saw in a café only a couple days before.
It seemed impossible that it was her though. She died twenty-five years ago, and even if she didn’t, it’s been twenty-five years. There’s no way she’d look like a twenty-five year old after all this time. She’d be at least fifty, if not sixty, since it’s likely the picture was old at the time.
I sat there at my computer for a long time staring at the old picture of my biological mother. My mind couldn’t wrap around the idea that I had seen her just the day before, that this picture was real, that any of this was real. I thought I was going to find out I had a long lost sister, but instead I found out that the woman I thought I saw could be my biological mother who somehow remained un-aged after all these years. Nothing made sense anymore, so I sent it to Mahli to get his opinion, adding, “that’s the woman I saw at the café.”
His response was what you would expect, “are you sure? It says here she died twenty-five years ago.”
“I’m positive. Don’t you see the resemblance?”
“I do, and it’s uncanny. But…” he didn’t finish that text message, leaving just that little bit to know that he had doubts and worries about the whole thing, doubts and worries that he didn’t feel comfortable putting out in the air.
“I’m going back to the café. Maybe she’ll show up again,” I told him.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Isn’t it kind of like chasing a ghost?”
“Is that any better than sitting around here wasting away pining over Solenne after she was clear she wanted nothing to do with me?”
“You’ve got a point there… When are you planning on going? I’ll meet you there.”
“Tomorrow, same time as yesterday?”
“It’s a date.”
I sent him a joking winking face emoji in response. We stopped talking about it then, changing the subject to other things as we usually do, but my mind was somewhere else. Though I can’t say that it wasn’t in a better place than usual. For the first time in forever, I felt like there was something to my life, something interesting that made it worth living, a mystery that only I could solve.
I got to the café long before Mahli. I didn’t want to miss her and I had trouble sleeping out of excitement so I got there a couple hours in advance. It was business as usual at the café, people coming in and out with coffee, some staying to study, write, draw, or read. Someone I didn’t recognize was working so I didn’t have the chance to see Farah again and ask her if she had seen the woman who looked like me again.
When Mahli arrived a full half-hour before we were supposed to meet, he jumped in shock when he saw me already sitting down. He rushed to the table. “Did I get the times wrong? I’m so sorry about that! I could have sworn we met at 1 the other day.”
“Calm down, it’s okay,” I told him in a reassuring tone. “I came a couple hours early because I woke up early and didn’t know what else to do with myself.”
“Oh thank god. I don’t know if I could endure that kind of mistake.”
“You could turn those feelings into a poem. Boom, it’s a profitable thing to feel bad about being late. Imagine that.”
“You have an odd idea of how profitable poetry is,” he chuckled before putting down his big heavy school bag on the chair and motioning at the counter. “I’m going to get something. Want a refill?”
“Sure, thanks.” I handed him my mug and watched him go.
As he was being served by the new girl, the mysterious woman walked in and got in line behind him. I wanted to jump up and talk to her, but I was overcome by nervousness. As much as I was certain that she and I were somehow connected, that there was no way she bore such a resemblance to both me and my bio-mother by coincidence alone, I couldn’t just thrust that on her so aggressively. Instead, I texted Mahli, “she’s right behind you,” only for his phone to vibrate in his backpack on the chair. I sighed and leaned back in my chair, keeping my eyes locked on her, trying to piece together how this could be real.
“What’s with you?” Mahli asked a couple minutes later as he handed me my mug of black coffee. He looked over his shoulder and then turned back to me. “Is that her?”
I nodded. “Recognize her from the picture?”
He shook his head in disbelief. “It’s uncanny. It’s like it’s a picture of her…” He looked back at me. “Alright, I buy it. This is something else entirely.” He paused, still standing with his hot mug in hand. His hand started shaking a little from holding it up for so long.
“Put your drink down and sit,” I reminded him. He glanced back at me and nodded. He carelessly put down his mug, spilling his latte a little on the table, and nearly sat down on his bag, but it was big enough to fight him off.
Without saying a word, he moved it to the floor, sat down, and turned around to stare more at the mysterious stranger. Her gaze seemed like it was about to come in our direction, so the two of us shifted rapidly so as not to get caught staring at a stranger.
“What are we going to do?” he asked me in a hushed tone, leaning across the table.
“I don’t know,” I answered, shaking my head.
“What if you called her over?” he suggested.
“Why don’t you?” I replied.
“You know I couldn’t if I wanted to,” he reminded me, “but maybe she’ll respond to your bio-mom’s name. If she doesn’t, then you can just say she looked like someone you knew and it’s not weird. Or as weird.”
“You’ve thought about these things a lot, haven’t you?” I questioned as my gaze drifted away from him. She was paying. “Alright, fine. I’ll do it.”
I took a deep breath before getting up and calling out, “oh, Holly? Is that you?”
She turned her head in surprise and our eyes locked. “Do I know you?” she asked, with some fear in her tone.
It was at this moment that I realized we hadn’t spoken about what to do if her name was Holly. Panicked and unprepared, I stumbled over my words as I tried to answer her question. “Umm, yes, I mean, no, but…”
“How did you know my name then?” she questioned, eyebrow raised and suspicion in her tone. I stood there petrified, wishing I hadn’t listened to Mahli.
“Sorry, but is this you?” he squealed as he held up his laptop on the picture from the article.
She glanced down at it and her expression shifted radically. “It sure does look like me, doesn’t it?” she commented in surprise and confusion. “I don’t remember that picture though.”
“It’s an old picture of my mother,” I confessed to her, my panicking mind no longer willing to withhold information, just wanting this situation to end.
“And her name is Holly?” she continued to question.
I nodded. “After I saw you in here the other day, and saw your eyes, I decided to look into my biological family, and this is what I found. I don’t know how you look so much like her, or how you have the same name, but…”
“But it’s too weird to be accidental…” she finished my thought. We all stood there in silence. Well, Mahli was sitting and put his laptop back, but quietly. After thinking for a bit, she said, “okay, I’m here with a friend right now. I’m going to bring my drink over there then tell her what just happened, and then come back so we can talk about this more.”
“Okay,
sounds good,” I answered, suddenly filled with gratitude that this
horrible exchange went about as well as it could have.
I
flopped back into my seat, my hands shaking, and sweat collecting on my
temples. Everything was spinning. Breath was short. I was trying to
chase after my mind, but my feet were stuck to the ground. I watched it
fade into the distance and cycle back towards me as the smell of coffee
filled my nose. I took a sip of the bitter bean juice and tried to
relax.
“Are you okay?” Mahli asked, bringing me back to our shared reality.
“That was a lot,” I answered with a heavy sigh before resting my head on the table. “And now I’m going to have to explain all of this to her.”
“Isn’t that what you wanted? Sort of?” he said optimistically.
I shook my head. “I don’t know… I guess so, but it’s different when it’s in my head. It’s easy, planned out, and perfect.” I heaved a heavy breath out of my chest. “And that was not.”
“It’s always easy in theory,” he commented, “but we can never know how the future will play out regardless.” He paused. “So she’ll be coming over soon if I overheard right?”
“I’m already here, actually,” Holly’s suddenly familiar voice said from above. I jolted up in surprise, nearly knocking my mug to the ground for a second time, but I caught it just in time. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s okay,” I assured her. “Mahli, could you give us a moment?”
“Umm…” he muttered. “Where am I supposed to go?”
Holly motioned at a table further in. “You can take my seat, Evette won’t bite. She’s wearing a bright red dress and has dark brown hair and eyes. Just tell her I sent you.”
Mahli looked at me, uncertain, but slipped out of his seat, backpack slung over one shoulder and mug in his other hand. “I guess I’ll see you later,” he said as he hesitantly backed up.
Holly took his seat almost immediately and stared at me hard, as if trying to pierce through me. “So what do you think all of this is?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, shaking my head. “Maybe we can figure that out together.”
“What’s your name?”
“Arthur, Arthur Compton, and you?”
“Holly Dyson.”
“Okay…” I replied, unsure where else to take this.
“Are you from around here?” she asked.
“Yeah, I grew up in the suburbs not far from here. You?”
She shook her head. “A couple hours away on a farm, actually. Only moved here recently.”
“I hope this isn’t over the line or anything, but are you adopted?” I questioned, the only question to have come to mind while she sat across from me.
A look of surprise crossed her face. “How did you know?”
“I’m an orphan too,” I explained. “Thought with how weird all this stuff is, it was worth asking.”
“You think we might be long lost siblings or something?”
I shrugged. “By all accounts, my biological mother died in childbirth and I was the only child born. Do you know anything about your birth family?”
She shook her head. “My parents refuse to entertain the idea I'm adopted and get very defensive when it's suggested. Figured they were trying to make me feel like I belonged with them.”
“And now you’re wondering if there was another reason for it.”
She nodded. We sat in silence for a bit, averting our gazes to the world around us. There was something piercing about her eyes, like looking in a mirror at myself and seeing all the ways I’ve messed up my life, all the ways I’ve failed everyone around me. It was uncomfortable, to say the least, but oddly addicting, like stretching just to feel pain.
“I guess I should probably ask my parents more about my biological family…” she muttered after a long time of being silent.
“You think?”
“I know it’s probably not going to go well though. After all, I only learned I was adopted through someone else, since small towns know when all the pregnancies are and when a baby shows up without one.”
“I can go with you if that would help. Might help convince them to tell you the truth since we both clearly look like we could be siblings or something of the sort.”
“Are you kidding?” she responded with sudden annoyance. “There's no way I could do that.”
“Why not?”
“Look, I don’t know where you grew up or with who, but my parents aren’t about to suddenly start giving out their precious family secrets with a stranger in the room. You and I might look similar, and I might look like your mother, but that doesn't suddenly mean that everyone is just going to do what you want.”
“Yeah, but-”
“No buts, I barely got any information out of them on my own, as their daughter. The only thing you’d do there is sit there and keep their mouths shut, then they’d yell at me about it when they have a chance. Do you think your parents would have done the same?”
“My parents gave me all the information they had, and I found out the rest,” I informed her, and there was a moment of surprise in her eyes.
“Yeah, well, we’re from different families. Just trust me that I know what I’m doing.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Sorry for snapping at you, it’s just personal and hard, you know?”
“It’s okay,” I replied.
“Can you send me that picture? It might help move their lips a bit, especially once I tell them about all this.”
“Sure thing,” I admitted before saying, “I should mention that it’s part of an article though. Do you want to know about what I found out, or would you rather wait on that front?”
There was a long moment of deliberation on her part. I could see the thoughts bumping around her head. On one hand, learning this sort of stuff from any other source than her parents felt wrong, especially if it did have something to do with her, but on the other hand, it could have nothing to do with her, or they might not want to tell her.
“Give me an abridged version of your parents’ story then,” she decided with a heavy sigh.
“My parents were both scientists,” I explained. “The police think that they were performing some sort of experiment when the birth happened, leading to complications that caused my mother to die. My father passed me off to an orphanage and hasn’t been seen since.”
“Oh wow, that’s really something,” she commented with wide-eyes.
“You’re telling me.”
“Alright, here’s what we’re going to do,” she said with a plan formed in her head. “I’m going to go see my parents and ask them about all this, about my biological family. I’ll report back to you what I find.”
“And if they don’t say anything?”
“Then I’ve got my ways to get the info, but it might take some help from you or Evette. I’ll explain it when and if the situation arises. Sound good?”
“Sure, but how are we going to communicate?”
“We’re in the 21st century, surely you can’t be serious,” she said to me as she handed me a piece of torn off paper with a phone number on it. I didn’t even see her scrawl it, but surely enough her notebook was open with a pen on it right on the table. "If this doesn't work, messenger pigeon should work."
“Alright, sounds like a plan,” I said. “Sorry for dragging you into this. I just saw you here and was suddenly overcome with a desire to know more.”
She nodded in understanding. “I know what you mean. I guess I just wasn’t as driven to find out.” She closed her notebook and stashed it and her fountain pen away again. “I’ll go back to Evette and send your friend back.”
“Thanks, and his name’s Mahli.”
“I won’t remember that,” she informed me with a smirk before walking off. I watched her go with my mind still spinning from the whole encounter. Around her, I felt something I had never felt before. It wasn’t like with Solenne, some sort of love. It was uncanny and unsettling, yet familiar and welcoming. It was like looking into a mirror and seeing a different version of yourself looking back at you. As I sat there and waited for Mahli to return, I couldn’t help but think that she and I really were from two sides of a mirror and something had shattered the barrier between us.
“I'm back!” Mahli declared with surprising volume when he returned.
“How was sitting with her friend?” I questioned playfully.
He let out a heavy sigh. “Honestly, a little exhausting but good. She’s exuberant, that’s for sure. Not afraid to be who she is and ask for what she deserves. Smart too.”
“Are you developing a crush on her?” I smirked. He blushed and shook his head.
“I just met her, of course not!”
“The last words of a romantic before they fall in love,” I commented with a knowing grin.
“You always say that,” he pointed out.
“And one day I’ll be right,” I asserted playfully.
“Anyways, what happened with her? What did the two of you talk about?”
I filled him in with the current plan and everything I had learned, but most of all, I told him how she made me feel. I figured that as a poet, he’d be able to understand or at least imagine that experience.
“Ever heard of anything like that before?” I questioned as I finished my second coffee since Holly had sat down across from me.
He shook his head in pensive thought. “Not exactly. I’ve read about stuff sort of similar to it, often called soulmates or kindred spirits, like two twin flames born of the same source that come to meet, but it’s not usually this uncanny. I’ll have to do more research.”
“You’re going to research this?” I was in mild disbelief. It seemed like such a strange idea.
He nodded. “And hopefully we find something that might be able to help explain this in the annals of history.”
“I.E. in poetry.”
“Basically, yeah.”
Surely enough, Mahli did his research. He came up with all sorts of examples in literature about something similar to this, but they didn’t properly offer any answers. Turns out it’s hard to discern the secrets of the universe. It’s not like there’s someone consciously writing everything into existence. We’re just drops of water in an infinite ocean we could never fathom.
A couple of days passed without hearing back from Holly. I checked my phone repeatedly to check if I had texted her already, somehow finding the ability to doubt it again and again, in a sort of disbelief that I hadn’t heard from her. I wanted to check in with her, but I was afraid I wasn’t giving her enough time, so I kept to myself, compulsively checking my phone, waiting for it to light up. And every time it did, I desperately hoped it was her, only to be let down by Mahli’s name (or my mother’s) popping up again.
As I stared out of my open bedroom window, letting the fresh but chilled spring air float into my room and body, I watched the world gently breathe. I wished on the stars hidden behind the clouds that she’d get back to me soon. Everything hinged on her now, and I had no control over her actions. All I could do was hope and wait.
Absentmindedly, I glanced at my phone, only to have it go off in my hand, Holly’s name illuminating the screen. I nearly dropped it out of my third story window to the cement parking lot below, but I managed not to. I flopped down on my bed and unlocked my phone.
“Hey Arthur… It’s me, Holly. I talked to my parents, and well, it didn’t go well… I know it’s late, it’s just that it was pretty intense and I thought you’d want to know…”
“Oh no, I’m so sorry to hear that,” I told her sympathetically. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I’m already talking to Evette about it, don’t worry about it, but I am thinking maybe we call this whole thing off.”
“What? Aren’t you curious as to why we’re so similar?”
“Well we’re not. There’s a contrast between the two of us, you know that right? We share the same eyes and same hair color, but what else? We’re both orphans? But we grew up differently, had different experiences. We’re no more the same person as our parents are.” The text felt aggressive and frustrated. I knew that I had perhaps been getting a little out of control with the way that I was thinking about this whole thing, but I didn’t think it was that bad.
“I’m sorry,” I responded, and went to write a full apology but she replied before I had the chance.
“You think that there's some great reason for why I look the way I do, but it’s some coincidence. This whole universe is just a collection of fucked up occurrences. There’s no such thing as fate, it’s all just random chance that screws us when we need it most.”
I didn’t have a response to this. I didn’t want to argue with her. I didn’t want to fight. A part of me did, a part of me wanted to scream at her and tell her that there has to be more to life than this, but I didn’t have the heart for it. So I didn’t reply at all. I put my phone on the windowsill, silenced it, and lay in bed, just staring at the ceiling.
My mind tried to wander to thoughts of Solenne, but every time it did, I dragged it back to the present. What good could come from lingering on the past? I drifted off into vague fantasies that bled into dreams and awoke the next morning with a heavy heart.
I rolled out of bed and dragged myself to the bathroom where I filled the bath with burning hot water and gradually waded into it. I sat there for a while, until the fan had sucked up all the moist air, leaving it cold and dry outside of the bath. The water had cooled to room temperature and felt more cold than warm. My skin was wrinkled and pruned. I didn’t know what to do with myself.
But the truth is that you can’t sit miserable in the bath all day. Eventually, something draws you out, and in my case, it was hunger. My stomach hurt so much I was ready to eat a bar of soap. I prepped a quick breakfast, and as it cooked, I retrieved my phone from the windowsill. On it were a slew of messages, mostly all from Holly. And one from Solenne.
Shaking, I fell back onto my bed, staring at Solenne’s name lit up on my phone without me putting it there. I didn’t want to look at it, but I was desperate to. The smell of burning eggs caught my attention, and I left the phone on the bed to go and salvage what I could of my breakfast.
I ate away from my phone, wondering how things were supposed to go now. Why was Solenne contacting me? Did she leave something here that she forgot about? I thought I gave her all her stuff back, as much as it hurt to have that whole process.
“So last night was eventful,” I texted Mahli after breakfast, actively ignoring the texts from Holly and Solenne, unsure how do deal with either of them.
“What happened?” I filled him in on the whole thing with Holly, and informed him about the 3 am text from Solenne that I had yet to look at.
“That is a lot,” he replied as Captain Obvious himself. “Want to get coffee?”
“I think that’s a good idea.”
We met at the cafe only a couple hours later, as fast as we could on such short notice. Our seat by the window was taken, so we moved deeper in, taking a spot against the far wall underneath a portrait of a woman being swallowed by a cat.
“Have you read them yet?” he asked.
“I don’t know if I should, or if I can,” I answered.
He nodded. “Do you want me to read them for you and let you know what they say? Like if it’s anything bad or anything?”
I nodded and handed him my phone. He unlocked it and started reading. It was an unbearable wait, probably like it was for him when he shared a poem. All you have to go off of is the way someone reacts to what they read, and facial expression can mislead us sometimes. But the look of concern on his face never went away. After what felt like an eternity, he put down the phone and looked at me. He let out a heavy sigh.
“What?” I cried out desperately. It was a little too loud, as some people turned to look at me. I shrunk into my chair and he took the opportunity to think how he was going to word it.
“So… Solenne is a person that exists…” he muttered, still struggling to find the words to express what he read. “And it seems this person would like to see you again for some reason…” There was doubt in his voice and on his face. He didn’t think it was a good idea.
“What?” I repeated, though this time I kept it quieter out of fear of disturbing the others around. I grabbed my phone and read the message.
“Hey Arthur, I was wondering if you wanted to get coffee at that cafe you like so much some time to catch up. It’s been too long.”
“It’s a bad idea, right?” I questioned, feeling that part of me drawn to saying yes.
“Of course it is,” Mahli asserted, but it wasn’t enough.
“Well maybe it’s important. Maybe there’s something she needs to tell me,” I suggested as my broken-hearted mind spiraled into hopeful fantasies.
“She literally says it’s to catch up. There’s no doubt about that.” He let out another heavy sigh. “I recognize that look in your eye. You’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know. I feel like I should. It would be rude if I didn’t, right?”
“I think it would be stupid if you did,” he said, uncharacteristically forward. I recoiled in shock. “I know, I’m sorry. It’s just… you’ve been a mess for months over this girl. Getting coffee with her again is just chasing after more pain. You’ve been through enough with her.”
“You’re right…” I muttered, admitting defeat but I knew I was still going to see her. Just because we know something to be stupid doesn’t mean we don’t do it. That’s ninety percent of love, I’m pretty sure.
“So what did the messages from Holly say?”
“A lot,” he replied. “I guess she snapped at you last night and gave you a mouthful?” I nodded.“Well, she spent a bunch of time apologizing for that, and then suggested you meet her parents.”
“That’s a jump.”
“She explains her thoughts.” He motioned at the phone.
I switched to the conversation with her and read through it. Mahli’s summary was about right. There were a bit more angry texts before they became apologetic, and then I found it. “I think you should meet them. I told them about you, but that wasn’t enough. Maybe you can convince them to finally be honest with me, and if not, then we have no other choice than to trick them. I’m sick of having my own story written by someone else. Let me know if you’re still up for it after all of this. Take care, Arthur…”
“So are you going to do it?” Mahli questioned. I wasn’t sure what he was referring to, but it didn’t matter.
“I think so. I need to know the truth. Maybe it’ll help me find a way forward.”
We started to plan everything, though I kept my plans with Solenne a secret from everyone else. With adulthood keeping her busy, Solenne (who still somehow wanted to see me) was only free in a couple of weeks in the middle of the usual work day. Unfortunately for both of us, I was free. After checking her parents’ schedule and deciding when would be best for he two of us to go over and talk to them, Holly decided that it would be best to do it on a Sunday afternoon, after their parents got back from church. She subtly suggested that I go to the church with them, but I missed it and laughed at the idea of going to church. That did not score me many points with her, and we agreed never to bring it up to her parents.
The day came after a long wait of working and thinking about it. I was distracted, more so than before.I had twice as many things on my plate, and the menial tasks that I did for a paycheck did nothing to distract me from the thoughts that bombarded my mind. The last time I saw Solenne haunted me.
It was August, I think. Sometime in the summer, when the bright sunny days start to all blend together, when I can only tell the passage of time by the flowers that are in bloom. Solenne and I had been spending our nights apart from each other. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I just figured that we were trying to avoid the summer heat since neither of our places had proper air conditioning and two bodies sleeping near each other was basically a death sentence.
We met at the same old cafe that I kept returning to despite all the memories that haunted it. We sat outside on the little patio set up on the deck. The street was busy with strangers, the smell of exhaust in the air, along with wet asphalt from the business across the street hosing down the sidewalk by them. The sound of kids could be faintly heard by the nearby neighbourhood, and all around it was a good day. It was obscenely hot, but that was the price we paid for good summer days.
Solenne was wearing a beautiful blue sundress with flowery flats and a pair of large sunglasses that covered most of her face. It was hard to know if she was looking at me or not the whole time. I never liked sunglasses that much. They always seemed to distort reality and hide people’s eyes. It messed with my ability to identify people, and that made me uncomfortable.
“Nice to see you,” I said with a loving grin as she sat down at my table. “Feels like it’s been forever since I last saw you.”
“Yeah, well these summer days have been incredibly hot. I’ve been trying to stay cool.”
“Right, yeah, I get that. I don’t know how many cold showers I’ve taken in the past week. I’m worried I might drain the entire lake myself.”
I didn’t have any suspicions that everything was going to change, but it did feel weird being with her. She wasn’t smiling at me, and refused to banter with me when the opportunity presented itself. I brushed it off as the heat getting to her head. It’s hard to want to laugh and be pleasant when your body feels like it’s about to shut down.
“Look, I wanted to meet here for a reason,” she said ominously, long flowing blonde hair blowing in the wind.
“For the great iced coffee? Cause honestly I find it’s subpar,” I joked desperately.
I couldn’t tell if she was giving me a disappointed stare or not, but in hindsight, she was probably trying not to actively be annoyed by me. “No, that’s not why. I just wanted to tell you this in person, in a place where you were comfortable. And I didn’t want to go to your apartment…”
That was when I clued into what was happening, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. I wanted to deny that reality with every part of my body. There was a rhythm to her words, one that only led to one place. One of heartbreak and a future where I feel miserable for months, pining over someone who wants nothing to do with me, not that I fully knew that was my future.
“It’s over between us,” she told me with a sad yet somehow cold tone. “I can’t be in this relationship anymore. I hope you understand…”
“Are you okay?” Mahli asked, bringing me back to our shared reality.
“That was a lot,” I answered with a heavy sigh before resting my head on the table. “And now I’m going to have to explain all of this to her.”
“Isn’t that what you wanted? Sort of?” he said optimistically.
I shook my head. “I don’t know… I guess so, but it’s different when it’s in my head. It’s easy, planned out, and perfect.” I heaved a heavy breath out of my chest. “And that was not.”
“It’s always easy in theory,” he commented, “but we can never know how the future will play out regardless.” He paused. “So she’ll be coming over soon if I overheard right?”
“I’m already here, actually,” Holly’s suddenly familiar voice said from above. I jolted up in surprise, nearly knocking my mug to the ground for a second time, but I caught it just in time. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s okay,” I assured her. “Mahli, could you give us a moment?”
“Umm…” he muttered. “Where am I supposed to go?”
Holly motioned at a table further in. “You can take my seat, Evette won’t bite. She’s wearing a bright red dress and has dark brown hair and eyes. Just tell her I sent you.”
Mahli looked at me, uncertain, but slipped out of his seat, backpack slung over one shoulder and mug in his other hand. “I guess I’ll see you later,” he said as he hesitantly backed up.
Holly took his seat almost immediately and stared at me hard, as if trying to pierce through me. “So what do you think all of this is?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, shaking my head. “Maybe we can figure that out together.”
“What’s your name?”
“Arthur, Arthur Compton, and you?”
“Holly Dyson.”
“Okay…” I replied, unsure where else to take this.
“Are you from around here?” she asked.
“Yeah, I grew up in the suburbs not far from here. You?”
She shook her head. “A couple hours away on a farm, actually. Only moved here recently.”
“I hope this isn’t over the line or anything, but are you adopted?” I questioned, the only question to have come to mind while she sat across from me.
A look of surprise crossed her face. “How did you know?”
“I’m an orphan too,” I explained. “Thought with how weird all this stuff is, it was worth asking.”
“You think we might be long lost siblings or something?”
I shrugged. “By all accounts, my biological mother died in childbirth and I was the only child born. Do you know anything about your birth family?”
She shook her head. “My parents refuse to entertain the idea I'm adopted and get very defensive when it's suggested. Figured they were trying to make me feel like I belonged with them.”
“And now you’re wondering if there was another reason for it.”
She nodded. We sat in silence for a bit, averting our gazes to the world around us. There was something piercing about her eyes, like looking in a mirror at myself and seeing all the ways I’ve messed up my life, all the ways I’ve failed everyone around me. It was uncomfortable, to say the least, but oddly addicting, like stretching just to feel pain.
“I guess I should probably ask my parents more about my biological family…” she muttered after a long time of being silent.
“You think?”
“I know it’s probably not going to go well though. After all, I only learned I was adopted through someone else, since small towns know when all the pregnancies are and when a baby shows up without one.”
“I can go with you if that would help. Might help convince them to tell you the truth since we both clearly look like we could be siblings or something of the sort.”
“Are you kidding?” she responded with sudden annoyance. “There's no way I could do that.”
“Why not?”
“Look, I don’t know where you grew up or with who, but my parents aren’t about to suddenly start giving out their precious family secrets with a stranger in the room. You and I might look similar, and I might look like your mother, but that doesn't suddenly mean that everyone is just going to do what you want.”
“Yeah, but-”
“No buts, I barely got any information out of them on my own, as their daughter. The only thing you’d do there is sit there and keep their mouths shut, then they’d yell at me about it when they have a chance. Do you think your parents would have done the same?”
“My parents gave me all the information they had, and I found out the rest,” I informed her, and there was a moment of surprise in her eyes.
“Yeah, well, we’re from different families. Just trust me that I know what I’m doing.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Sorry for snapping at you, it’s just personal and hard, you know?”
“It’s okay,” I replied.
“Can you send me that picture? It might help move their lips a bit, especially once I tell them about all this.”
“Sure thing,” I admitted before saying, “I should mention that it’s part of an article though. Do you want to know about what I found out, or would you rather wait on that front?”
There was a long moment of deliberation on her part. I could see the thoughts bumping around her head. On one hand, learning this sort of stuff from any other source than her parents felt wrong, especially if it did have something to do with her, but on the other hand, it could have nothing to do with her, or they might not want to tell her.
“Give me an abridged version of your parents’ story then,” she decided with a heavy sigh.
“My parents were both scientists,” I explained. “The police think that they were performing some sort of experiment when the birth happened, leading to complications that caused my mother to die. My father passed me off to an orphanage and hasn’t been seen since.”
“Oh wow, that’s really something,” she commented with wide-eyes.
“You’re telling me.”
“Alright, here’s what we’re going to do,” she said with a plan formed in her head. “I’m going to go see my parents and ask them about all this, about my biological family. I’ll report back to you what I find.”
“And if they don’t say anything?”
“Then I’ve got my ways to get the info, but it might take some help from you or Evette. I’ll explain it when and if the situation arises. Sound good?”
“Sure, but how are we going to communicate?”
“We’re in the 21st century, surely you can’t be serious,” she said to me as she handed me a piece of torn off paper with a phone number on it. I didn’t even see her scrawl it, but surely enough her notebook was open with a pen on it right on the table. "If this doesn't work, messenger pigeon should work."
“Alright, sounds like a plan,” I said. “Sorry for dragging you into this. I just saw you here and was suddenly overcome with a desire to know more.”
She nodded in understanding. “I know what you mean. I guess I just wasn’t as driven to find out.” She closed her notebook and stashed it and her fountain pen away again. “I’ll go back to Evette and send your friend back.”
“Thanks, and his name’s Mahli.”
“I won’t remember that,” she informed me with a smirk before walking off. I watched her go with my mind still spinning from the whole encounter. Around her, I felt something I had never felt before. It wasn’t like with Solenne, some sort of love. It was uncanny and unsettling, yet familiar and welcoming. It was like looking into a mirror and seeing a different version of yourself looking back at you. As I sat there and waited for Mahli to return, I couldn’t help but think that she and I really were from two sides of a mirror and something had shattered the barrier between us.
“I'm back!” Mahli declared with surprising volume when he returned.
“How was sitting with her friend?” I questioned playfully.
He let out a heavy sigh. “Honestly, a little exhausting but good. She’s exuberant, that’s for sure. Not afraid to be who she is and ask for what she deserves. Smart too.”
“Are you developing a crush on her?” I smirked. He blushed and shook his head.
“I just met her, of course not!”
“The last words of a romantic before they fall in love,” I commented with a knowing grin.
“You always say that,” he pointed out.
“And one day I’ll be right,” I asserted playfully.
“Anyways, what happened with her? What did the two of you talk about?”
I filled him in with the current plan and everything I had learned, but most of all, I told him how she made me feel. I figured that as a poet, he’d be able to understand or at least imagine that experience.
“Ever heard of anything like that before?” I questioned as I finished my second coffee since Holly had sat down across from me.
He shook his head in pensive thought. “Not exactly. I’ve read about stuff sort of similar to it, often called soulmates or kindred spirits, like two twin flames born of the same source that come to meet, but it’s not usually this uncanny. I’ll have to do more research.”
“You’re going to research this?” I was in mild disbelief. It seemed like such a strange idea.
He nodded. “And hopefully we find something that might be able to help explain this in the annals of history.”
“I.E. in poetry.”
“Basically, yeah.”
Surely enough, Mahli did his research. He came up with all sorts of examples in literature about something similar to this, but they didn’t properly offer any answers. Turns out it’s hard to discern the secrets of the universe. It’s not like there’s someone consciously writing everything into existence. We’re just drops of water in an infinite ocean we could never fathom.
A couple of days passed without hearing back from Holly. I checked my phone repeatedly to check if I had texted her already, somehow finding the ability to doubt it again and again, in a sort of disbelief that I hadn’t heard from her. I wanted to check in with her, but I was afraid I wasn’t giving her enough time, so I kept to myself, compulsively checking my phone, waiting for it to light up. And every time it did, I desperately hoped it was her, only to be let down by Mahli’s name (or my mother’s) popping up again.
As I stared out of my open bedroom window, letting the fresh but chilled spring air float into my room and body, I watched the world gently breathe. I wished on the stars hidden behind the clouds that she’d get back to me soon. Everything hinged on her now, and I had no control over her actions. All I could do was hope and wait.
Absentmindedly, I glanced at my phone, only to have it go off in my hand, Holly’s name illuminating the screen. I nearly dropped it out of my third story window to the cement parking lot below, but I managed not to. I flopped down on my bed and unlocked my phone.
“Hey Arthur… It’s me, Holly. I talked to my parents, and well, it didn’t go well… I know it’s late, it’s just that it was pretty intense and I thought you’d want to know…”
“Oh no, I’m so sorry to hear that,” I told her sympathetically. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I’m already talking to Evette about it, don’t worry about it, but I am thinking maybe we call this whole thing off.”
“What? Aren’t you curious as to why we’re so similar?”
“Well we’re not. There’s a contrast between the two of us, you know that right? We share the same eyes and same hair color, but what else? We’re both orphans? But we grew up differently, had different experiences. We’re no more the same person as our parents are.” The text felt aggressive and frustrated. I knew that I had perhaps been getting a little out of control with the way that I was thinking about this whole thing, but I didn’t think it was that bad.
“I’m sorry,” I responded, and went to write a full apology but she replied before I had the chance.
“You think that there's some great reason for why I look the way I do, but it’s some coincidence. This whole universe is just a collection of fucked up occurrences. There’s no such thing as fate, it’s all just random chance that screws us when we need it most.”
I didn’t have a response to this. I didn’t want to argue with her. I didn’t want to fight. A part of me did, a part of me wanted to scream at her and tell her that there has to be more to life than this, but I didn’t have the heart for it. So I didn’t reply at all. I put my phone on the windowsill, silenced it, and lay in bed, just staring at the ceiling.
My mind tried to wander to thoughts of Solenne, but every time it did, I dragged it back to the present. What good could come from lingering on the past? I drifted off into vague fantasies that bled into dreams and awoke the next morning with a heavy heart.
I rolled out of bed and dragged myself to the bathroom where I filled the bath with burning hot water and gradually waded into it. I sat there for a while, until the fan had sucked up all the moist air, leaving it cold and dry outside of the bath. The water had cooled to room temperature and felt more cold than warm. My skin was wrinkled and pruned. I didn’t know what to do with myself.
But the truth is that you can’t sit miserable in the bath all day. Eventually, something draws you out, and in my case, it was hunger. My stomach hurt so much I was ready to eat a bar of soap. I prepped a quick breakfast, and as it cooked, I retrieved my phone from the windowsill. On it were a slew of messages, mostly all from Holly. And one from Solenne.
Shaking, I fell back onto my bed, staring at Solenne’s name lit up on my phone without me putting it there. I didn’t want to look at it, but I was desperate to. The smell of burning eggs caught my attention, and I left the phone on the bed to go and salvage what I could of my breakfast.
I ate away from my phone, wondering how things were supposed to go now. Why was Solenne contacting me? Did she leave something here that she forgot about? I thought I gave her all her stuff back, as much as it hurt to have that whole process.
“So last night was eventful,” I texted Mahli after breakfast, actively ignoring the texts from Holly and Solenne, unsure how do deal with either of them.
“What happened?” I filled him in on the whole thing with Holly, and informed him about the 3 am text from Solenne that I had yet to look at.
“That is a lot,” he replied as Captain Obvious himself. “Want to get coffee?”
“I think that’s a good idea.”
We met at the cafe only a couple hours later, as fast as we could on such short notice. Our seat by the window was taken, so we moved deeper in, taking a spot against the far wall underneath a portrait of a woman being swallowed by a cat.
“Have you read them yet?” he asked.
“I don’t know if I should, or if I can,” I answered.
He nodded. “Do you want me to read them for you and let you know what they say? Like if it’s anything bad or anything?”
I nodded and handed him my phone. He unlocked it and started reading. It was an unbearable wait, probably like it was for him when he shared a poem. All you have to go off of is the way someone reacts to what they read, and facial expression can mislead us sometimes. But the look of concern on his face never went away. After what felt like an eternity, he put down the phone and looked at me. He let out a heavy sigh.
“What?” I cried out desperately. It was a little too loud, as some people turned to look at me. I shrunk into my chair and he took the opportunity to think how he was going to word it.
“So… Solenne is a person that exists…” he muttered, still struggling to find the words to express what he read. “And it seems this person would like to see you again for some reason…” There was doubt in his voice and on his face. He didn’t think it was a good idea.
“What?” I repeated, though this time I kept it quieter out of fear of disturbing the others around. I grabbed my phone and read the message.
“Hey Arthur, I was wondering if you wanted to get coffee at that cafe you like so much some time to catch up. It’s been too long.”
“It’s a bad idea, right?” I questioned, feeling that part of me drawn to saying yes.
“Of course it is,” Mahli asserted, but it wasn’t enough.
“Well maybe it’s important. Maybe there’s something she needs to tell me,” I suggested as my broken-hearted mind spiraled into hopeful fantasies.
“She literally says it’s to catch up. There’s no doubt about that.” He let out another heavy sigh. “I recognize that look in your eye. You’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know. I feel like I should. It would be rude if I didn’t, right?”
“I think it would be stupid if you did,” he said, uncharacteristically forward. I recoiled in shock. “I know, I’m sorry. It’s just… you’ve been a mess for months over this girl. Getting coffee with her again is just chasing after more pain. You’ve been through enough with her.”
“You’re right…” I muttered, admitting defeat but I knew I was still going to see her. Just because we know something to be stupid doesn’t mean we don’t do it. That’s ninety percent of love, I’m pretty sure.
“So what did the messages from Holly say?”
“A lot,” he replied. “I guess she snapped at you last night and gave you a mouthful?” I nodded.“Well, she spent a bunch of time apologizing for that, and then suggested you meet her parents.”
“That’s a jump.”
“She explains her thoughts.” He motioned at the phone.
I switched to the conversation with her and read through it. Mahli’s summary was about right. There were a bit more angry texts before they became apologetic, and then I found it. “I think you should meet them. I told them about you, but that wasn’t enough. Maybe you can convince them to finally be honest with me, and if not, then we have no other choice than to trick them. I’m sick of having my own story written by someone else. Let me know if you’re still up for it after all of this. Take care, Arthur…”
“So are you going to do it?” Mahli questioned. I wasn’t sure what he was referring to, but it didn’t matter.
“I think so. I need to know the truth. Maybe it’ll help me find a way forward.”
We started to plan everything, though I kept my plans with Solenne a secret from everyone else. With adulthood keeping her busy, Solenne (who still somehow wanted to see me) was only free in a couple of weeks in the middle of the usual work day. Unfortunately for both of us, I was free. After checking her parents’ schedule and deciding when would be best for he two of us to go over and talk to them, Holly decided that it would be best to do it on a Sunday afternoon, after their parents got back from church. She subtly suggested that I go to the church with them, but I missed it and laughed at the idea of going to church. That did not score me many points with her, and we agreed never to bring it up to her parents.
The day came after a long wait of working and thinking about it. I was distracted, more so than before.I had twice as many things on my plate, and the menial tasks that I did for a paycheck did nothing to distract me from the thoughts that bombarded my mind. The last time I saw Solenne haunted me.
It was August, I think. Sometime in the summer, when the bright sunny days start to all blend together, when I can only tell the passage of time by the flowers that are in bloom. Solenne and I had been spending our nights apart from each other. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I just figured that we were trying to avoid the summer heat since neither of our places had proper air conditioning and two bodies sleeping near each other was basically a death sentence.
We met at the same old cafe that I kept returning to despite all the memories that haunted it. We sat outside on the little patio set up on the deck. The street was busy with strangers, the smell of exhaust in the air, along with wet asphalt from the business across the street hosing down the sidewalk by them. The sound of kids could be faintly heard by the nearby neighbourhood, and all around it was a good day. It was obscenely hot, but that was the price we paid for good summer days.
Solenne was wearing a beautiful blue sundress with flowery flats and a pair of large sunglasses that covered most of her face. It was hard to know if she was looking at me or not the whole time. I never liked sunglasses that much. They always seemed to distort reality and hide people’s eyes. It messed with my ability to identify people, and that made me uncomfortable.
“Nice to see you,” I said with a loving grin as she sat down at my table. “Feels like it’s been forever since I last saw you.”
“Yeah, well these summer days have been incredibly hot. I’ve been trying to stay cool.”
“Right, yeah, I get that. I don’t know how many cold showers I’ve taken in the past week. I’m worried I might drain the entire lake myself.”
I didn’t have any suspicions that everything was going to change, but it did feel weird being with her. She wasn’t smiling at me, and refused to banter with me when the opportunity presented itself. I brushed it off as the heat getting to her head. It’s hard to want to laugh and be pleasant when your body feels like it’s about to shut down.
“Look, I wanted to meet here for a reason,” she said ominously, long flowing blonde hair blowing in the wind.
“For the great iced coffee? Cause honestly I find it’s subpar,” I joked desperately.
I couldn’t tell if she was giving me a disappointed stare or not, but in hindsight, she was probably trying not to actively be annoyed by me. “No, that’s not why. I just wanted to tell you this in person, in a place where you were comfortable. And I didn’t want to go to your apartment…”
That was when I clued into what was happening, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. I wanted to deny that reality with every part of my body. There was a rhythm to her words, one that only led to one place. One of heartbreak and a future where I feel miserable for months, pining over someone who wants nothing to do with me, not that I fully knew that was my future.
“It’s over between us,” she told me with a sad yet somehow cold tone. “I can’t be in this relationship anymore. I hope you understand…”
I was in shock (obviously). I desperately wanted to see her eyes, to know what they were trying to say, but she had already denied me that benefit. So I looked around, checking for on-lookers to see how loud I could be. I took a deep breath and tried to hold back the tears that were welling up with all the quiet force of a flower bursting through the soil.
“Why?” I said between poor attempts at not sobbing so pathetically.
“There’s a thousand reasons,” she answered, shaking her head. “But we’re miserable together. I’m your answer for everything, but that’s not how things should be. I’m sick of having to be myself and the rest of you all the time. I shouldn’t have to carry that burden…” She paused. “I had hoped that these weeks apart might have helped with that, but instead all you do is sit around and wait for me to respond to your texts.” She moved to get up.
“Wait, don’t go,” I cried out louder than I should have. She let out a heavy sigh as she looked down at me, eyes concealed by big flashy sunglasses.
“I’m sorry, Arthur. Goodbye.”
I watched powerless as she walked down the stairs onto the street below. She didn’t look back. She just kept walking. I don’t know exactly how long I sat there, my eyes locked on the horizon that had once been graced with her figure, but eventually Farah came by, having been checking the outside table for dishes.
“Arthur? Are you okay?” she asked as she reached over the table and grabbed my long empty mug.
I snapped back to reality, leaving the spiraling thoughts of all the things I had done wrong for another time. I blinked and wiped away the tears that had wet my face without my noticing. I choked out a small fake laugh and nodded.
“Yeah, I’m okay, just spaced out for a while there is all,” I lied.
She gave me a sad knowing look. “How about a refill?” she offered. “On me.”
“It’s okay,” I reassured her. “I-”
“You know what, you’ve never tried anything more interesting on the menu,” she suddenly declared, cutting me off. “I am going to treat you to a cappuccino. Don’t fight it, it’s already been decided. Just stay here and try not to space out anymore. I’ll be right back.”
“Alright…” I muttered. I watched her leave through the corner of my eye, unwilling to move my head much farther from the position that it was in when Solenne left.
When Farah returned with the cappuccino, I was ready to drift off again into sad thoughts of Solenne, but instead she sat down across from me, blocking my vision with her dark brown hair and understanding eyes.
“Shouldn’t you get back to work?” I questioned, a part of me desperate to get rid of her.
“I’m on a break,” she informed me with a small smile. “Figured I’d spend it hanging out with you. Let’s talk. About anything, it doesn’t matter.”
So we talked. At first it was slow coming and difficult, but after a few minutes, we found the stride that we always managed to find. It was nice, freeing, and liberating. For about 15 minutes, I almost forgot about what just happened and found solace in a friend. We haven’t spoken about that day since, but I’m reminded of it every time I go to the cafe. It’s one of the reasons I can still manage to go there after what happened.
“Ready to meet my parents?” Holly asked me as we met at the cafe that fateful early Sunday afternoon.
“I am a little uncomfortable with that question. The last time I met a girl’s parents, well, it didn’t go well,” I answered with a light chuckle.
“Well we’re not dating, so hopefully that will help,” she commented as she led me to her car. “I’m parked just over here. Do you drive?”
“Me? No. Never got around to it. I think I just got used to taking the bus and stuff. Makes it easier not to have as much of a carbon footprint.”
“I’m not sure it counts as a good lifestyle choice when it’s just out of laziness,” she teased, laughing as she unlocked her little white Prius.
“How far is the drive?” I asked as I carefully got into the passenger seat.
“Only about an hour.”
“Only? That’s a while.”
“Oh you haven’t seen anything. This is a big country, lots of places are farther than that. Haven’t you been to literally any other city before? The closest one is like 2 hours away.”
“Maybe when I was a kid?” I answered, realizing that I hadn’t left the city in years. I got settled here and never thought about venturing out. Like a boring person.
“You know there’s a whole world out there, right?” she questioned as we pulled out of the parking lot. “Lots to see and do.”
“I can do basically everything I want here, and I’m pretty content with what I’ve seen.”
“I don’t think I fully understand you,” she said in a joking tone but I could tell she was serious and just avoiding conflict with a new person.
A while of silence passed between us. Well, a while of a radio station occasionally playing songs but mostly their radio host being annoying with poor jokes and the kind of bubbly personality that makes you want to walk away, but I couldn’t cause I was stuck in the car.
The city blur outside gradually changed from tall buildings to suburban neighbourhoods just off of the highway. After a little bit, those become farms, and those farms turn to wilderness. A part of me has always loved the idea of the woods on the outskirts of a city, where the touch of mankind stops and the nature begins again. But in reality, there’s always something behind those trees that we don’t know about, whether that is somebody’s house or a sleeping bear, though the first is more likely.
“So what’s on your mind?” Holly asked about halfway through the long quiet journey. I glanced over at her and shrugged.
“I don’t know. Trees and stuff, I guess,” I answered but my mind had found its way back to Solenne.
“Yeah, sure you are,” she replied, chuckling though there seemed to be a little frustration in it.
“What about you? What are you thinking about?”
“I’m having a lot of second thoughts about this, honestly,” she told me following it with an honest sigh.
I didn’t respond. I knew the whole thing seemed like a bad idea. Is the truth really worth risking her relationship with her parents? I don’t know, yet here we are, preparing to do exactly that. I felt selfish. If it wasn’t for me and my wants, none of this would be happening. She could have just gone on with her life instead of chasing after a truth that might not be worth knowing.
“So what do you think they’ll say?” I questioned instead. “Like when they see me?”
“Do you think we’ll have to tell them about the similarities?” she questioned in return. “Or do you think they’ll look at you and know I wasn’t lying?”
“I have no idea,” I answered. “I don’t know your parents, but I feel like we look enough alike to make anyone do a double-take.” I took a deep breath and decided to get honest. “Look, you don’t have to go through with this. I know I just popped up and started causing trouble. You don’t have to-”
“It’s not only about you,” she reminded me with a sharp tone, her eyes still locked on the road ahead of us. “You may have started this, but they’ve hid my past from me for too long. I deserve to know the truth.”
“Sorry for trying to apologize then,” I said in a confused questioning tone. She briefly glances in my direction and grins.
“Just behave yourself around my parents and we’ll be fine,” she told me in a playful tone. “No loud outbursts, and no insisting anything. I’ll handle it.”
“You got it, Holly,” I agreed, saying her name just to say it. I was still grasping with the idea that she shared her name with my mother, and it was a nice name.
It was another twenty minutes of driving once we pulled off of the highway. Farms and fields covered the landscape, with a couple misplaced looking mountains far in the distance, two twin peaks among an otherwise flat land. They were still covered in snow, two white giants above the spring melt.
She pulled into a dirt driveway and motioned at the house at the end of the ridiculously long driveway. “That’s home. Or my childhood home. It’s not much, but it did the job.”
“It’s nice,” I said sincerely, looking at the well-kept farmhouse surrounded by apple trees getting ready to grow apples. Just past it is a small shed where the tools are kept, and out in the now-wild field on the right, a broken and beaten down barn stood ready to collapse.
“You think it’s nice now, but my dad’s really hard headed so they never got air conditioning and still heat the house with a wood stove. You do not want to be here in a summer like the one we had last year,” she informed me, reminding me of the heat that had separated Solenne and I.
I pushed those thoughts far out of my mind as I slipped out of her little white car. The spring sun was right at the top of the sky, trying to melt away all the snow as fast as possible so life can continue on again. Some birds I can’t name were chirping and singing from somewhere, but I couldn’t say where. Their songs just echoed through the air until they found me.
“Are you ready for this?” Holly questioned with the sun making her pale brown hair look almost blonde.
“I don’t think it matters if I am,” I responded with a chuckle. “We’re here. They’re bound to notice us standing out here eventually.”
She chuckled. “I like that you’re keeping the humor alive. You look nervous.”
“I think I’ve explained this to you before. Last time it didn’t go well.”
“What happened? Just a brief version before we go in.”
I didn’t want to tell her the brief version, but there was no point in hiding it. “Her parents thought I was a deadbeat with no goals of my own.”
“Wow, they figured that out with the first meeting? That’s rough,” she said sympathetically. “Is it true though?”
“I guess it was,” I answered with a shrug. “Let’s go in.”
She nodded and led me to the front door. She knocked, and then entered. I awkwardly followed after her. The interior of the house looked like a stereotypical grandparent’s house. Old photographs in frames dotted the wall, from war photos to family photos. The moment we entered, I noticed a bunch of them leading up the classic wooden staircase on the right that were just pictures of Holly as she grew up. If she was actually my mother sent forward in time and un-aged, then her parents must have gone through the same thing.
“Hey, it’s me! I brought a friend over!” she called out into the house, buzzing with the noise from a TV just out of range to make out what’s on it.
An older woman of about seventy appeared in the doorway at the end of the hallway. She had curly grey hair, was wearing a knitted sweater and old loose jeans. She was a thin woman and not terribly tall either. She wasn’t wearing glasses, but besides that she was almost a cookie-cutter grandma. A look of surprise shot across her face when she saw me pop up from behind Holly.
“Is this..?” she muttered before a smaller likewise old and grey man wandered up behind her, poking his head over her shoulder.
Part 4: Meeting the Parents
“The boy she was telling us about…” he finished her sentence with a mid-range tone.
There was a moment of silence between us. The tension was there, and I knew how they felt about this whole scenario. On each of their faces a mixed look of frustration and panic slowly crossed over them. Holly was deliberately going against their wishes, and challenging what they had said to do. They weren’t used to that, it seemed.
“He is, yes,” Holly said after that break with a confident and defiant tone. “I know you didn’t want to tell me about my parents, but look at him. Look at his eyes. This isn’t a coincidence. Can we please sit down and talk about this?”
Her mom shook her head and disappeared around the corner, leaving her distressed and small husband behind to deal with the rebellious youth. He let out a heavy sigh. “Look, we’ve spoken about this…” There was a defeated tone to his voice. He looked at me. “I’m sorry, I’m sure she’s promised you more than this, but there’s nothing to tell.” He paused for a moment and let out another sigh. “But it’s a decent drive out here. Why don’t you two stay for an hour or two? We can talk about something else.”
Holly sighed. “Alright, we’ll stay for tea if that’s okay with you, Arthur.”
I shrugged. “You drove, so it’s up to you. I like tea.”
Her father seemed to smile for a brief moment. “I’ll start the kettle. You two can wait for me in the living room.”
I followed Holly into the adjacent living room, where their old box T.V. sat blaring the news with a mix of voices and static. They must have had that TV for a decade at least at that point. They had an old brown leather couch and matching worn armchair, but only the armchair was actually facing the TV. The couch was facing the wood stove set up in the far corner of the room.
“Help me move it around,” Holly asked. I helped her move it closer to the armchair. She flopped down into it and I followed her lead.
“So what’s the plan?” I questioned in a low whisper, unsure what she was thinking.
“Well you’re going to get acquainted with my parents for one,” she told me in a way that made my heart sink. “And while you’re doing that, I’m going to slip away to check for something in my old bedroom and search their room for something. It’s clear they aren’t going to spill the beans so plan B it is.”
“Alright,” I replied just as her father entered the room.
“The water’s on,” he informed us before taking a seat on the armchair. He leaned back into it casually, apparently not feeling the need to seem imposing to me. “So tell me about yourself, what was it?”
“Arthur, sir,” I answered nervously. He chuckled.
“Do you call every older man ‘sir’?” he teased. “I haven’t been knighted, don’t treat me like I was.” He glanced over at Holly, who was trying to hold back laughter next to me. “Did he bow and ask for a handkerchief when he met you?”
“Dad, be nice,” she scolded him between chuckles. “He’s just nervous, is all. He’s not used to meeting people’s parents.”
“Well he’s not a kid anymore, I’d hope not,” he answered, still holding onto his more playful tone.
The click of a kettle finishing boiling echoed from the kitchen doorway behind him. “I’ll get that,” he said as he slapped his hands on his knees and got up. “I hope earl grey’s good for the two of you.”
“Of course,” I exclaimed, my heart pounded. All his lighthearted teasing somehow did not make me feel much better. Holly gently nodded at him.
Once he was out of the room, she turned to me and let out a bellowing laugh. “You said you were nervous, I didn’t think it was this bad!” She quickly collected herself and tried to stop laughing. “I’m sorry, it’s just that you completely froze up. You know we’re not dating, right? The expectations are so low you literally can’t fall under them. It’s okay, breathe.” She lowered her voice. “And if you don’t get it together, I won’t be able to leave you alone.”
“Sorry,” I said as I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm down. It wasn’t like this with Solenne’s parents. I was calm then, and open, and I think that’s why they didn’t like me. I think that was the first time in my adult life that I felt that I was lesser, not accomplished enough for a good life, or for good things.
I pushed those thoughts deep down and focused on the task at hand. I wanted answers more than anything. I wasn’t here to impress anyone, just find out the truth, even if it meant misleading them a bit so Holly could find something.
When her father finally returned with a big pot of tea in his hands, my heart-rate had slowed considerably. “Do you mind grabbing the serving table, Holls?”
She rushed to grab the little folded serving table from next to the TV. She unfolded it, revealing the copper flower designs covering its surface. He placed the teapot down onto it and left the room to get mugs. He returned with a faded cat mug in one hand and a plain purple university mug in the other. He handed the faded cat mug to Holly.
“Here you go,” he said to her as he did so. He handed me mine in silence and sat back down in his armchair. “So now we have tea, are you ready to talk, kid?”
“Uh, yeah, sure, if you want, Mr…” It was at that moment that I realized I forgot what Holly’s last name was. My mind immediately went to Holtz but that was my mother’s name, not hers.
“You can call me Jack,” he said with a laugh. “No need for any of this formal nonsense. We’re both adults here.”
“Yes, si-, I mean, you’re right, I’m sorry. It’s a force of habit,” I apologized.
“It’s alright. I had to unlearn that with age,” Holly comforted me. “My teachers in elementary and high school all told me to use Mister and Missus to refer to authority figures, and then I got to university and found out that regular adults refer to each other by name nowadays.”
“You’re not wrong,” Jack agreed with a smile and nod. He returned his attention to me. “So now that you’ve found yourself some words, tell me about yourself. Holly says you’re from the city. Were you born there or did your family move there when you were young?”
“I was born there,” I answered briefly before realizing he probably wanted more than a simple yes or no. “I’m not sure if Holly told you, but I was an orphan and my parents took me in when I was still a baby. Lived with them until I was 18 when I got a place of my own.”
“You moved out years before Holly managed to. We’ve still got a bunch of her stuff upstairs in her old room.” He shot a playful glance over in her direction. “Hopefully one day she decides to empty that out so we can have that space back.”
“Oh please, the two of you have way too much space here anyways. I’m doing you a favor. Speaking of which,” she said as she got to her feet. “I just remembered that there’s something I wanted to grab while we were here. You two socialize while I go grab it. Okay?”
I thought she would have left with both of her parents in the room. Maybe she thought this was enough. Either way, I had a bad feeling about it but there was nothing to be done about it.
“Yeah, sure,” I muttered, not that I had much say in it.
“I’m sure the two of us will find something to talk about,” her father assured her in a friendly tone. She bolted out of the room and up the stairs, looking to find the answers they refused to give us. The moment she was gone though, his tone shifted and his expression turned serious. “What are you trying to achieve?”
“What are you talking about?” I questioned in response, suddenly ready to panic and with no idea what he was walking about.
“What are you trying to achieve with my daughter? Why are you trying to get her to pester us for information? What do you want from her?” he questioned with sudden piercing looks and tones.
“I-uh-just-” I stumbled over my words, unsure how to answer. I knew that I just wanted to know the truth, but the questioning made me feel like I was the bad guy, not just some guy trying to find the whole truth about his family.
“Do you have any idea the impact it could have on her? You don’t know what she grew up with. You don’t know who she is. You don’t know how she’ll take the information.”
“All I did was pro-provide her with a question!” I objected, finding the strength to get defensive in response to his onslaught of questions. “I saw her that day in the cafe and I could have sworn I was looking at my own eyes staring back at me. I’ve never known what it’s like to have biological family, to have someone whose blood is my own. I just want to know the truth.”
I should have stopped there, but I found my fangs. “Why won’t you let her know the truth? What are you protecting her from that’s so bad? It’s not like she thinks you’re her real dad!”
A look of shock crossed his face, as if he wasn’t aware of this information somehow. “What-what was that?”
“She knows she’s adopted. Suspects it at least. Has she never spoken to you about this?” I answered, finding my panic once more.
He shook his head and let out a heavy sigh. “I guess it was bound to happen eventually… I just didn’t think I’d find out about it before she felt like she could bring it up herself.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize,” I apologized now, soft and caring.
He shook his head and opened his mouth to speak, but a loud scream filled the house before he could. We both jumped to our feet and followed the sound upstairs. Once upstairs, we found Holly’s mother standing at the end of the hallway in the doorway with her arms crossed.
“Did you think that you could just go through our stuff?” her mother screamed at her as we drew closer. She glanced in our direction. “Get that boy out of my house. He’s put all these thoughts into our Holly’s head.”
She was hostile and I couldn’t bear to ignore her request. I backed up hesitantly, wanting to help Holly and see what happened, but I didn’t want to make things worse. Jack caught me as I backed up though.
“No,” he said with a sigh. “It’s time we tell her.”
“Jack, what are you talking about? What did he do to you?” she howled in response. “This is our daughter we’re talking about.”
“She deserves to know the truth!” he exclaimed in response, “we’ve tried to keep it from her all this time but we didn’t. She’s known for years, and we’ve just been fooling ourselves thinking that she didn’t know better.”
A look of shock and horror crossed her face.
“Mom, I tried to tell you,” Holly muttered softly from inside of the room. “I just want to know the truth. You won’t be any less of my mom than you are now. You’ve seen him. Maybe he’s my brother. Maybe he’s the sibling I always wanted.” She didn’t know I was there.
Her mother let out a heavy sigh in resignation. “Alright, I guess you’re right, Jack.” She shook her head. “We’ll talk about this downstairs.”
She pushed past us and went down the stairs. Jack shot me a worried glance and chased after her. Alone in the hallway, I walked down to investigate the room Holly had been searching. I found her standing in the middle of a huge mess. The whole room had been torn apart by the tornado named Holly.
“Wow, you really did a number on this place in no time at all,” I commented as I peered into the room, uncomfortable with entering without being invited.
She nodded. “Always been good at that.” She looked up at me, our mirrored eyes meeting. “I guess you heard all of that.”
“Yeah…” I glanced over my shoulder at the staircase. “We should probably go join them. I’ll help you sort this out and clean up after we talk. They’re waiting for us.”
“Before we do,” she said, stopping my foot mid-step, “I want to thank you. I had accepted that I would never know about my past. I didn’t think it was too important, but just having the information, or the ability to get it felt significant, like it was my choice to not pursue it… Sorry, I’m rambling. Thank you for helping me get them to talk…”
“You’re not the only one benefiting from this,” I reminded her with a friendly smile. “I chased you down after all. Now come on, let’s go.”
We met with them in the living room. Her mother had taken the armchair and her father stood over it, leaning on it gently. The pot of tea stood untouched, our mugs now cooled. Without saying a word, we sat down on the couch and waited for them to say something.
“The truth is…” her father began but was cut off by her mother.
“I want you to know that no matter what the truth is, we will always be there for you. We will always be your family, no matter what…” She bit her lip in doubt and hesitation. “The truth is that we don’t know anything about your biological family.”
“What? How is that possible? Wasn’t there anything on my birth certificate or in the adoption papers?”
“There weren’t any adoption papers,” Jack informed her. “We found you abandoned out in the old barn one morning. We could hear your crying from the house and went to investigate.”
Holly said nothing.
Her mother nodded. “You were wrapped up tightly but still bloody from the birth. Your mouth had been covered, maybe to stop anyone from hearing you, but it wasn’t enough, I suppose…” She sighed solemnly. “I know this isn’t what you wanted. You wanted answers, and the only answer we have is that we don’t know anything. As far as we were concerned, there was a baby abandoned on our property that we took in and raised as our own. We never found out who left you there… I’m sorry we can’t tell you more…”
“Maybe Arthur is your brother. We might not have the answers, but maybe you can find them together. You’ll always be our little fiery peak,” her father said comfortingly.
I looked over at Holly to see tears streaming down her face. She was desperately trying not to cry, and failing at that. All of a sudden she went from being carefully abandoned to being left to die by her parents in some broken down old barn out in the middle of nowhere. He might have tried to suffocate her but not had the heart to go through with it. If we were siblings, then it was our father who did that. He dropped me off at an orphanage and tried to kill her like Oedipus’s father.
“Holly…” I muttered, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder, but she spun around and swatted me away. I jumped off the couch and retreated out of her range.
Between sobs, she muttered, “I understand now… why you didn’t want me to know… My parents didn’t give me away, they left me to die…” The three of us watched in solemn sadness, unable to really comfort her. The truth was harsh and painful, and there was no rewriting it to make it sound nice.
Suddenly she looked at me with sharp, determined, angry eyes. I expected her to scream at me or tell me to start walking home. Instead, she asked, “you said your dad was alive right? Wanted and on the run last anyone heard?” I nodded in shock. She wiped away her tears and got to her feet. “We’re going to hunt him down and find out if he’s the one who left me behind.”
My mouth hung open in the most cartoon reaction I’ve ever had. Had I suddenly found myself in someone else’s story about revenge against a parent who tried to kill them? Was I a side character just helping her along?
“Honey, that’s-” Jack began to say, but I wouldn’t let him finish the thought.
“Alright, let’s do it.” I borrowed some of her determination and anger and nodded. “We only have scraps to go off of, but maybe we’ll be able to put them together in a way no one else has.”
I didn’t have high hopes that it was possible. If the police hadn’t found him and nobody had reported seeing him for years, what chance did two twenty-five year olds have at finding him when he’s been missing since the day they were born? Sometimes in life, though, it doesn’t matter how likely something is to happen. Sometimes you just have to do what you feel is right, even if it feels like an impossible fight to win.
Her parents stood there, astounded at what had just been decided in the aftermath of her pain. Revenge might be a mistake to pursue, but neither of us could find the answers we wanted without finding him.
After a while of everyone being silent, and Holly finishing up her crying, her dad broke the silence with a quiet bellow, “well, it’s going to be supper time soon. Are the two of you going to stay?”
Holly shook her head. “We need to get back home, sorry.” She got up and hugged both of her parents tightly. “I’ll visit again soon, I promise!”
“You’re welcome to come back too, Arthur,” her mother unexpectedly said to me as she reached out and hugged me too. “Try to keep her out of trouble, okay?”
“I’ll-uh-I’ll try my best,” I replied as I pulled away. I shook Jack’s hand, but he didn’t say anything, and followed Holly out of the house, barely getting my shoes on before she got to the car. I hopped in and we started to drive, but she stopped the car abruptly and got out.
“What are you doing?” I called out to her, getting out to see what she was doing. She hopped over the wooden fence and ran over to the broken down barn that she had been found in. I chased after her, worried that it could collapse on her.
She disappeared into it as I made my way through the field. I followed her in. It was surprisingly dark inside. Large pieces of wood lay across the floor and hung from the roof. The whole place was leaning to one side so much that it looked like the floor was misplaced. Holly was nowhere in sight. I searched around, slowly making my way deeper and deeper into the barn until I found her in the far left corner. She was kneeling before a little spot with a small broken table in it.
“Holly…” I muttered as I moved closer to her. “It’s okay.” I placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Help me look for clues,” she said in response. “Check the other side.” She motioned behind her without looking away. “There might be something here.”
We must have spent a half hour in that barn looking around. The sun was threatening to set on us and we hadn’t found a thing. “I think twenty-five years is too long for anything to have stayed here the whole time,” I suggested in exhaustion.
“Ugh, alright, I guess you’re right. Let’s go home,” she said in defeat. We headed for the opening that we entered through, but something shifted. A large log fell and blocked the hole. The whole barn started to creak.
“It’s coming down!” I cried out as I looked for a new way out.
“This way!” she yelled as she ran to the right wall. I went to follow her, but a plank from the ceiling fell and split us. I hopped over it, only to find her gone.
“Holly?” I called out.
“Over here!” she called out in response, but all I could tell was that she was on the other side of the wooden barrier in front of me. In a hurry, I took out my phone and used its flashlight to look for an exit, but all I found was brown rotting wood. Suddenly a hand extended through it. “Grab on and follow it!”
I grabbed on, and Holly pulled me through a hole in the wood pieces I didn’t see. I slid out of the barn just as it came down, imploding in on itself like a company that overstretched in the digital age. Once out and safe, the two of us lay down on the grass to catch our breath.
“That was… exciting…” I commented between breaths. “Let’s never do that again.”
“What a time for it to come down,” she replied. “It’s been standing for twenty-five years looking like it’s about to collapse, but the time it finally does is when we’re both inside.”
“That’s some rotten luck.”
“No kidding.”
We lay there for a short while before getting up. I was surprised her parents didn’t come to examine the noise, but maybe they couldn’t hear it over the sound of the TV. Or maybe they didn’t think anything of the old barn finally coming down. It’s not like there should have been anyone inside.
“Let’s go home,” she said with a sigh. “There has been enough excitement for one day.”
“I agree.”
We hopped back over the fence and into her little white car. The drive was silent, but for a different reason than before. Holly was thinking, planning what to do next. While I stared out of the window and thought about my impending coffee with Solenne, she was planning how to find our (probable) father, and to find the answer to her abandonment. The drive was uneventful as the sun set over the horizon. It was dark by the time we pulled into my neighbourhood.
“Thanks for dropping me off at home,” I said as we made our way up my street.
“No problem,” she said before an ungodly screech filled our ears. One side of the car bumped up a bit. Holly slammed on the breaks. “What… what was that?” she muttered.
“I’ll go check,” I told her as I slipped out of the door and took out my phone’s flashlight. I looked all around, on the sidewalk, under the car, in front of the car, but there was nothing. “I don’t see anything,” I called to her as I got back up from the ground and looked around some more.
“That can’t be right,” she answered as she got out of the car and started looking around herself.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a cat sitting on the other side of the road watching us with curious eyes. I wondered what it saw.
“Holy shit, you weren’t wrong,” Holly muttered after a rigorous search of the surroundings. “Where did that sound come from? And the bump?”
“Maybe the suspensions and a pot hole?” I suggested.
She shrugged. “Maybe.” She had that tone that said she was confused and not convinced, but that she had no other option but to accept the option presented to her. She shook her head. “Let’s get you home.”
“I’m actually right there,” I told her motioning a couple apartment buildings over. “I can walk from here.”
She looked over. “Oh, I guess you’re right.” She looked back at me. “You got everything?”
“Yep, you’re free to go.” I smiled but it didn’t seem to help her calm down at all.
“I’ll see you soon,” she called out to me in a distracted tone as she got back into her car. I started walking home and she drove off. Whatever made the sound, it was gone with no trace that it existed.
It wasn’t long after that that I was set to meet Solenne at the cafe for the first time since we broke up. I had tried not to be so focused on it for my sake, and for Holly’s, but I couldn’t help myself. My mind just always found itself in a spiral staircase that only ever ended at her. It was how it had known to think for so many months that changing it so abruptly seemed impossible.
I arrived at the cafe an hour early. I was walking up to the front door when someone called out to me from behind. “Arthur!”
I turned around and saw Farah running up to me in her work uniform. “Oh hey, coming in for work?”
“You know it,” she answered with a smile. “I guess you’re here for some coffee?”
“You know me so well,” I joked.
“It’s not like you’ve ever changed,” she quipped in response. “Are you meeting someone? I’ve got some time before my shift starts, we can hang out if you want!”
“They won’t be here for an hour or so, so I’d be down to chat,” I answered with a smile. Farah was what one might call a “good human”.
I liked it when she was working. We grabbed a couple coffees from her new coworker, a guy named Joel, and took the seat by the window that I always tried to grab when it was available.
“So what’s been going on with you?” she asked with a friendly tone before taking a sip of her still-too-hot coffee. “Ouch, burned myself!”
I laughed and shook my head. “You work at a cafe, how do you not know to wait before drinking burning coffee?”
“I’m usually caught up in what I’m doing and it goes cold,” she explained jokingly defensively. “Now answer the question.”
“If I tell you the whole story, it’s going to sound a bit crazy, but basically I bumped into a girl here who bears quite a resemblance to me. Now we’re trying to hunt down my dad to find out the truth,” I told her with a less than serious tone to avoid being taken too seriously.
“I think I remember seeing her!” she exclaimed instead of giving me a strange look. “I knew there was something familiar about her…” She laughed. “So how’s that going?”
“We have literally no leads,” I told her. “No one’s seen him since I was born. He abandoned me as soon as he could and disappeared without a trace.”
“Sounds like a tough job, detective. Oh! Are you going to hire a private investigator to help? That would be cool. You could get some 1940’s outfits and pretend you’re in a noir film!”
“Umm… what?” I replied before bursting out into laughter. “That all seems like a lot extra.”
She blushed. “I just thought it’d be cool.” She paused. “Though I must admit that they’re my favorite type of movie and I’ve always fantasied about being involved in a more modern one.”
I chuckled. “Well then I’m sorry I can’t offer you that.”
She smiled. There was a sparkle in her dark eyes when she smiled. “Well, best of luck finding him then. If you need any coffee, you know where to find me.”
“Only when and if you’re working at the time,” I reminded her. “What’s been going on with you?”
“It’s end of the semester,” she said with a groan. “So when I’m not working, I’m busy working on my thesis and grading papers.”
“That sounds really cool, but also like a lot of work.” She nodded with a tired look on her face.
“You have no idea. I’m grading first years. Some of them are straight out of high school, where they apparently don’t learn how to write. It’s pretty rough.”
We sat and chatted for about fifteen minutes. Her phone went off, indicating the proximity of her work-shift. “Looks like it’s time I go,” she said in a disappointed tone.
“Well, you’ll still be here,” I reminded her, but I knew what she meant. “Have a good shift.” “I’ll try.”
She packed up her stuff, grabbed her mug, and shifted away to the employee-only backroom. I think technically it was just a storage room, but it was out of sight and perfect for breaks and getting ready to work.
I sat and stared out of the window once she was gone. The world went by. Buds had started to appear on trees, and grass had started to poke out of the constantly melting snow. In the city it was a little ill-advised to walk close to the road because all the streets were covered in puddles forming over potholes and grates. It was a cloudy day with the sun only peeking through at us every so often. If it wasn’t for the fact it was spring, it would have been a downer of a day, but spring had a magic to it. Winter was on its way out, so everyone was just generally in a better mood.
“Hi, Arthur,” a solemn and familiar voice said to me, breaking me out of my trance.
There was a moment of silence between us. The tension was there, and I knew how they felt about this whole scenario. On each of their faces a mixed look of frustration and panic slowly crossed over them. Holly was deliberately going against their wishes, and challenging what they had said to do. They weren’t used to that, it seemed.
“He is, yes,” Holly said after that break with a confident and defiant tone. “I know you didn’t want to tell me about my parents, but look at him. Look at his eyes. This isn’t a coincidence. Can we please sit down and talk about this?”
Her mom shook her head and disappeared around the corner, leaving her distressed and small husband behind to deal with the rebellious youth. He let out a heavy sigh. “Look, we’ve spoken about this…” There was a defeated tone to his voice. He looked at me. “I’m sorry, I’m sure she’s promised you more than this, but there’s nothing to tell.” He paused for a moment and let out another sigh. “But it’s a decent drive out here. Why don’t you two stay for an hour or two? We can talk about something else.”
Holly sighed. “Alright, we’ll stay for tea if that’s okay with you, Arthur.”
I shrugged. “You drove, so it’s up to you. I like tea.”
Her father seemed to smile for a brief moment. “I’ll start the kettle. You two can wait for me in the living room.”
I followed Holly into the adjacent living room, where their old box T.V. sat blaring the news with a mix of voices and static. They must have had that TV for a decade at least at that point. They had an old brown leather couch and matching worn armchair, but only the armchair was actually facing the TV. The couch was facing the wood stove set up in the far corner of the room.
“Help me move it around,” Holly asked. I helped her move it closer to the armchair. She flopped down into it and I followed her lead.
“So what’s the plan?” I questioned in a low whisper, unsure what she was thinking.
“Well you’re going to get acquainted with my parents for one,” she told me in a way that made my heart sink. “And while you’re doing that, I’m going to slip away to check for something in my old bedroom and search their room for something. It’s clear they aren’t going to spill the beans so plan B it is.”
“Alright,” I replied just as her father entered the room.
“The water’s on,” he informed us before taking a seat on the armchair. He leaned back into it casually, apparently not feeling the need to seem imposing to me. “So tell me about yourself, what was it?”
“Arthur, sir,” I answered nervously. He chuckled.
“Do you call every older man ‘sir’?” he teased. “I haven’t been knighted, don’t treat me like I was.” He glanced over at Holly, who was trying to hold back laughter next to me. “Did he bow and ask for a handkerchief when he met you?”
“Dad, be nice,” she scolded him between chuckles. “He’s just nervous, is all. He’s not used to meeting people’s parents.”
“Well he’s not a kid anymore, I’d hope not,” he answered, still holding onto his more playful tone.
The click of a kettle finishing boiling echoed from the kitchen doorway behind him. “I’ll get that,” he said as he slapped his hands on his knees and got up. “I hope earl grey’s good for the two of you.”
“Of course,” I exclaimed, my heart pounded. All his lighthearted teasing somehow did not make me feel much better. Holly gently nodded at him.
Once he was out of the room, she turned to me and let out a bellowing laugh. “You said you were nervous, I didn’t think it was this bad!” She quickly collected herself and tried to stop laughing. “I’m sorry, it’s just that you completely froze up. You know we’re not dating, right? The expectations are so low you literally can’t fall under them. It’s okay, breathe.” She lowered her voice. “And if you don’t get it together, I won’t be able to leave you alone.”
“Sorry,” I said as I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm down. It wasn’t like this with Solenne’s parents. I was calm then, and open, and I think that’s why they didn’t like me. I think that was the first time in my adult life that I felt that I was lesser, not accomplished enough for a good life, or for good things.
I pushed those thoughts deep down and focused on the task at hand. I wanted answers more than anything. I wasn’t here to impress anyone, just find out the truth, even if it meant misleading them a bit so Holly could find something.
When her father finally returned with a big pot of tea in his hands, my heart-rate had slowed considerably. “Do you mind grabbing the serving table, Holls?”
She rushed to grab the little folded serving table from next to the TV. She unfolded it, revealing the copper flower designs covering its surface. He placed the teapot down onto it and left the room to get mugs. He returned with a faded cat mug in one hand and a plain purple university mug in the other. He handed the faded cat mug to Holly.
“Here you go,” he said to her as he did so. He handed me mine in silence and sat back down in his armchair. “So now we have tea, are you ready to talk, kid?”
“Uh, yeah, sure, if you want, Mr…” It was at that moment that I realized I forgot what Holly’s last name was. My mind immediately went to Holtz but that was my mother’s name, not hers.
“You can call me Jack,” he said with a laugh. “No need for any of this formal nonsense. We’re both adults here.”
“Yes, si-, I mean, you’re right, I’m sorry. It’s a force of habit,” I apologized.
“It’s alright. I had to unlearn that with age,” Holly comforted me. “My teachers in elementary and high school all told me to use Mister and Missus to refer to authority figures, and then I got to university and found out that regular adults refer to each other by name nowadays.”
“You’re not wrong,” Jack agreed with a smile and nod. He returned his attention to me. “So now that you’ve found yourself some words, tell me about yourself. Holly says you’re from the city. Were you born there or did your family move there when you were young?”
“I was born there,” I answered briefly before realizing he probably wanted more than a simple yes or no. “I’m not sure if Holly told you, but I was an orphan and my parents took me in when I was still a baby. Lived with them until I was 18 when I got a place of my own.”
“You moved out years before Holly managed to. We’ve still got a bunch of her stuff upstairs in her old room.” He shot a playful glance over in her direction. “Hopefully one day she decides to empty that out so we can have that space back.”
“Oh please, the two of you have way too much space here anyways. I’m doing you a favor. Speaking of which,” she said as she got to her feet. “I just remembered that there’s something I wanted to grab while we were here. You two socialize while I go grab it. Okay?”
I thought she would have left with both of her parents in the room. Maybe she thought this was enough. Either way, I had a bad feeling about it but there was nothing to be done about it.
“Yeah, sure,” I muttered, not that I had much say in it.
“I’m sure the two of us will find something to talk about,” her father assured her in a friendly tone. She bolted out of the room and up the stairs, looking to find the answers they refused to give us. The moment she was gone though, his tone shifted and his expression turned serious. “What are you trying to achieve?”
“What are you talking about?” I questioned in response, suddenly ready to panic and with no idea what he was walking about.
“What are you trying to achieve with my daughter? Why are you trying to get her to pester us for information? What do you want from her?” he questioned with sudden piercing looks and tones.
“I-uh-just-” I stumbled over my words, unsure how to answer. I knew that I just wanted to know the truth, but the questioning made me feel like I was the bad guy, not just some guy trying to find the whole truth about his family.
“Do you have any idea the impact it could have on her? You don’t know what she grew up with. You don’t know who she is. You don’t know how she’ll take the information.”
“All I did was pro-provide her with a question!” I objected, finding the strength to get defensive in response to his onslaught of questions. “I saw her that day in the cafe and I could have sworn I was looking at my own eyes staring back at me. I’ve never known what it’s like to have biological family, to have someone whose blood is my own. I just want to know the truth.”
I should have stopped there, but I found my fangs. “Why won’t you let her know the truth? What are you protecting her from that’s so bad? It’s not like she thinks you’re her real dad!”
A look of shock crossed his face, as if he wasn’t aware of this information somehow. “What-what was that?”
“She knows she’s adopted. Suspects it at least. Has she never spoken to you about this?” I answered, finding my panic once more.
He shook his head and let out a heavy sigh. “I guess it was bound to happen eventually… I just didn’t think I’d find out about it before she felt like she could bring it up herself.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize,” I apologized now, soft and caring.
He shook his head and opened his mouth to speak, but a loud scream filled the house before he could. We both jumped to our feet and followed the sound upstairs. Once upstairs, we found Holly’s mother standing at the end of the hallway in the doorway with her arms crossed.
“Did you think that you could just go through our stuff?” her mother screamed at her as we drew closer. She glanced in our direction. “Get that boy out of my house. He’s put all these thoughts into our Holly’s head.”
She was hostile and I couldn’t bear to ignore her request. I backed up hesitantly, wanting to help Holly and see what happened, but I didn’t want to make things worse. Jack caught me as I backed up though.
“No,” he said with a sigh. “It’s time we tell her.”
“Jack, what are you talking about? What did he do to you?” she howled in response. “This is our daughter we’re talking about.”
“She deserves to know the truth!” he exclaimed in response, “we’ve tried to keep it from her all this time but we didn’t. She’s known for years, and we’ve just been fooling ourselves thinking that she didn’t know better.”
A look of shock and horror crossed her face.
“Mom, I tried to tell you,” Holly muttered softly from inside of the room. “I just want to know the truth. You won’t be any less of my mom than you are now. You’ve seen him. Maybe he’s my brother. Maybe he’s the sibling I always wanted.” She didn’t know I was there.
Her mother let out a heavy sigh in resignation. “Alright, I guess you’re right, Jack.” She shook her head. “We’ll talk about this downstairs.”
She pushed past us and went down the stairs. Jack shot me a worried glance and chased after her. Alone in the hallway, I walked down to investigate the room Holly had been searching. I found her standing in the middle of a huge mess. The whole room had been torn apart by the tornado named Holly.
“Wow, you really did a number on this place in no time at all,” I commented as I peered into the room, uncomfortable with entering without being invited.
She nodded. “Always been good at that.” She looked up at me, our mirrored eyes meeting. “I guess you heard all of that.”
“Yeah…” I glanced over my shoulder at the staircase. “We should probably go join them. I’ll help you sort this out and clean up after we talk. They’re waiting for us.”
“Before we do,” she said, stopping my foot mid-step, “I want to thank you. I had accepted that I would never know about my past. I didn’t think it was too important, but just having the information, or the ability to get it felt significant, like it was my choice to not pursue it… Sorry, I’m rambling. Thank you for helping me get them to talk…”
“You’re not the only one benefiting from this,” I reminded her with a friendly smile. “I chased you down after all. Now come on, let’s go.”
We met with them in the living room. Her mother had taken the armchair and her father stood over it, leaning on it gently. The pot of tea stood untouched, our mugs now cooled. Without saying a word, we sat down on the couch and waited for them to say something.
“The truth is…” her father began but was cut off by her mother.
“I want you to know that no matter what the truth is, we will always be there for you. We will always be your family, no matter what…” She bit her lip in doubt and hesitation. “The truth is that we don’t know anything about your biological family.”
“What? How is that possible? Wasn’t there anything on my birth certificate or in the adoption papers?”
“There weren’t any adoption papers,” Jack informed her. “We found you abandoned out in the old barn one morning. We could hear your crying from the house and went to investigate.”
Holly said nothing.
Her mother nodded. “You were wrapped up tightly but still bloody from the birth. Your mouth had been covered, maybe to stop anyone from hearing you, but it wasn’t enough, I suppose…” She sighed solemnly. “I know this isn’t what you wanted. You wanted answers, and the only answer we have is that we don’t know anything. As far as we were concerned, there was a baby abandoned on our property that we took in and raised as our own. We never found out who left you there… I’m sorry we can’t tell you more…”
“Maybe Arthur is your brother. We might not have the answers, but maybe you can find them together. You’ll always be our little fiery peak,” her father said comfortingly.
I looked over at Holly to see tears streaming down her face. She was desperately trying not to cry, and failing at that. All of a sudden she went from being carefully abandoned to being left to die by her parents in some broken down old barn out in the middle of nowhere. He might have tried to suffocate her but not had the heart to go through with it. If we were siblings, then it was our father who did that. He dropped me off at an orphanage and tried to kill her like Oedipus’s father.
“Holly…” I muttered, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder, but she spun around and swatted me away. I jumped off the couch and retreated out of her range.
Between sobs, she muttered, “I understand now… why you didn’t want me to know… My parents didn’t give me away, they left me to die…” The three of us watched in solemn sadness, unable to really comfort her. The truth was harsh and painful, and there was no rewriting it to make it sound nice.
Suddenly she looked at me with sharp, determined, angry eyes. I expected her to scream at me or tell me to start walking home. Instead, she asked, “you said your dad was alive right? Wanted and on the run last anyone heard?” I nodded in shock. She wiped away her tears and got to her feet. “We’re going to hunt him down and find out if he’s the one who left me behind.”
My mouth hung open in the most cartoon reaction I’ve ever had. Had I suddenly found myself in someone else’s story about revenge against a parent who tried to kill them? Was I a side character just helping her along?
“Honey, that’s-” Jack began to say, but I wouldn’t let him finish the thought.
“Alright, let’s do it.” I borrowed some of her determination and anger and nodded. “We only have scraps to go off of, but maybe we’ll be able to put them together in a way no one else has.”
I didn’t have high hopes that it was possible. If the police hadn’t found him and nobody had reported seeing him for years, what chance did two twenty-five year olds have at finding him when he’s been missing since the day they were born? Sometimes in life, though, it doesn’t matter how likely something is to happen. Sometimes you just have to do what you feel is right, even if it feels like an impossible fight to win.
Her parents stood there, astounded at what had just been decided in the aftermath of her pain. Revenge might be a mistake to pursue, but neither of us could find the answers we wanted without finding him.
After a while of everyone being silent, and Holly finishing up her crying, her dad broke the silence with a quiet bellow, “well, it’s going to be supper time soon. Are the two of you going to stay?”
Holly shook her head. “We need to get back home, sorry.” She got up and hugged both of her parents tightly. “I’ll visit again soon, I promise!”
“You’re welcome to come back too, Arthur,” her mother unexpectedly said to me as she reached out and hugged me too. “Try to keep her out of trouble, okay?”
“I’ll-uh-I’ll try my best,” I replied as I pulled away. I shook Jack’s hand, but he didn’t say anything, and followed Holly out of the house, barely getting my shoes on before she got to the car. I hopped in and we started to drive, but she stopped the car abruptly and got out.
“What are you doing?” I called out to her, getting out to see what she was doing. She hopped over the wooden fence and ran over to the broken down barn that she had been found in. I chased after her, worried that it could collapse on her.
She disappeared into it as I made my way through the field. I followed her in. It was surprisingly dark inside. Large pieces of wood lay across the floor and hung from the roof. The whole place was leaning to one side so much that it looked like the floor was misplaced. Holly was nowhere in sight. I searched around, slowly making my way deeper and deeper into the barn until I found her in the far left corner. She was kneeling before a little spot with a small broken table in it.
“Holly…” I muttered as I moved closer to her. “It’s okay.” I placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Help me look for clues,” she said in response. “Check the other side.” She motioned behind her without looking away. “There might be something here.”
We must have spent a half hour in that barn looking around. The sun was threatening to set on us and we hadn’t found a thing. “I think twenty-five years is too long for anything to have stayed here the whole time,” I suggested in exhaustion.
“Ugh, alright, I guess you’re right. Let’s go home,” she said in defeat. We headed for the opening that we entered through, but something shifted. A large log fell and blocked the hole. The whole barn started to creak.
“It’s coming down!” I cried out as I looked for a new way out.
“This way!” she yelled as she ran to the right wall. I went to follow her, but a plank from the ceiling fell and split us. I hopped over it, only to find her gone.
“Holly?” I called out.
“Over here!” she called out in response, but all I could tell was that she was on the other side of the wooden barrier in front of me. In a hurry, I took out my phone and used its flashlight to look for an exit, but all I found was brown rotting wood. Suddenly a hand extended through it. “Grab on and follow it!”
I grabbed on, and Holly pulled me through a hole in the wood pieces I didn’t see. I slid out of the barn just as it came down, imploding in on itself like a company that overstretched in the digital age. Once out and safe, the two of us lay down on the grass to catch our breath.
“That was… exciting…” I commented between breaths. “Let’s never do that again.”
“What a time for it to come down,” she replied. “It’s been standing for twenty-five years looking like it’s about to collapse, but the time it finally does is when we’re both inside.”
“That’s some rotten luck.”
“No kidding.”
We lay there for a short while before getting up. I was surprised her parents didn’t come to examine the noise, but maybe they couldn’t hear it over the sound of the TV. Or maybe they didn’t think anything of the old barn finally coming down. It’s not like there should have been anyone inside.
“Let’s go home,” she said with a sigh. “There has been enough excitement for one day.”
“I agree.”
We hopped back over the fence and into her little white car. The drive was silent, but for a different reason than before. Holly was thinking, planning what to do next. While I stared out of the window and thought about my impending coffee with Solenne, she was planning how to find our (probable) father, and to find the answer to her abandonment. The drive was uneventful as the sun set over the horizon. It was dark by the time we pulled into my neighbourhood.
“Thanks for dropping me off at home,” I said as we made our way up my street.
“No problem,” she said before an ungodly screech filled our ears. One side of the car bumped up a bit. Holly slammed on the breaks. “What… what was that?” she muttered.
“I’ll go check,” I told her as I slipped out of the door and took out my phone’s flashlight. I looked all around, on the sidewalk, under the car, in front of the car, but there was nothing. “I don’t see anything,” I called to her as I got back up from the ground and looked around some more.
“That can’t be right,” she answered as she got out of the car and started looking around herself.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a cat sitting on the other side of the road watching us with curious eyes. I wondered what it saw.
“Holy shit, you weren’t wrong,” Holly muttered after a rigorous search of the surroundings. “Where did that sound come from? And the bump?”
“Maybe the suspensions and a pot hole?” I suggested.
She shrugged. “Maybe.” She had that tone that said she was confused and not convinced, but that she had no other option but to accept the option presented to her. She shook her head. “Let’s get you home.”
“I’m actually right there,” I told her motioning a couple apartment buildings over. “I can walk from here.”
She looked over. “Oh, I guess you’re right.” She looked back at me. “You got everything?”
“Yep, you’re free to go.” I smiled but it didn’t seem to help her calm down at all.
“I’ll see you soon,” she called out to me in a distracted tone as she got back into her car. I started walking home and she drove off. Whatever made the sound, it was gone with no trace that it existed.
It wasn’t long after that that I was set to meet Solenne at the cafe for the first time since we broke up. I had tried not to be so focused on it for my sake, and for Holly’s, but I couldn’t help myself. My mind just always found itself in a spiral staircase that only ever ended at her. It was how it had known to think for so many months that changing it so abruptly seemed impossible.
I arrived at the cafe an hour early. I was walking up to the front door when someone called out to me from behind. “Arthur!”
I turned around and saw Farah running up to me in her work uniform. “Oh hey, coming in for work?”
“You know it,” she answered with a smile. “I guess you’re here for some coffee?”
“You know me so well,” I joked.
“It’s not like you’ve ever changed,” she quipped in response. “Are you meeting someone? I’ve got some time before my shift starts, we can hang out if you want!”
“They won’t be here for an hour or so, so I’d be down to chat,” I answered with a smile. Farah was what one might call a “good human”.
I liked it when she was working. We grabbed a couple coffees from her new coworker, a guy named Joel, and took the seat by the window that I always tried to grab when it was available.
“So what’s been going on with you?” she asked with a friendly tone before taking a sip of her still-too-hot coffee. “Ouch, burned myself!”
I laughed and shook my head. “You work at a cafe, how do you not know to wait before drinking burning coffee?”
“I’m usually caught up in what I’m doing and it goes cold,” she explained jokingly defensively. “Now answer the question.”
“If I tell you the whole story, it’s going to sound a bit crazy, but basically I bumped into a girl here who bears quite a resemblance to me. Now we’re trying to hunt down my dad to find out the truth,” I told her with a less than serious tone to avoid being taken too seriously.
“I think I remember seeing her!” she exclaimed instead of giving me a strange look. “I knew there was something familiar about her…” She laughed. “So how’s that going?”
“We have literally no leads,” I told her. “No one’s seen him since I was born. He abandoned me as soon as he could and disappeared without a trace.”
“Sounds like a tough job, detective. Oh! Are you going to hire a private investigator to help? That would be cool. You could get some 1940’s outfits and pretend you’re in a noir film!”
“Umm… what?” I replied before bursting out into laughter. “That all seems like a lot extra.”
She blushed. “I just thought it’d be cool.” She paused. “Though I must admit that they’re my favorite type of movie and I’ve always fantasied about being involved in a more modern one.”
I chuckled. “Well then I’m sorry I can’t offer you that.”
She smiled. There was a sparkle in her dark eyes when she smiled. “Well, best of luck finding him then. If you need any coffee, you know where to find me.”
“Only when and if you’re working at the time,” I reminded her. “What’s been going on with you?”
“It’s end of the semester,” she said with a groan. “So when I’m not working, I’m busy working on my thesis and grading papers.”
“That sounds really cool, but also like a lot of work.” She nodded with a tired look on her face.
“You have no idea. I’m grading first years. Some of them are straight out of high school, where they apparently don’t learn how to write. It’s pretty rough.”
We sat and chatted for about fifteen minutes. Her phone went off, indicating the proximity of her work-shift. “Looks like it’s time I go,” she said in a disappointed tone.
“Well, you’ll still be here,” I reminded her, but I knew what she meant. “Have a good shift.” “I’ll try.”
She packed up her stuff, grabbed her mug, and shifted away to the employee-only backroom. I think technically it was just a storage room, but it was out of sight and perfect for breaks and getting ready to work.
I sat and stared out of the window once she was gone. The world went by. Buds had started to appear on trees, and grass had started to poke out of the constantly melting snow. In the city it was a little ill-advised to walk close to the road because all the streets were covered in puddles forming over potholes and grates. It was a cloudy day with the sun only peeking through at us every so often. If it wasn’t for the fact it was spring, it would have been a downer of a day, but spring had a magic to it. Winter was on its way out, so everyone was just generally in a better mood.
“Hi, Arthur,” a solemn and familiar voice said to me, breaking me out of my trance.
Part 5: Coffee with the Ex
“Hi, Arthur,” a solemn familiar voice said to me, breaking me out of my trance.
I snapped my neck to the right to look at the oddly familiar figure standing above me. It was Solenne, that much was true, with her light blue eyes and long blonde flowing hair. Her expression was a mix of joy and caution. She motioned to the seat across from me.
“Is this seat taken?”
“No, go ahead and take it!” I said with a bit too much excitement and nervousness.
She sat down in front of me and I was paralyzed. She was radiant, despite the reserved way she carried herself. It was like in all the time we’ve spent apart from each other she only got more put together, more beautiful, and I remained about the same.
After a long awkward silence, she finally spoke again. “It’s nice to see you.” She sounded sincere. “I was worried that you wouldn’t reply to my message since you didn’t reply for so long.”
“I didn’t have my phone on me when you texted,” I informed her because I felt like I needed to apologize.
“Oh, it’s okay, just unexpected is all.”
She looked quickly out of the window and then back at me. “So how have you been? Good, I hope?”
I didn’t want to tell her the truth. The concept of her knowing was too much to bear. Though I couldn’t imagine that I had done a good job at hiding the fact that I was a mess. There had to be at least a few dozen late night texts when I had let my inhibitions fall farther than they ever could with alcohol. Desperation can do scary things to a person.
“I’ve been good,” I lied, “surprisingly busy lately but not in a bad way. What about you?”
“I’ve been alright,” she responded with a surprisingly sad tone. “I’ll stop avoiding it. There’s a reason why I asked you out to coffee and we both knew what it was…” she paused for what felt like at least half an eternity. “I miss you.”
The words fell out of her mouth like cement teeth. They crashed down on the table, shattering the wood before slipping off onto the floor below. The crash left me stunned and paralyzed. Every thing I had ever imagined had just suddenly come true. All those desperate nights hoping that she would text back saying she felt the same way. I dreamt of this moment so many times that I honestly had no idea how many times I had imagined it. It felt so familiar that it was like writing my name, and yet now that I was face to face with it, I didn’t know how to react. I had liked to think I would act all suave and either shoot her down or embrace her without another word, but neither happened in this moment. There was only stunned silence because the dreams we have rarely find their way to reality in the ways that we wish they would.
“I know it’s a lot out of nowhere…” she muttered after a long silence.
“No, it’s-” I began saying but I didn’t know what the rest of the words were.
“It feels like it’s been forever since that fateful summer day all those months ago. Like a whole lifetime has passed by…” I was scared of her words. Terrified of what was coming next. “Maybe we can start anew?”
The suggestion did not help with me being stunned. I just sat there with my mouth agape like a zombie with a broken jaw. A thousand thoughts flew through my brain but I couldn’t catch onto any of them. I was sitting and watching the world go by, but unable to move or act. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to think.
“Would you like a refill?” A voice that wasn’t Solenne’s asked me, bringing me back to reality. Farah stood over our table, ready to grab my mug. She was smiling kindly at us, but I could see a look of suspicion and worry in her eyes.
“Uh, yeah, if that’s alright,” I answered. “Thanks.”
“No problem, just come talk to me before you leave and we’ll settle your tab,” she said to me with a friendly but knowing tone. The look in her eyes reminded me of that day last summer, the way Solenne got up and left. That look in her eyes reminded me of what I was supposed to do, and what I really wanted to do.
Once Farah had left, I took a deep breath and looked back at the waiting Solenne. “You broke my heart,” I told her with a suddenly defiant and slightly confrontational tone. She opened her mouth to say something but I wasn’t done. “You broke my heart and left just like that. You didn’t even give me a chance. You didn’t tell me that something was wrong. You just ditched me when it suited her.” The anger from the past months built up as I spoke. “I would have given you anything, but I wasn’t enough for you despite that. And I’ve still missed you, so much, this entire goddamn time.” A look of misunderstanding relief crossed her face. “Trying to get over you, moving on, has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.” I shook my head. “How would I even know you wouldn’t leave again when it suited you again? How can I know I’m not just some pawn in your life? How can I be sure you ever loved me?”
This response left her stunned. “Arthur… You know I would never intentionally hurt you,” she said in the most comforting tone she knew how to do. “It was the heat and not spending time with you. I felt so trapped, so overwhelmed. I couldn’t handle a relationship at the same time. It’s not that I didn’t, that I don’t, love you. It was me. And I’ve gotten better, I promise.”
“Here’s your coffee,” Farah said at probably the most awkward time for her to overhear our conversation. She placed it down in front of me. “Black and strong, just like you like.”
“Thanks, Farah,” I said with a friendly smile, trying to maintain my composure around her.
“I think everyone deserves a second chance,” I said as I watched Farah walk away. I met Solenne’s sad blue gaze. “And I’ve thought about this moment a thousand times. Dreamt about it. I know what I’m supposed to do, what I’m supposed to say and want. But the only reason our breakup messed me up so much is because I still want to be with you.” A hopeful smile crept its way onto her face. “So I guess let’s try again.”
It’s hard to admit, but there is some truth to the idea that we don’t actually want happiness. What we really want is what we’re used to, the familiar, and that often has a lot of pain in it. A lot of bad stuff. And it leads to awful decisions.
Solenne stuck around at the cafe as my new/old girlfriend for about a half hour before scurrying out, saying something about a meeting she had nearby that she had to get to. Alone again in the cafe with a new outlook on life and new situation, I headed up to the counter to pay Farah for the coffee.
“So… that was your ex, right?” Farah asked when I came up. I pulled back in shock and nodded cautiously. “Remember, I was working the day you two broke up? It wasn’t hard to tell what happened… Are you okay? What was all that about?”
“She wanted to get back together,” I answered with the giddiness in my stupid heart being tempered by the knowledge that no one around me was going to approve of it.
“Oh wow, she went all in that quickly?”
“Yeah…” I muttered.
“So…?” she questioned without saying much at all.
“I said yes. Only a fool denies his heart what it wants,” I said in a way to justify myself. I didn’t expect to feel so much guilt and shame about getting back together with her. I dreaded telling my family, or Mahli.
“Personally, I don’t let my heart make all the decisions,” she replied with a slightly critical tone followed by a chuckle. “But whatever makes you happy. If you need someone to talk to, you know how to find me.”
“Thanks, Farah, I appreciate it.” I paid and got the hell out of there.
I knew that I was going to have to tell Mahli at some point. There was no way I could keep it from him forever, nor should I, but I wanted to wait a bit before telling him. Of course, he texted me later that night.
“What happened with Solenne?”
“We talked. A lot.”
“Did she try to get back together with you?”
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I answered slyly.
“Oh, alright, that’s fair. But you know if you need anyone to talk to, I’m here.”
“That’s why you’re my best friend,” I replied with a silly emoji attached. With that deflected, I relaxed and hoped I could keep myself from bringing it up until I was ready to get the criticism from my rational yet romantic friend.
“I have a lead,” Holly texted a couple days later while I was on the way to Solenne’s apartment for the first time since we got back together.
“How did you manage that? I thought it was a dead end?” I questioned in turn.
“Your parents were professors at a university. They had colleagues who knew them and their research. That university was here in this city. You’re going to go ask some questions.”
“Why me?” I asked as I hopped off of the bus and walked down the oddly pristine streets to Solenne’s expensive apartment.
“Don’t I look almost exactly like your mother?” she responded.
“Yeah, you have a point there. So who am I looking for?”
Nervous, I took a second to breathe before buzzing Solenne’s apartment. “Hi, who is it?” she asked with a static-filled voice.
“Arthur! I’m here!”
“Nice to hear your voice, come on up!”
The small doorway was filled with an intrusive buzzing noise. I pulled the door open and headed up the stairs to the third floor where she lived. I took a moment before knocking on the door, but it opened in front of me.
“You know you have to come in, not just stand in the hallway. I don’t bite,” she said with a playful smirk. “Well, that’s not entirely true.” She hastened me into the apartment. I took off my shoes, and she took my little spring jacket and hung it up in the closet.
Solenne always had an eye for interior design. She had a minimalist taste. Most of her furniture was either white or a very pale pink. Her living room had a couple plants hanging from the ceiling, being held up by black metal frames. It was like something straight off of Pinterest.
It was clean and pristine. I knew Solenne better than to assume that this was the normal state of her apartment. When we were together I came over plenty of times so I saw that her default setting was a mess. She hated doing dishes, and no matter how many dishwashers you have, the big pans have to be washed by hand so they usually filled her sink. There were so many times that I had to do it for her.
But the apartment was clean. There was nothing on the floor. The counters were clean, and the tables were neatly organized.
“The place is nicer than I remember it,” I commented in hopes of giving a compliment.
“I’d hope so,” she replied with a chuckle. “I redesigned the whole place.”
“Oh really?” I exclaimed with a little too much surprise. “I guess my memory of the way it used to be is shaky at best.”
“That’s okay, it’s been a while.” She led me into the living room and motioned to the couch. I took a seat. “Do you want some tea?”
“I’m good, thanks,” I answered. The couch was comfortable, but I wasn’t. The whole scenario didn’t feel real to me. It didn’t feel real to be with her again. Maybe that’s because we hadn’t kissed yet at that point, or hugged, really. Sure they don’t define a relationship, but I always imagined our getting back together to be more passionate than it has been.
“Suit yourself,” she said as she headed into the nearby kitchen and started boiling water.
“So what have you been up to lately?” I questioned, looking to see if anything else had changed in the time we were apart.
“Oh, just work mostly. Been working on a new painting in the spare room, but it’s not done so I’d prefer if you didn’t go in there,” she informed me as she leaned against the counter waiting for the water to boil.
“That’s exciting. I can’t wait to see it.”
“I might sell it before you get the chance. There was someone interested in a painting by me, so this is sort of a commission for them,” she explained in a somewhat apologetic tone.
“Oh, well that’s pretty exciting! You should have mentioned that!”
“I guess I should have,” she admitted with a chuckle.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. Out of habit, I took it out and checked. It was Holly. “Professor Fitzgerald, or honestly any older professor in the science department, but she’s the only one I found with direct ties to your dad,” Holly informed me.
“How did you find that out?”
“They wrote a couple articles about quantum mechanics together. Highly technical stuff, but it means they had to work together.”
“Who are you texting?” Solenne asked, reminding me that I was at her apartment.
“Oh, just a friend of mine,” I answered in the kind of way that betrays the fact I’m trying to hide their identity.
“Is it that girl from the cafe? The one who has a thing for you?” she questioned further.
“Whoa, what are you talking about?” I replied defensively.
“The girl who came by when we were getting coffee. I saw the way she looked at you,” she said. I couldn’t believe it. She sounded kind of jealous. Imagine that. Months without contacting me once, and the one time she does, she’s suddenly possessive.
“Farah and I have been friends for a while,” I told her. “Since before we broke up. There’s nothing there. Besides, this isn’t her.”
“Who is it then? You don’t seem like you want to share.”
“It’s a long story and a little hard to explain,” I said with a sigh. “But alright. Her name is Holly. She very well might be my long lost sister and we’re both trying to find my biological father to find out.”
“That wasn’t that hard, now was it?” she said in a victorious tone just as the kettle finished boiling. When she returned with her tea, she sat down in a little armchair by the sliding glass doors of her balcony.
“I didn’t know you had a long lost sister,” she commented as she took a sip of boiling hot tea. Somehow she was never bothered by it.
“I didn’t either, honestly, but when I saw her, I knew that there had to be some connection. Turns out we’re both orphans, but her parents found her in a barn so they don’t know anything about her real parents.”
“That’s some real drama,” she said in an uninterested tone. “Anyways,” her tone grew quiet and a little shy, “I know it’s still new between us and there is a bit of weirdness about being together…”
“Yeah…” I muttered in response. “I felt that too…”
“Maybe we just need to reignite our old feelings, to remind ourselves that we’ve found our way back to each other again,” she suggested. She got to her feet and an excited look crossed her face. “Let’s go dancing!”
I had never really been one for dancing. I always felt silly, like an idiot, out of time and oblivious to the flow. But for Solenne, I always pretended like I did like it. And sometimes it wasn’t pretend.
“That’d do it,” I said with a smile. “It definitely gets our bodies close together.”
“So Friday night, we go dancing like old times!” She paused and looked at me. “Is your friend Mahli still single? Maybe we should bring him along so he might be able to meet someone.”
I shook my head with perhaps too much panic. “No, no, he doesn’t like to dance.” I wasn’t lying, but that was not the reason I didn’t want to invite him. “I’ll casually invite him but I wouldn’t expect anything.”
“You haven’t told him yet, have you?” she questioned with a sharp look to accompany it.
I let out a heavy sigh. “No, because I know what he’s going to think and say about it. He didn’t want me to meet you the other day. He thinks all of this is a bad idea.”
“Then we’ll just have to prove him wrong,” she said with a confident grin. She held out a hand to me. I reached out. She pulled me to my feet and spun me around, causing me to knock the table with my shin. Her tea spilled onto her table.
“Oh no!” she exclaimed, immediately letting go of me and rushing to the kitchen for a rag.
“Sorry,” I apologized as I stood there useless in the face of a spilled teacup.
“It’s alright, that was my fault,” she answered as she wiped it up.
“You’re a lot cleaner than you used to be,” I commented as she went to put the rag away.
“What do you mean?” she questioned.
“Your apartment was a lot messier before. A little spill like that wouldn’t have gotten such a reaction from you.”
She shrugged as she sat back down in her little armchair. “I guess I’ve changed a bit. It’s probably because now I have nice things.”
“Your things were nice before,” I protested playfully.
She looked at me and laughed. “Yeah, right, old IKEA furniture that looked fine but if you moved it the wrong way, it’d fall apart. What do you think motivated me to change the couch? It fell apart one night.”
“Wow, and just from you sitting on it?” I asked in surprise.
“Basically!”
“Okay, I stand corrected. I will admit that I don’t think I’d know nice furniture from not as nice furniture.”
“Well that’s okay,” she said to me sweetly. “I’ll handle that. You’ll do the dishes. Perfect set up.”
I laughed sincerely. It was nice being with her again, though it was still a little awkward. I had no doubts that we could get through the awkwardness though. I knew I just needed to get over the thoughts I’ve had for all these months. I needed to refresh my mind and forget about the pain, forget about the mixed feelings, forget about the feeling of betrayal that came with being dumped after being so open.
My phone went off a couple times while we were chatting, but I didn’t look at them again. As much as it felt kind of nice to have her be possessive over me again, I didn’t want to cause any conflicts so early on in our new blooming relationship. I checked my phone once I was out of her apartment building. It was Holly and Mahli.
“So I checked her office hours online. Looks like the best time to go is Friday afternoon. She has a big empty block from 1-5pm. Should give you plenty of time in case there are students that catch her first,” Holly had texted.
“Did you wanna get coffee again some time soon? I’m enjoying our little coffee trips,” Mahli had texted.
I left them both unanswered until I got home. The bus ride was an odd experience. I was so excited to spend more time with Solenne, so happy that my life had found its way back to her. But, at the same time, I was nervous and scared. I was afraid to do anything wrong, to say anything to upset her, to accidentally convince her that this whole thing was a mistake like I did the first time.
Summer was coming, and the thought made my heart sink. Since when did anyone fear summer, of all seasons? But it was summer that had the heat that separated us the year prior. The first time we broke up was in August’s sweltering heat. Summer threatened to separate us again, force us to live apart because the heat of two human bodies was just too much to bear. If I could have stopped summer from coming, I would have, even if it meant no summer flowers or trips to the park, or to the beach. I was so desperate to hold onto Solenne.
That Friday came faster than I expected. Everything just seemed to be moving so fast. I didn’t know exactly what to make of it, but I didn’t have any choice but to move forward in time with it. I had agreed to coffee with Mahli but still hadn’t told him the truth. I kept those thoughts out of my mind as much as possible and focused on the task ahead.
I got off the bus outside of the university that Holly had attended and Farah was still at. I had never been there myself, as it was a little out of the way from downtown. Compared to my high school, it felt massive, but I guess that’s to be expected from a university with literally thousands and thousands of students. The location was filled with various buildings of varying heights. There was one that was oddly tall and brown, like a bad office building. There was a number of little public spaces, lots of benches and plants, but the place was a maze to me. I knew that there were underground tunnels that students and faculty used to get around, but I didn’t know how to get in them or how to get through them.
I wandered around for a while unsure about how to get anywhere. I knew what the name of the building was that I was looking for “Johnson Science center”, but it’s not like they were all marked with bright red signs hanging from their roofs. Eventually I came across a map by the parking lot on the other side of campus. I discovered then that I was standing right next to one of the building’s many entrances. I felt stupid for some reason.
I headed inside and tried to find my way to the second floor where the professor’s office was supposed to be according to Holly. She said second floor, office 215. I found some stairs up and followed the numbers all the way down until I hit 216 and the hallway abruptly ended. I looked out of the window at the end of the hallway and saw that it was some spot for students to sort of pass through. Above I could see a connection though so I headed up the stairs and tried to find my way to the bridge over to the office I needed to get to.
It took me a good twenty minutes to find my way to this professor’s office. I had never been in a university before, and all I could find myself thinking was how anyone ever found their way at all through the damned place. For all I knew it was something like in Harry Potter where the god damned staircases moved on you.
When I got to the office, the door was slightly ajar. It had her name on it engraved in a little piece of metal and stuck to the door. It was covered in various scientific articles, none of which made much sense to me. I went to knock on the door, but the first knock caused the door to open, revealing a woman of about 70 or even 80 sitting at her desk with reading glasses on, looking at a laptop.
“Oh, hi,” she said to me, looking up from her screen and shooting a polite smile in my direction. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“I actually have a few questions,” I said, entering the room awkwardly.
“I would love to help, but please direct your class related questions to your TA. Otherwise, I’m happy to help.” She said before clarifying. “I just have so many students it’s hard to answer all of their questions myself.”
“I’m actually not a student of yours,” I informed her in a confused tone. Are her classes really so big that she doesn’t know if someone’s in her classes? What the hell is university?
“Oh really?” she replied with a surprised tone, taking off her glasses and taking a good look at me. “So what are your questions for me?”
“They actually are about an old colleague of yours,” I began.
A suspicious look crossed her face. “You should know I’m not one to engage in gossip. Anything that you are looking to find out from me will be strictly professional.”
“It’s not gossip,” I told her. I took a deep breath. “It’s about Richard Holtz.”
“Holtz?” she repeated in shock. “How do you know that name?”
“He’s my biological father,” I told her with a heavy tone. “I’m trying to find him and thought maybe you could tell me more about him.”
“So you did survive…” she muttered under her breath. “I don’t know what to tell you. He and I worked on a few papers, along with his late wife - your mother.”
“What was he working on?” I questioned. “That experiment the day I was born. What was that about?”
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “The whole thing was done in secret, since the board had to approve any experiments, and it was clear that it wouldn’t get approved. I wish that they had gone to the board instead though… Maybe then we could have avoided what happened…”
“What did they study? Any idea what they were trying to achieve?”
“Your parents were both studying quantum mechanics. It’s a highly technical subject, but before the experiment that caused the accident, your parents were both positing the possibility of two concurrent realities.” The look of confusion on my face must have tipped her off. “In essence, they were looking to see if they could make two possibilities co-exist in this reality. There was some math to support it, like with light being both a particle and wave at the same time, depending on how we look at it. But they wondered about something bigger. Like Schrodinger's cat being both dead and alive outside of the box. Burying one while keeping the other.”
“How would that even be possible?” I questioned, starting to have some idea of understanding.
“The idea behind it was that when we looked at the cat in the box, two separate realities split off, one in which it is dead and one for if it was alive. The idea would be to somehow merge those two possibilities, and - to a degree - almost create something out of nothing.” She let out a sigh. “It was a doomed experiment from the beginning, a doomed concept. We can’t create something from nothing. It would break the laws of physics.”
“What do you think would have happened if they had succeeded in their experiment?” I questioned further.
A look of surprise crossed her face, as if she thought I was suggesting something she didn't know about. “I don’t know. It would upset the very way we look at the world, that’s without a doubt. However, I can’t help but to be uncertain about the idea. There is a reason why the realities split. Perhaps bringing them together forcefully could have some unforeseen consequences.”
“Well that’s reassuring,” I said with a chuckle. “So you have no idea where he might have gone off to?”
She shook her head. “The police asked me the same thing as his coworker and friend of the couple. I can’t imagine where he might have gone that they haven’t searched yet.” She paused and looked at the bookshelf on the wall. “Sometimes I wonder if he’s still alive, if they couldn’t find him because he had died off in the woods somewhere after giving you away… It’s been 25 years after all…”
“Well, I hope he’s alive,” I told her with a sigh before getting up. “Thanks for the talk. I think I’ve learned a lot about him in the time we've been talking.”
“It’s no problem,” she replied with a half-smile. “You have your mother’s eyes. I thought you might have been their lost child when you popped your head in.” She paused. “What is your name?”
“Mine? Arthur Compton.” I told her.
“That’s a nice name. You can call me Ella, Ella Fitzgerald.”
“It was nice to meet you. If I have any questions about quantum mechanics, I’ll drop by and ask while you’re available.”
“That sounds nice. It was a pleasure meeting you as well, take care.”
She returned to her laptop as I left the room. I felt like I had learned a lot and yet nothing at all. It was all bouncing about in my head, echoes of familiarity. I knew the words but the sequence was strange. I quickly texted Holly everything that Dr. Fitzgerald had said in our little chat, from the topic of my parents’ studies before the accident, to what little information she had to offer about his location.
“What do you think of that? Any ideas?” I followed up.
Holly took a little while to reply. “Maybe that’s why he tried to leave me to die,” she suggested all of a sudden without context. “If I was the consequence of this experiment going terribly well, what if he realized that it was dangerous for the two of us to coexist in this world, and tried to split us up the only way he knew would do the job.” There was a pause and I waited for the next text as I walked onto the bus home. “Maybe he couldn't go through with it. Maybe he wanted to suffocate me but didn’t have the heart. He saw too much of your mom in me…”
“That’s a lot to take out form what they happened to be studying at the time of my birth. Wouldn’t it make more sense to focus on how to find him instead of what it could mean?” I questioned in return, the idea of him trying to suffocate her intentionally making me uneasy about my own birth father.
“He might not be alive anymore, and we have no way to find him,” she reminded me. “He’s been missing for 25 years, and in most situations, that means the person has long died or fled to another country, and we can’t chase him to the states or anything.”
“You’re right, sorry. At least this way you have some sense of an answer as to what happened to you.”
“Yeah, it’s probably one of the shittier answers I could have imagined.” She answered.
“Yeah, but at least it’s interesting. Maybe we can just leave this whole thing behind us now.”
“It’s funny.”
“What?”
“You were the one who wanted the answers, but now you’re the one suggesting that we just turn our backs on it and leave it be. What changed in your life?” she questioned.
“I mean…” I began typing but I knew what had changed. “I started seeing someone. No need to chase after what’s gone anymore for me…”
Holly didn’t reply to that. I didn’t hear from her for a couple days. I figured she was busy with something else, or figuring out more about it. I met up with Mahli the next day at the cafe. He got there before me and luckily for me, he was chatting with Farah. When I walked in and saw them sitting together, my heart sunk a bit. I knew that Farah knew. I knew that she might have slipped the beans without realizing that she shouldn’t.
“Hey guys,” I greeted them with a somewhat false joy and wave. “Fancy seeing you two here!”
They laughed and Farah got up from her seat. “I was just taking a break and thought I’d stop for a chat,” she told me with a smile. “Take my seat. I gotta get back to work anyways. A new customer just walked in after all.”
“Alright, see you in a bit,” I told her with a smile before she walked away. I took a seat and looked at Mahli, who had a look of disapproval on his face.
“I know about Solenne,” he told me with a quiet disapproving tone.
“I was actually going to tell you,” I lied to him. “Today, actually. How did you find out anyhow?”
“Solenne posting about it online definitely didn’t help keep it a secret,” he informed me. “Even Farah mentioned it just now.” He paused. “There’s a weird amount of people interested in your relationship status…”
I should have known that Solenne would want to flaunt that she was in a relationship again. That was always in her style.
“It just happened when we hung out with each other the other day,” I tried to defend myself.
He laughed. “The thing you shouldn’t have done and also kept a secret?”
“I guess so,” I replied, feeling myself becoming more and more defensive.
“I just hope you know what you’re doing,” he said with a heavy sigh, the disapproval gone from his voice. “I just don't want to see you get hurt again, and neither does Farah.”
“Solenne thinks Farah has a thing for me,” I said sort of randomly. It popped into my head and I guess it was a good way to throw off the conversation.
“Solenne thinks a lot of things,” he replied with a shrug. “So how are things with her?”
“We were going to go out dancing last night,” I told him in a rather proud tone, “but she had something come up so we postponed it to this week. Otherwise, pretty good, I’d say.”
“Well, so long as you’re happy.” He paused. “So what’s going on with Holly? Intending on seeing her again soon? Find out anything new since last we spoke?”
I filled him in on the things the professor had said. “Doesn’t look too promising,” I said, shaking my head.
“That’s a shame,” he said with a sigh.
“Bet you want to see Evette again,” I teased in an attempt to finally move the conservation around something different than what my life has been for the past few weeks.
He immediately blushed. “I wouldn’t be opposed to it, but you know that I’m fine with it either way.” “That’s a great way to avoid saying anything at all,” I replied with a laugh. “Anyways, I’m going to grab something to drink. Are you good?”
He held up a near-full latte and nodded. I headed to the counter and found Farah leaning against it seemingly impatiently.
“Same as always?” she questioned with a friendly smile.
“You know it,” I answered. Usually there was more banter between us, but this time it was mostly silent. She poured the coffee, I paid, and we went our separate ways. I didn’t think much of it as I headed back to my seat.
“If you want, I could suggest the four of us do something together. Or-” I began, about to suggest something damned and probably an awful idea.
“Or what? We go dancing with you and Solenne?”
“You said it, not me.”
“Why would you want all of us there when you’re out with your girlfriend?” he questioned with a raised eyebrow. “Especially if it’s your first time in forever?”
I let out a heavy sigh. “I’m nervous and scared around her still. The point of dancing is to let us break loose, but I think maybe now that you know that it would be easier if you were there. Holly and Evette are just excuses to get you to come and spend some time with her.”
“I think I’ll pass, thanks,” he said with a quiet tone. “I’m not one for dancing…”
“What about dinner? I’m sure I could come up with some sort of excuse as to why the four of us should get dinner. I could host everyone at my place!”
“Yeah, and cook too? What’s next dancing on the moon?” he replied sarcastically. “We could go to that dinner a couple streets over. Seems chill enough.”
“Oh so now you’re onboard.”
“You’re my best friend, man, don’t really need to convince me too hard to hang out with you.”
“And with an attractive woman that you are wondered by.”
“Those words don’t make much sense, but okay.”
“So it’s a date. Well, for you too, assuming they agree to it.”
“Please don’t go on a date with your probable sister,” he said with a laugh.
Once he got back to his poetry, I texted Holly, breaking the silence that had built up between us since our last conversation. “I was thinking maybe we could go get a bite and just sort of chill?”
It was a short while before she responded. “I guess that could be nice.” I couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t being entirely sincere, but it was hard to tell for real. “Just the two of us?”
“Actually, I was thinking that maybe Mahli and Evette could join us? You know, get our best friends to be more acquainted with each other?”
“That’s not a bad idea,” she replied with a silly emoji. I figured she had already figured it out.
I snapped my neck to the right to look at the oddly familiar figure standing above me. It was Solenne, that much was true, with her light blue eyes and long blonde flowing hair. Her expression was a mix of joy and caution. She motioned to the seat across from me.
“Is this seat taken?”
“No, go ahead and take it!” I said with a bit too much excitement and nervousness.
She sat down in front of me and I was paralyzed. She was radiant, despite the reserved way she carried herself. It was like in all the time we’ve spent apart from each other she only got more put together, more beautiful, and I remained about the same.
After a long awkward silence, she finally spoke again. “It’s nice to see you.” She sounded sincere. “I was worried that you wouldn’t reply to my message since you didn’t reply for so long.”
“I didn’t have my phone on me when you texted,” I informed her because I felt like I needed to apologize.
“Oh, it’s okay, just unexpected is all.”
She looked quickly out of the window and then back at me. “So how have you been? Good, I hope?”
I didn’t want to tell her the truth. The concept of her knowing was too much to bear. Though I couldn’t imagine that I had done a good job at hiding the fact that I was a mess. There had to be at least a few dozen late night texts when I had let my inhibitions fall farther than they ever could with alcohol. Desperation can do scary things to a person.
“I’ve been good,” I lied, “surprisingly busy lately but not in a bad way. What about you?”
“I’ve been alright,” she responded with a surprisingly sad tone. “I’ll stop avoiding it. There’s a reason why I asked you out to coffee and we both knew what it was…” she paused for what felt like at least half an eternity. “I miss you.”
The words fell out of her mouth like cement teeth. They crashed down on the table, shattering the wood before slipping off onto the floor below. The crash left me stunned and paralyzed. Every thing I had ever imagined had just suddenly come true. All those desperate nights hoping that she would text back saying she felt the same way. I dreamt of this moment so many times that I honestly had no idea how many times I had imagined it. It felt so familiar that it was like writing my name, and yet now that I was face to face with it, I didn’t know how to react. I had liked to think I would act all suave and either shoot her down or embrace her without another word, but neither happened in this moment. There was only stunned silence because the dreams we have rarely find their way to reality in the ways that we wish they would.
“I know it’s a lot out of nowhere…” she muttered after a long silence.
“No, it’s-” I began saying but I didn’t know what the rest of the words were.
“It feels like it’s been forever since that fateful summer day all those months ago. Like a whole lifetime has passed by…” I was scared of her words. Terrified of what was coming next. “Maybe we can start anew?”
The suggestion did not help with me being stunned. I just sat there with my mouth agape like a zombie with a broken jaw. A thousand thoughts flew through my brain but I couldn’t catch onto any of them. I was sitting and watching the world go by, but unable to move or act. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to think.
“Would you like a refill?” A voice that wasn’t Solenne’s asked me, bringing me back to reality. Farah stood over our table, ready to grab my mug. She was smiling kindly at us, but I could see a look of suspicion and worry in her eyes.
“Uh, yeah, if that’s alright,” I answered. “Thanks.”
“No problem, just come talk to me before you leave and we’ll settle your tab,” she said to me with a friendly but knowing tone. The look in her eyes reminded me of that day last summer, the way Solenne got up and left. That look in her eyes reminded me of what I was supposed to do, and what I really wanted to do.
Once Farah had left, I took a deep breath and looked back at the waiting Solenne. “You broke my heart,” I told her with a suddenly defiant and slightly confrontational tone. She opened her mouth to say something but I wasn’t done. “You broke my heart and left just like that. You didn’t even give me a chance. You didn’t tell me that something was wrong. You just ditched me when it suited her.” The anger from the past months built up as I spoke. “I would have given you anything, but I wasn’t enough for you despite that. And I’ve still missed you, so much, this entire goddamn time.” A look of misunderstanding relief crossed her face. “Trying to get over you, moving on, has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.” I shook my head. “How would I even know you wouldn’t leave again when it suited you again? How can I know I’m not just some pawn in your life? How can I be sure you ever loved me?”
This response left her stunned. “Arthur… You know I would never intentionally hurt you,” she said in the most comforting tone she knew how to do. “It was the heat and not spending time with you. I felt so trapped, so overwhelmed. I couldn’t handle a relationship at the same time. It’s not that I didn’t, that I don’t, love you. It was me. And I’ve gotten better, I promise.”
“Here’s your coffee,” Farah said at probably the most awkward time for her to overhear our conversation. She placed it down in front of me. “Black and strong, just like you like.”
“Thanks, Farah,” I said with a friendly smile, trying to maintain my composure around her.
“I think everyone deserves a second chance,” I said as I watched Farah walk away. I met Solenne’s sad blue gaze. “And I’ve thought about this moment a thousand times. Dreamt about it. I know what I’m supposed to do, what I’m supposed to say and want. But the only reason our breakup messed me up so much is because I still want to be with you.” A hopeful smile crept its way onto her face. “So I guess let’s try again.”
It’s hard to admit, but there is some truth to the idea that we don’t actually want happiness. What we really want is what we’re used to, the familiar, and that often has a lot of pain in it. A lot of bad stuff. And it leads to awful decisions.
Solenne stuck around at the cafe as my new/old girlfriend for about a half hour before scurrying out, saying something about a meeting she had nearby that she had to get to. Alone again in the cafe with a new outlook on life and new situation, I headed up to the counter to pay Farah for the coffee.
“So… that was your ex, right?” Farah asked when I came up. I pulled back in shock and nodded cautiously. “Remember, I was working the day you two broke up? It wasn’t hard to tell what happened… Are you okay? What was all that about?”
“She wanted to get back together,” I answered with the giddiness in my stupid heart being tempered by the knowledge that no one around me was going to approve of it.
“Oh wow, she went all in that quickly?”
“Yeah…” I muttered.
“So…?” she questioned without saying much at all.
“I said yes. Only a fool denies his heart what it wants,” I said in a way to justify myself. I didn’t expect to feel so much guilt and shame about getting back together with her. I dreaded telling my family, or Mahli.
“Personally, I don’t let my heart make all the decisions,” she replied with a slightly critical tone followed by a chuckle. “But whatever makes you happy. If you need someone to talk to, you know how to find me.”
“Thanks, Farah, I appreciate it.” I paid and got the hell out of there.
I knew that I was going to have to tell Mahli at some point. There was no way I could keep it from him forever, nor should I, but I wanted to wait a bit before telling him. Of course, he texted me later that night.
“What happened with Solenne?”
“We talked. A lot.”
“Did she try to get back together with you?”
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I answered slyly.
“Oh, alright, that’s fair. But you know if you need anyone to talk to, I’m here.”
“That’s why you’re my best friend,” I replied with a silly emoji attached. With that deflected, I relaxed and hoped I could keep myself from bringing it up until I was ready to get the criticism from my rational yet romantic friend.
“I have a lead,” Holly texted a couple days later while I was on the way to Solenne’s apartment for the first time since we got back together.
“How did you manage that? I thought it was a dead end?” I questioned in turn.
“Your parents were professors at a university. They had colleagues who knew them and their research. That university was here in this city. You’re going to go ask some questions.”
“Why me?” I asked as I hopped off of the bus and walked down the oddly pristine streets to Solenne’s expensive apartment.
“Don’t I look almost exactly like your mother?” she responded.
“Yeah, you have a point there. So who am I looking for?”
Nervous, I took a second to breathe before buzzing Solenne’s apartment. “Hi, who is it?” she asked with a static-filled voice.
“Arthur! I’m here!”
“Nice to hear your voice, come on up!”
The small doorway was filled with an intrusive buzzing noise. I pulled the door open and headed up the stairs to the third floor where she lived. I took a moment before knocking on the door, but it opened in front of me.
“You know you have to come in, not just stand in the hallway. I don’t bite,” she said with a playful smirk. “Well, that’s not entirely true.” She hastened me into the apartment. I took off my shoes, and she took my little spring jacket and hung it up in the closet.
Solenne always had an eye for interior design. She had a minimalist taste. Most of her furniture was either white or a very pale pink. Her living room had a couple plants hanging from the ceiling, being held up by black metal frames. It was like something straight off of Pinterest.
It was clean and pristine. I knew Solenne better than to assume that this was the normal state of her apartment. When we were together I came over plenty of times so I saw that her default setting was a mess. She hated doing dishes, and no matter how many dishwashers you have, the big pans have to be washed by hand so they usually filled her sink. There were so many times that I had to do it for her.
But the apartment was clean. There was nothing on the floor. The counters were clean, and the tables were neatly organized.
“The place is nicer than I remember it,” I commented in hopes of giving a compliment.
“I’d hope so,” she replied with a chuckle. “I redesigned the whole place.”
“Oh really?” I exclaimed with a little too much surprise. “I guess my memory of the way it used to be is shaky at best.”
“That’s okay, it’s been a while.” She led me into the living room and motioned to the couch. I took a seat. “Do you want some tea?”
“I’m good, thanks,” I answered. The couch was comfortable, but I wasn’t. The whole scenario didn’t feel real to me. It didn’t feel real to be with her again. Maybe that’s because we hadn’t kissed yet at that point, or hugged, really. Sure they don’t define a relationship, but I always imagined our getting back together to be more passionate than it has been.
“Suit yourself,” she said as she headed into the nearby kitchen and started boiling water.
“So what have you been up to lately?” I questioned, looking to see if anything else had changed in the time we were apart.
“Oh, just work mostly. Been working on a new painting in the spare room, but it’s not done so I’d prefer if you didn’t go in there,” she informed me as she leaned against the counter waiting for the water to boil.
“That’s exciting. I can’t wait to see it.”
“I might sell it before you get the chance. There was someone interested in a painting by me, so this is sort of a commission for them,” she explained in a somewhat apologetic tone.
“Oh, well that’s pretty exciting! You should have mentioned that!”
“I guess I should have,” she admitted with a chuckle.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. Out of habit, I took it out and checked. It was Holly. “Professor Fitzgerald, or honestly any older professor in the science department, but she’s the only one I found with direct ties to your dad,” Holly informed me.
“How did you find that out?”
“They wrote a couple articles about quantum mechanics together. Highly technical stuff, but it means they had to work together.”
“Who are you texting?” Solenne asked, reminding me that I was at her apartment.
“Oh, just a friend of mine,” I answered in the kind of way that betrays the fact I’m trying to hide their identity.
“Is it that girl from the cafe? The one who has a thing for you?” she questioned further.
“Whoa, what are you talking about?” I replied defensively.
“The girl who came by when we were getting coffee. I saw the way she looked at you,” she said. I couldn’t believe it. She sounded kind of jealous. Imagine that. Months without contacting me once, and the one time she does, she’s suddenly possessive.
“Farah and I have been friends for a while,” I told her. “Since before we broke up. There’s nothing there. Besides, this isn’t her.”
“Who is it then? You don’t seem like you want to share.”
“It’s a long story and a little hard to explain,” I said with a sigh. “But alright. Her name is Holly. She very well might be my long lost sister and we’re both trying to find my biological father to find out.”
“That wasn’t that hard, now was it?” she said in a victorious tone just as the kettle finished boiling. When she returned with her tea, she sat down in a little armchair by the sliding glass doors of her balcony.
“I didn’t know you had a long lost sister,” she commented as she took a sip of boiling hot tea. Somehow she was never bothered by it.
“I didn’t either, honestly, but when I saw her, I knew that there had to be some connection. Turns out we’re both orphans, but her parents found her in a barn so they don’t know anything about her real parents.”
“That’s some real drama,” she said in an uninterested tone. “Anyways,” her tone grew quiet and a little shy, “I know it’s still new between us and there is a bit of weirdness about being together…”
“Yeah…” I muttered in response. “I felt that too…”
“Maybe we just need to reignite our old feelings, to remind ourselves that we’ve found our way back to each other again,” she suggested. She got to her feet and an excited look crossed her face. “Let’s go dancing!”
I had never really been one for dancing. I always felt silly, like an idiot, out of time and oblivious to the flow. But for Solenne, I always pretended like I did like it. And sometimes it wasn’t pretend.
“That’d do it,” I said with a smile. “It definitely gets our bodies close together.”
“So Friday night, we go dancing like old times!” She paused and looked at me. “Is your friend Mahli still single? Maybe we should bring him along so he might be able to meet someone.”
I shook my head with perhaps too much panic. “No, no, he doesn’t like to dance.” I wasn’t lying, but that was not the reason I didn’t want to invite him. “I’ll casually invite him but I wouldn’t expect anything.”
“You haven’t told him yet, have you?” she questioned with a sharp look to accompany it.
I let out a heavy sigh. “No, because I know what he’s going to think and say about it. He didn’t want me to meet you the other day. He thinks all of this is a bad idea.”
“Then we’ll just have to prove him wrong,” she said with a confident grin. She held out a hand to me. I reached out. She pulled me to my feet and spun me around, causing me to knock the table with my shin. Her tea spilled onto her table.
“Oh no!” she exclaimed, immediately letting go of me and rushing to the kitchen for a rag.
“Sorry,” I apologized as I stood there useless in the face of a spilled teacup.
“It’s alright, that was my fault,” she answered as she wiped it up.
“You’re a lot cleaner than you used to be,” I commented as she went to put the rag away.
“What do you mean?” she questioned.
“Your apartment was a lot messier before. A little spill like that wouldn’t have gotten such a reaction from you.”
She shrugged as she sat back down in her little armchair. “I guess I’ve changed a bit. It’s probably because now I have nice things.”
“Your things were nice before,” I protested playfully.
She looked at me and laughed. “Yeah, right, old IKEA furniture that looked fine but if you moved it the wrong way, it’d fall apart. What do you think motivated me to change the couch? It fell apart one night.”
“Wow, and just from you sitting on it?” I asked in surprise.
“Basically!”
“Okay, I stand corrected. I will admit that I don’t think I’d know nice furniture from not as nice furniture.”
“Well that’s okay,” she said to me sweetly. “I’ll handle that. You’ll do the dishes. Perfect set up.”
I laughed sincerely. It was nice being with her again, though it was still a little awkward. I had no doubts that we could get through the awkwardness though. I knew I just needed to get over the thoughts I’ve had for all these months. I needed to refresh my mind and forget about the pain, forget about the mixed feelings, forget about the feeling of betrayal that came with being dumped after being so open.
My phone went off a couple times while we were chatting, but I didn’t look at them again. As much as it felt kind of nice to have her be possessive over me again, I didn’t want to cause any conflicts so early on in our new blooming relationship. I checked my phone once I was out of her apartment building. It was Holly and Mahli.
“So I checked her office hours online. Looks like the best time to go is Friday afternoon. She has a big empty block from 1-5pm. Should give you plenty of time in case there are students that catch her first,” Holly had texted.
“Did you wanna get coffee again some time soon? I’m enjoying our little coffee trips,” Mahli had texted.
I left them both unanswered until I got home. The bus ride was an odd experience. I was so excited to spend more time with Solenne, so happy that my life had found its way back to her. But, at the same time, I was nervous and scared. I was afraid to do anything wrong, to say anything to upset her, to accidentally convince her that this whole thing was a mistake like I did the first time.
Summer was coming, and the thought made my heart sink. Since when did anyone fear summer, of all seasons? But it was summer that had the heat that separated us the year prior. The first time we broke up was in August’s sweltering heat. Summer threatened to separate us again, force us to live apart because the heat of two human bodies was just too much to bear. If I could have stopped summer from coming, I would have, even if it meant no summer flowers or trips to the park, or to the beach. I was so desperate to hold onto Solenne.
That Friday came faster than I expected. Everything just seemed to be moving so fast. I didn’t know exactly what to make of it, but I didn’t have any choice but to move forward in time with it. I had agreed to coffee with Mahli but still hadn’t told him the truth. I kept those thoughts out of my mind as much as possible and focused on the task ahead.
I got off the bus outside of the university that Holly had attended and Farah was still at. I had never been there myself, as it was a little out of the way from downtown. Compared to my high school, it felt massive, but I guess that’s to be expected from a university with literally thousands and thousands of students. The location was filled with various buildings of varying heights. There was one that was oddly tall and brown, like a bad office building. There was a number of little public spaces, lots of benches and plants, but the place was a maze to me. I knew that there were underground tunnels that students and faculty used to get around, but I didn’t know how to get in them or how to get through them.
I wandered around for a while unsure about how to get anywhere. I knew what the name of the building was that I was looking for “Johnson Science center”, but it’s not like they were all marked with bright red signs hanging from their roofs. Eventually I came across a map by the parking lot on the other side of campus. I discovered then that I was standing right next to one of the building’s many entrances. I felt stupid for some reason.
I headed inside and tried to find my way to the second floor where the professor’s office was supposed to be according to Holly. She said second floor, office 215. I found some stairs up and followed the numbers all the way down until I hit 216 and the hallway abruptly ended. I looked out of the window at the end of the hallway and saw that it was some spot for students to sort of pass through. Above I could see a connection though so I headed up the stairs and tried to find my way to the bridge over to the office I needed to get to.
It took me a good twenty minutes to find my way to this professor’s office. I had never been in a university before, and all I could find myself thinking was how anyone ever found their way at all through the damned place. For all I knew it was something like in Harry Potter where the god damned staircases moved on you.
When I got to the office, the door was slightly ajar. It had her name on it engraved in a little piece of metal and stuck to the door. It was covered in various scientific articles, none of which made much sense to me. I went to knock on the door, but the first knock caused the door to open, revealing a woman of about 70 or even 80 sitting at her desk with reading glasses on, looking at a laptop.
“Oh, hi,” she said to me, looking up from her screen and shooting a polite smile in my direction. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“I actually have a few questions,” I said, entering the room awkwardly.
“I would love to help, but please direct your class related questions to your TA. Otherwise, I’m happy to help.” She said before clarifying. “I just have so many students it’s hard to answer all of their questions myself.”
“I’m actually not a student of yours,” I informed her in a confused tone. Are her classes really so big that she doesn’t know if someone’s in her classes? What the hell is university?
“Oh really?” she replied with a surprised tone, taking off her glasses and taking a good look at me. “So what are your questions for me?”
“They actually are about an old colleague of yours,” I began.
A suspicious look crossed her face. “You should know I’m not one to engage in gossip. Anything that you are looking to find out from me will be strictly professional.”
“It’s not gossip,” I told her. I took a deep breath. “It’s about Richard Holtz.”
“Holtz?” she repeated in shock. “How do you know that name?”
“He’s my biological father,” I told her with a heavy tone. “I’m trying to find him and thought maybe you could tell me more about him.”
“So you did survive…” she muttered under her breath. “I don’t know what to tell you. He and I worked on a few papers, along with his late wife - your mother.”
“What was he working on?” I questioned. “That experiment the day I was born. What was that about?”
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “The whole thing was done in secret, since the board had to approve any experiments, and it was clear that it wouldn’t get approved. I wish that they had gone to the board instead though… Maybe then we could have avoided what happened…”
“What did they study? Any idea what they were trying to achieve?”
“Your parents were both studying quantum mechanics. It’s a highly technical subject, but before the experiment that caused the accident, your parents were both positing the possibility of two concurrent realities.” The look of confusion on my face must have tipped her off. “In essence, they were looking to see if they could make two possibilities co-exist in this reality. There was some math to support it, like with light being both a particle and wave at the same time, depending on how we look at it. But they wondered about something bigger. Like Schrodinger's cat being both dead and alive outside of the box. Burying one while keeping the other.”
“How would that even be possible?” I questioned, starting to have some idea of understanding.
“The idea behind it was that when we looked at the cat in the box, two separate realities split off, one in which it is dead and one for if it was alive. The idea would be to somehow merge those two possibilities, and - to a degree - almost create something out of nothing.” She let out a sigh. “It was a doomed experiment from the beginning, a doomed concept. We can’t create something from nothing. It would break the laws of physics.”
“What do you think would have happened if they had succeeded in their experiment?” I questioned further.
A look of surprise crossed her face, as if she thought I was suggesting something she didn't know about. “I don’t know. It would upset the very way we look at the world, that’s without a doubt. However, I can’t help but to be uncertain about the idea. There is a reason why the realities split. Perhaps bringing them together forcefully could have some unforeseen consequences.”
“Well that’s reassuring,” I said with a chuckle. “So you have no idea where he might have gone off to?”
She shook her head. “The police asked me the same thing as his coworker and friend of the couple. I can’t imagine where he might have gone that they haven’t searched yet.” She paused and looked at the bookshelf on the wall. “Sometimes I wonder if he’s still alive, if they couldn’t find him because he had died off in the woods somewhere after giving you away… It’s been 25 years after all…”
“Well, I hope he’s alive,” I told her with a sigh before getting up. “Thanks for the talk. I think I’ve learned a lot about him in the time we've been talking.”
“It’s no problem,” she replied with a half-smile. “You have your mother’s eyes. I thought you might have been their lost child when you popped your head in.” She paused. “What is your name?”
“Mine? Arthur Compton.” I told her.
“That’s a nice name. You can call me Ella, Ella Fitzgerald.”
“It was nice to meet you. If I have any questions about quantum mechanics, I’ll drop by and ask while you’re available.”
“That sounds nice. It was a pleasure meeting you as well, take care.”
She returned to her laptop as I left the room. I felt like I had learned a lot and yet nothing at all. It was all bouncing about in my head, echoes of familiarity. I knew the words but the sequence was strange. I quickly texted Holly everything that Dr. Fitzgerald had said in our little chat, from the topic of my parents’ studies before the accident, to what little information she had to offer about his location.
“What do you think of that? Any ideas?” I followed up.
Holly took a little while to reply. “Maybe that’s why he tried to leave me to die,” she suggested all of a sudden without context. “If I was the consequence of this experiment going terribly well, what if he realized that it was dangerous for the two of us to coexist in this world, and tried to split us up the only way he knew would do the job.” There was a pause and I waited for the next text as I walked onto the bus home. “Maybe he couldn't go through with it. Maybe he wanted to suffocate me but didn’t have the heart. He saw too much of your mom in me…”
“That’s a lot to take out form what they happened to be studying at the time of my birth. Wouldn’t it make more sense to focus on how to find him instead of what it could mean?” I questioned in return, the idea of him trying to suffocate her intentionally making me uneasy about my own birth father.
“He might not be alive anymore, and we have no way to find him,” she reminded me. “He’s been missing for 25 years, and in most situations, that means the person has long died or fled to another country, and we can’t chase him to the states or anything.”
“You’re right, sorry. At least this way you have some sense of an answer as to what happened to you.”
“Yeah, it’s probably one of the shittier answers I could have imagined.” She answered.
“Yeah, but at least it’s interesting. Maybe we can just leave this whole thing behind us now.”
“It’s funny.”
“What?”
“You were the one who wanted the answers, but now you’re the one suggesting that we just turn our backs on it and leave it be. What changed in your life?” she questioned.
“I mean…” I began typing but I knew what had changed. “I started seeing someone. No need to chase after what’s gone anymore for me…”
Holly didn’t reply to that. I didn’t hear from her for a couple days. I figured she was busy with something else, or figuring out more about it. I met up with Mahli the next day at the cafe. He got there before me and luckily for me, he was chatting with Farah. When I walked in and saw them sitting together, my heart sunk a bit. I knew that Farah knew. I knew that she might have slipped the beans without realizing that she shouldn’t.
“Hey guys,” I greeted them with a somewhat false joy and wave. “Fancy seeing you two here!”
They laughed and Farah got up from her seat. “I was just taking a break and thought I’d stop for a chat,” she told me with a smile. “Take my seat. I gotta get back to work anyways. A new customer just walked in after all.”
“Alright, see you in a bit,” I told her with a smile before she walked away. I took a seat and looked at Mahli, who had a look of disapproval on his face.
“I know about Solenne,” he told me with a quiet disapproving tone.
“I was actually going to tell you,” I lied to him. “Today, actually. How did you find out anyhow?”
“Solenne posting about it online definitely didn’t help keep it a secret,” he informed me. “Even Farah mentioned it just now.” He paused. “There’s a weird amount of people interested in your relationship status…”
I should have known that Solenne would want to flaunt that she was in a relationship again. That was always in her style.
“It just happened when we hung out with each other the other day,” I tried to defend myself.
He laughed. “The thing you shouldn’t have done and also kept a secret?”
“I guess so,” I replied, feeling myself becoming more and more defensive.
“I just hope you know what you’re doing,” he said with a heavy sigh, the disapproval gone from his voice. “I just don't want to see you get hurt again, and neither does Farah.”
“Solenne thinks Farah has a thing for me,” I said sort of randomly. It popped into my head and I guess it was a good way to throw off the conversation.
“Solenne thinks a lot of things,” he replied with a shrug. “So how are things with her?”
“We were going to go out dancing last night,” I told him in a rather proud tone, “but she had something come up so we postponed it to this week. Otherwise, pretty good, I’d say.”
“Well, so long as you’re happy.” He paused. “So what’s going on with Holly? Intending on seeing her again soon? Find out anything new since last we spoke?”
I filled him in on the things the professor had said. “Doesn’t look too promising,” I said, shaking my head.
“That’s a shame,” he said with a sigh.
“Bet you want to see Evette again,” I teased in an attempt to finally move the conservation around something different than what my life has been for the past few weeks.
He immediately blushed. “I wouldn’t be opposed to it, but you know that I’m fine with it either way.” “That’s a great way to avoid saying anything at all,” I replied with a laugh. “Anyways, I’m going to grab something to drink. Are you good?”
He held up a near-full latte and nodded. I headed to the counter and found Farah leaning against it seemingly impatiently.
“Same as always?” she questioned with a friendly smile.
“You know it,” I answered. Usually there was more banter between us, but this time it was mostly silent. She poured the coffee, I paid, and we went our separate ways. I didn’t think much of it as I headed back to my seat.
“If you want, I could suggest the four of us do something together. Or-” I began, about to suggest something damned and probably an awful idea.
“Or what? We go dancing with you and Solenne?”
“You said it, not me.”
“Why would you want all of us there when you’re out with your girlfriend?” he questioned with a raised eyebrow. “Especially if it’s your first time in forever?”
I let out a heavy sigh. “I’m nervous and scared around her still. The point of dancing is to let us break loose, but I think maybe now that you know that it would be easier if you were there. Holly and Evette are just excuses to get you to come and spend some time with her.”
“I think I’ll pass, thanks,” he said with a quiet tone. “I’m not one for dancing…”
“What about dinner? I’m sure I could come up with some sort of excuse as to why the four of us should get dinner. I could host everyone at my place!”
“Yeah, and cook too? What’s next dancing on the moon?” he replied sarcastically. “We could go to that dinner a couple streets over. Seems chill enough.”
“Oh so now you’re onboard.”
“You’re my best friend, man, don’t really need to convince me too hard to hang out with you.”
“And with an attractive woman that you are wondered by.”
“Those words don’t make much sense, but okay.”
“So it’s a date. Well, for you too, assuming they agree to it.”
“Please don’t go on a date with your probable sister,” he said with a laugh.
Once he got back to his poetry, I texted Holly, breaking the silence that had built up between us since our last conversation. “I was thinking maybe we could go get a bite and just sort of chill?”
It was a short while before she responded. “I guess that could be nice.” I couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t being entirely sincere, but it was hard to tell for real. “Just the two of us?”
“Actually, I was thinking that maybe Mahli and Evette could join us? You know, get our best friends to be more acquainted with each other?”
“That’s not a bad idea,” she replied with a silly emoji. I figured she had already figured it out.
We set a date and two days later, the four of us met up at the diner down the street. It had a retro style going on, just like every diner seemed to need to. It was a popular place, but we were going a little later in the night so we missed most of the crowd. Mahli was the first one to get there, even though we both agreed to show up together, he didn’t want to have even me waiting.
“Hey, I figured you’d be here,” I commented with a chuckle before looking at him more closely. “You’re all dressed up. I’d recognize your nice shoes anywhere, and is that a blazer you’re wearing?” I took a closer look. “And a little bit of eyeliner. Man, you must really want to make a good impression on her.”
He immediately blushed and turned away from me. “I just… I just thought that it was appropriate to make myself as presentable as possible. I don’t want to make them feel like they’re not worth the effort,” he said in an attempt to defend himself from someone who wasn’t attacking him.
“Looks like you’re not the only one…” I muttered as I looked past him and saw the two girls walking towards us.
Both Holly and Evette were more properly dressed up. They had their makeup done just the way they like it, and coordinated their outfits. Evette was wearing a simple red dress with a black leather jacket, and Holly was wearing ripped black jeans with a slightly oversized grey sweater on top. I was the only one who came as if it was no more than a usual trip to the coffee shop.
“Wow,” I said as they drew near, approaching them with a smile on my face. “The two of you look nice!”
“We know,” Evette replied with a grin.
“Well you’re not the only ones,” I told her. “Not me, of course, but Mahli thought the same as you. Look at him.”
“No, it’s really nothing, I just-” he muttered as I stepped back and pushed him in front of me. He looked up at Evette shyly and smiled. “Hi.”
“You weren’t kidding,” Holly said as she examined Mahli. “You really are the only slob here, Arthur.” This seemed to take some of the pressure of off Mahli, who laughed along with the other two at my expense.
We went in and had a pretty wonderful time at dinner. Mahli and Evette were hitting it off decent enough. It seemed like she adjusted the way she acted to accommodate the way he is more. I thought that was sweet. He was right about her though. Exuberant was definitely an accurate description. Sometimes I was worried I should feel embarrassed because she was so unabashedly herself. But it was refreshing.
At the end of diner, Mahli and I offered to walk them back to their car, just for the sake of conversation. Mahli walked up in front with Evette, and I watched from behind with Holly. All we could hear of their conversation was mumbles and the occasional outburst of laughter or otherwise.
“So this went well,” Holly said with a grin on her face.
“I think so too,” I responded, smiling and looking up at the clouded night sky above us. I let out a deep sigh and looked over at her. “Look, I’m sorry about the other day. I know that I was being a little unreasonable. This matters even if I’m with someone.”
“Thank you,” she said with a knowing tone, “but it’s okay. I think we have about as many answers as we’ll be able to get. And that’s something we can’t control.”
“So have we landed on the census that we’re siblings?” I questioned.
She took a moment and then shrugged. “I guess so. Not like it’d hurt to assume that much. From what we know, it’s the most likely scenario.” She gently punches me in the arm. “Besides, I think I’d like having a brother. If you behave yourself, at least.”
“I’ll try not to be too much trouble,” I told her before looking ahead of us and seeing that the pair had disappeared. “Um, where did they go?”
Holly looked around. “Maybe they ran ahead to get some more alone time?” she suggested.
I searched the area for any sign of them but the city streets weren’t even crowded enough to conceal them. I looked behind us, just in case. A man was sprinting towards us, his face concealed by darkness and a hood. Instinctively, I grabbed Holly by the arm and pulled her out of the way.
“What?” she yelped as she spun towards me. The man lunged at the spot where she had been and fell to the ground, his knife falling out of his hands and sliding into the street.
We stood there and stared at him for a moment before he scrambled to his feet. We didn’t say anything, but our eyes met with his before he ran off, leaving his knife behind on the city street. It was an older man, of at least fifty, with a crazed look in his eyes. I couldn’t help but feel like none of this was an accident.
“Are you okay?” I asked Holly after he was fully out of sight.
“What just happened? Who was that man?” she asked in response, clearly shaking from the event.
“I don’t know…” I muttered, staring down the street where he had disappeared to. “But I think he was waiting for us.”
“What?” she exclaimed. “What makes you think that?”
“The look in his eyes. There was something in them that made me uneasy…” I explained as I headed towards the knife that he had dropped. “Besides, the chances of randomly being attacked on the side of the road by a stranger like that are ridiculously low…”
“We should call the police,” she reminded me.
“Good idea,” I said as I stared at the knife. It was a surprisingly long knife. It wasn’t from a kitchen and wasn’t a pocket knife. It wasn’t something just anyone would carry on them for no reason.
“What’s keeping you guys?” Evette asked as she crossed the street from the parking lot with Mahli trailing behind her.
“We were attacked,” I answered. “Holly’s calling the police right now.”
“Oh my god, are you okay?” Mahli questioned with a louder tone than I’ve ever heard from him.
“We’re fine. I happened to notice him at the last moment. He tripped and dropped his knife before running off.” I took a deep breath. “At the very most, we’re a little shaken up. Where did you two get to? All of a sudden you weren’t in front of us anymore.”
“Sorry…” Mahli muttered. “Evette challenged me to a race back to the car.”
“He couldn’t resist the challenge,” Evette said with a proud and somewhat silly voice. “Even though he didn’t know what the car looked like.”
“Wishing I didn’t agree to it now…” he muttered under his breath.
“It’s okay,” I assured him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “If you were here, it wouldn’t have gone much differently. No one got hurt and he ran off. It’s okay.”
The four of us hung out until the police came by. It was only a couple of minutes even though it wasn’t an emergency. Downtown always had at least one patrol unit around just in case. They collected all of our statements. I pointed them towards the knife, told them my suspicions about it not being a random attack, and they took it in as evidence, but were very clear in saying, “these sorts of things happen from time to time. He was likely having an episode and lashing out at the first person around.” Then they added. “We’ll do our due diligence and check what little prints we can pull from the knife against our records.”
Because of what happened, Holly insisted that she drive the two of us home. We were mostly silent the whole time, with Holly and I sitting up front and Evette and Mahli sitting in the back together. Mahli was the first to get out, followed by Evette. Once we had driven a bit from Evette’s apartment building, Holly pulled over.
“What are you pulling over for?” I questioned in a concerned tone. “Are you feeling alright?”
“I just realized where I saw that man’s face before…” she muttered before pulling out her phone. She was on it for a moment or two before holding up a picture of a man in his 30’s. “Do you recognize him?”
“That’s… my biological father…” I answered in surprise, realizing that I had barely even looked at his picture this whole time. “Those eyes…”
The eyes weren’t as unique as my mother’s, as ours, but they were unique enough to be identified. If not for the eyes, everything else looked like him. If not more worn and crazed.
“So let’s say that was him,” I posited with some doubt in my tone. I didn’t want to fall into the trap of attributing everything to our personal story, “what does that mean for us?”
“It means he’s still alive…” Holly muttered. “And that he does not want us alive.”
“Maybe it’s because we’ve been looking into him?” I suggested.
She shook her head. “I don’t think he would care if someone was investigating him if he had successfully fallen off the face of the earth…”
I knew what she was about to suggest, what she was afraid to think. That he resurfaced because he found out she was still alive and intended on finishing the job. But I wanted to believe that there was something better to it, something not as sad, though I had no other options.
“I guess that could be true.”
“Only one way to find out…” she muttered before looking over at me with a determined look in her eyes. “We’re going to draw him out again. If it was just a random attack, then it won’t be an issue. But if we’re ready for him, we can catch him and find the answers that we were trying to get this whole time.”
I was not in the mood to go chasing after a guy who may or may not exist anymore. I just wanted to go home and try to forget that it had ever happened. But as I looked into Holly’s eyes - my eyes - I saw something that I hadn’t seen in my own in so long. It was what had always separated her from me, the thing that made her gaze seem so uncanny and uncomfortable. My eyes were broken and defeated, trying desperately to cling to something to avoid falling apart entirely. She wasn’t a fragmented mess. She was put together. A force to be reckoned with.
“This is a crazy idea,” I reminded her before letting out a defeated sigh. I knew that there was only one good answer here, one answer that could help me grow as a person. “But I guess we have to do it.”
“That’s the spirit!” she exclaimed with an odd amount of excitement. “I’ll bring you home and then we can plan another time to meet to talk.”
“Why not do it over the phone?” I questioned. “Or messenger pigeon?”
“How would he have known that we were downtown tonight? How would he have known where we were?” she reminded me. “I think he might have found a way to listen in on our conversations and read our text messages.”
“That, or it was a coincidence,” I suggested, but immediately felt foolish.
“I don’t think he was just wandering the streets with a knife like that hoping that he’d bump into us,” she told me as she ignited the engine.
“Yeah, you’re probably right about that.” I admitted defeat, but I couldn’t help but to wonder how he would have been able to do that. It wasn’t like he was a member of a spy agency or anything, or even someone who studied computer engineering. He was a physicist, not a hacker.
I waved goodbye to Holly as I watched her drive away from my apartment building. Once she was gone, I ran up to the front door, slipped in, and headed to my apartment. Despite the time, there was a surprising amount of noise in the hall, probably because it was the weekend and people liked to socialize. Holly and I planned our next meeting to be at her apartment, a place I had yet to see that was a bit further out than my own from downtown. Explained why she drove everywhere.
I was hanging at Solenne’s before our planned meeting. Things were still kind of weird between us, but they were getting better. “Do you want another drink?” she offered me as she got up and headed for the kitchen.
“No, I think I’m good, thanks,” I responded. “Besides, I gotta head out soon to meet with Holly.”
“Oh yeah, that’s a thing now, isn’t it?” she replied in a deadpan tone as she disappeared behind the kitchen doorway. “Why are you two meeting anyways?”
I didn’t want to tell her the truth. It felt too unbelievable that she would assume I was lying and that was the last thing I wanted. “We’re going to try to figure out a way to find our father,” I explained.
“Why can’t you do that over text or something?” she questioned. She didn’t want me to leave.
“Holly said she found something that I should see instead of her just telling me about it,” I lied. “Besides, it’s probably a good idea for the two of us to get to know each other in person, since we are siblings and all.”
“I better not find out she’s not actually your sister and you’ve been lying to me this whole time,” she grumbled as she sat back down in her seat with a gin and lemonade in hand. “Though that would explain why you haven’t introduced me to her yet.”
“I haven’t even brought her to my adoptive parents yet,” I said in my defense. “We’re going to try to sort out this biological family stuff out first before branching out.”
“That’s weird,” she said in a disapproving tone.
“Right, well…” I slapped my knees and got to my feet. “I should probably get going. The bus ride is decently long from here and all.”
“Have fun with your sister,” she muttered with a fake smile on her face.
“I will, thanks,” I said as sincerely as I could muster in the situation.
Once out of the apartment, I picked up my pace and hurried out of the building. I could feel my face turning red, my heart-rate increasing. Who was she to question my every move? I would never cheat on her, and she should have known that by then. I was willing to give her everything. Why couldn’t she see that?
Holly’s apartment was in a poorer part of town, similar to my own neighbourbood. It was filled with old brick four-story apartment complexes surrounded by either street or parking lot. I could count the amount of trees on one hand, and they were all on a steep hill where no cars could park. Around her own building, there were a number of stumps, which made me wonder if something had happened to get them all cut down.
I could hear some children playing soccer in one of the parking lots. Down the road was another few kids on little bikes with brightly colored helmets on their heads. The fresh spring air was welcoming everyone out into the world again after the long winter we had. We got a night of snow a few nights prior, but it was warm enough during the day to melt it all away and pretend that summer was closer than it really was.
I slid into the door of Holly’s apartment building, only to find the second door left ajar with a sign on it reading, “do not close”. Unsure about entering without permission, I tried to buzz her apartment, but it seemed like the buzzer was broken. My first apartment was like this, a little worn but good enough I guessed. I slipped in and headed down the stairs to apartment 2.
I knocked and waited. The door opened, and I was expecting to find myself looking into my own eyes but instead some other young woman was in her place.
“Oh, sorry,” I said instinctively. “I must have gotten the address wrong.”
“You didn’t!” Holly called out from deep inside the apartment. She ran around the corner of the hallway. “That’s my roommate, Audrey!”
Audrey was a bit taller than Holly and had auburn hair in a pixie cut. Her eyes were a mix of brown and blue, like the horizon split by a coast on one side and ocean on the other.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said with a polite smile, extending out a hand.
“You too,” she replied in a deadpan tone before turning around and walking back into her apartment. Holly slipped by her and ushered me in.
“Sorry if she was a bit cold,” she apologized quietly as I took off my shoes. “She is not a fan of strangers. Especially not strange men.”
“That’s fair, I think,” I answered with a relaxed grin. “It’s really no problem. Just a little confusing.”
“So welcome to Casa a Holly and Audrey,” she said to me as she motioned to the nearby living room like a real-estate agent.
“The name could use some work,” I joked, chuckling.
Unlike Solenne’s apartment, Holly and Audrey’s was filled with things. A good portion of space by the balcony door, which was dug into the ground since their apartment was somewhat underground, was filled with various plants of all sorts, many of them tropical.
It was clear by the living room alone that they decorated with what they could find and made the best with what they had. Their living room lamp looked like an antique. A lot of their furniture had at least some worn wood on it, making the whole room feel kind of warm and cozy. It was a little messy, but clean enough.
“I thought about cleaning up before you got here,” she explained to me. “But then I figured I could spend that time relaxing instead.”
“Living a stressful life?” I joked.
She shrugged her shoulders. “I mean, we were attacked on the street the other day. That was stressful.”
“You make a good point there. So did you want to plan here?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I have stuff set up in my bedroom, but first you have to promise not to judge.”
“Judge what?”
“How messy it is. The planning got a little out of hand,” she answered.
I laughed. “You have no idea how much of a mess my room is. I won’t judge you.”
She led me to her room, and surely enough it was a mess greater than I had expected. Crumpled and flattened papers lay all over the floor, and her blankets were laying all around the base of the bed, which had been overtaken by a number of papers and pictures. I immediately recognized the two pictures. One of them was of my mother, and the other of my father, well, my biological parents.
“Oh wow, you weren’t kidding,” I muttered as I tried to enter the room without stepping on too many papers, worried I might ruin something carefully placed. “I didn’t expect the planning to look so intense or chaotic.”
“Yeah, well, we have to be ready for someone to come and try to murder us, so I wanted to try to make sure we were prepared for everything.”
“I’m pretty sure this is a fire hazard,” I commented as I made my way over to the bed and looked at her oddly formed plan scattered all over it. “Okay, so you’re going to have to explain this to me.”
“I got really into the details here, but basically what we’re going to do is try to recreate the other day. Obviously not exactly, but we’ll go out later at night to a place downtown with Mahli and Evette. But we’ll be the ones in front, and they’ll hang back and look out for him. We’ll walk as normal, and when he shows up, they’ll let us know, and we’ll try to catch him.”
“What if this time he brings something more than a knife?” I questioned.
She let out a sigh. “I couldn’t figure out a single scenario where he has a gun and a clear shot that doesn’t end with the shot going off.”
“It’s like Chekhov's gun,” I joked, only to get a sharp glance from her. “Maybe we should pretend like he has a gun and try not to get him to attack us again. It’s starting to sound like an awful plan.”
She let out a sigh. “I know… I just want to know the truth, why he wants me dead. Why he left me there…”
I put a hand on her shoulder. Any deviation from the plan could mean utter disaster, but I couldn’t think of another plan. I couldn’t think of a way to make her feel better any short of confronting him and finding the truth.
“How about we pick up all these extra papers and then talk to the others about the plan?” I suggested, motioning a the floor that was making me uncomfortable.
“No, it’s okay,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll take care of it later. Do you want a cup of tea?”
I nodded. “I could go for one, yeah.”
We left the room and headed into the kitchen, where we found her roommate picking at a sad looking cactus on the windowsill.
“Why don’t you just accept that he’s never going to recover?” Holly asked her as she brushed by her to get a couple of mugs from the cupboards.
“He’s not dead yet,” Audrey replied. “There’s always hope. No point in just letting him go without a fight. Now if only I knew what was wrong…” She looked up and saw me standing there. “You a plant guy by any chance?”
“I know a couple things,” I answered with a shrug. “But it looks like you’d know more than I would.”
“Well, it’s worth a shot,” she admitted with a grim tone. “What do you think is wrong with it?”
The cactus was yellow and almost swollen. It was withering, that was for sure, but it was a cactus. What could kill it besides a lack of sunlight and water? So I said that.
“That’s just it,” she said with a sigh, leaning back onto the counter, dangerously close to the kettle’s spout. “I water this guy every week, and he doesn’t leave the windowsill. We’ve only had him a month or so. I don’t get how he’s already dying.”
“Aren’t cacti supposed to get watered only once every few weeks?” I questioned, prompting a wide-eyed expression to cross her face.
“I can’t believe I forgot that. Jesus Christ, how dumb am I?” she said in a grumpy mood before placing the cactus back on the windowsill. “Hey, there’s some dude out there.”
“So? People are allowed in the yard,” Holly questioned in response, not even bothering to look.
“I think he’s holding a gas can though… Look. He’s walking around all weird.”
Holly leaned towards the window. “It looks like he’s pouring something out of it…”
I’d like to say that our minds clicked and we realized what was going on before anything happened, but we didn’t. We were just confused until a fire appeared all along the walls of the apartment.
“Oh shit!” Audrey exclaimed. She grabbed the cactus and ran for the fire alarm. She hopped up and pressed the button on it, initiating the test. The apartment was filled with a beeping noise as the three of us ran to get out before the fire could find a way in.
Just as we got to the front door, the sound of breaking windows echoed through the apartment. We didn’t have time to investigate. We ran out into the shared hallway and up the stairs, only to find that both of the entrances were covered in flames. The glass doors that used to show the outside world were just blue, orange, and red hot. The flames hadn’t made their way in yet, but it was only a matter of time before they did.
“What do we do?” Audrey questioned, still clinging onto her cactus.
“Maybe the balcony door would be better?” I suggested, running back into the apartment to find that the fire had made its way inside. It was still moving in, but it was coming from Holly’s room. I peeked my head into the living room and saw that the balcony door was likewise engulfed in flames.
“No good,” I reported back to the girls, who were by the doors talking with a number of other residents.
“The fire department are on their way,” Holly informed them before her eyes drifted over to me. “If you’ll excuse me.” She pushed past them and met me in the hallway outside of her apartment. “We have to get them out of here. The fire is going to spread,” she told me in a distressed tone.
“Your apartment’s mostly on fire now,” I informed her with a sigh. I shook my head. “Other than dropping down from the second story, I don’t have many ideas.”
“That’s it,” she exclaimed quietly as she looked up at me with bright determined eyes. “Come on, if we can drop down, we might be able to break the doors down from outside. It’ll depressurize the room without someone being in it.”
“That’s risky,” I said in mild protest.
“What other option do we have? Sit and wait for someone to save us? Come on, we have to move.”
We ran up the stairs to a still-open door in the apartment that would be across from Holly’s. We entered. It was a family’s home. Kids toys littered the ground, and the two of us tripped over them a couple times. We headed to the balcony.
“Thank god these balconies are mostly cement,” Holly said as we made our way outside. We could see the light of the fire flashing below us, and onlookers in the parking lot behind the building watching in curious horror. We peered over. It wasn’t a short drop, but it seemed manageable.
“Alright, let’s go,” Holly said as she hopped the railing. She turned around and hung her feet from the balcony. “Ouch, fuck,” she exclaimed before jumping. I followed after her, and realized why she said ouch. Her feet were a little too close to the fire, as were mine.
We landed just barely out of the fire itself and immediately rolled away. Once we were okay, and clearly not on fire, we ran to the parking lot.
“I have an emergency kit in my car,” she yelled at me as we ran.
“Do you have your keys on you?” I questioned.
“No,” she said with a sigh, shaking her head. “Check the dumpster for something to break the window with!”
I jumped into the dumpster and shuffled it around until I came across a broken titanium hockey stick. I wasn’t sure if it would do, but we didn’t have time to look for a perfect solution. I hopped out. “Think this will do?”
“Depends on how hard you can swing it,” she told me. “Aim for the middle of the window, it has the least support. I think.”
“How would you know that?” I questioned as I ran up to the car, weapon in hand.
“Not now!” she screamed.
I swung as hard as I could. The hockey stick hit the window and bounced off. It flew out of my hands, which were sore along with my forearms. That hurt.
“There’s a crack!” she screamed. “Try it again!”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to break down the door with this?” I questioned as I grabbed the broken hockey stick and readied for another blow. Screams cried out from the apartment building, and there were sirens in the air, but they were still distant.
“Just trust me!” she screamed. “Now!”
I swung as hard as I could again, and this time the window shattered. I nearly fell forward as the hockey stick flew into the car. I caught myself, let the hockey stick fly from my arms and jumped back. Without a moment’s hesitation, Holly unlocked the door and climbed in, as if there wasn’t broken glass everywhere. She pulled down her backseat and pulled out the emergency kit she had referred to.
She spun around with a small sledgehammer in her hands.
“Why was that in your emergency kit?” I questioned, surprised with no idea how that could be useful in an automobile emergency.
“Not now!” she replied in a rushed tone as she ran for the front door of her apartment building. “Grab the blanket!” she called back to me.
I snatched the blanket that had been wrapped up with the emergency kit and chased after her. I hadn’t caught up with her yet before she took her first swing through the flames onto the glass door. It shattered immediately. Broken glass fell to the ground. She kept swinging though, breaking down every part of the door until it was just a metal frame. The flames stopped her from moving forward. Her roommate and neighbours stood trapped on the other side.
She snatched the blanket from my hand and tossed it onto the fire in front of her. It didn’t catch immediately. She stepped on it and grabbed the handle of the second door with her hand. She swung it open and held it open with her shoe. “Go, go, go!” she cried out to everyone who was still inside.
Once everyone was out, the fire department came running and pulled her free from the building.
They hosed it down the best they could, but there was no saving some of the apartments affected first, like Holly’s. The three of us sat on the side of the road in silence while the rest of the neighbours talked in worried tones among themselves. Police arrived and set up a perimeter. Once the fire was extinguished, a couple of the firefighters came over to us.
“You two were the ones who broke down the front doors, correct?” a firefighter who had been working on the truck when they arrived asked us.
“Yes, ma'am,” Holly answered as she got back up to her feet. “How is it in there?”
“It’s not good for many,” she answered with a solemn tone. She let out a heavy sigh. “What you did was dangerous, and we don’t recommend ever trying anything like that, but I can’t give you trouble for helping people escape a fire.”
“It’s no problem,” Holly answered.
“Now, what do you know about what started the fire? It looks like it originated around the exterior of the building.”
“I saw a man with a jerrycan walking around right before it started. He looked like he was pouring something out of it,” her roommate answered instead. “He was an older white guy with ragged hair. I couldn’t see his face though.”
“So it’s arson…” the firefighter muttered. “Do you have any idea who this man might be and why he might try to set fire to the building? A former resident, maybe?”
“I don’t think so,” Audrey answered, shaking her head. “I’ve seen everyone move in and out in the past couple years out of sheer boredom during the summer. There’s only been like two old guys and they’ve all been larger than he was. He was skinny and about this guy’s height.” She motioned to me. I got to my feet for comparison.
“I see. Thank you. I’ll send an officer over to get a statement from the three of you. Hopefully they can find whoever did this.” A look of visible frustration crossed her face. “To think that someone would come here and set fire to a low income apartment complex for seemingly no reason at all…”
Once the firefighter walked away, a horrible idea popped into my mind that made my skin crawl. “What if that fire was meant to trap us in it?” I suggested with a shaking tone.
“What do you mean?” Holly’s roommate questioned, but I saw the look of understanding cross Holly’s face.
“I’m not sure if Holly told you, but we were attacked on the street the other day,” I informed her. “By an older man that we assumed was our father for one reason or another.”
“You think he somehow followed you here and set fire to the building to kill you?” she questioned in response.
“I think it’s possible,” Holly answered. A pensive look overtook her face. “I don’t know how he would have known where I lived if he wasn’t monitoring our texts…” she muttered. “Plus we didn’t indicate a time. We left it vague…”
“Maybe the two of you should split up if he keeps showing up every time you’re together,” her roommate suggested with a tone that suggested that she was just looking for something to say.
“It really is starting to be every time,” Holly said, thoughts whizzing about her mind. “Which means it might actually be easier to catch him than we thought.”
“You can’t be serious, Holly,” I replied in a state of shock. “If it was him who set the fire, this just goes to show that he’s escalating his methods. Every time it doesn’t work, he’s trying harder. Next time he could have a gun and we could end up dead.”
“So what are we supposed to do? Just let him kill us next time?” she snapped back at me. “He just destroyed my home, and all my stuff! I have nothing left but my car. I need to know why he’s so damned obsessed with me. And why he didn’t bother to show up until you and I met.”
“She has a point,” her roommate chirped in. “This guy’s fucking around with your lives. Fuck him up.”
A couple police officers came by after I submitted defeat to going on the offensive again. We gave them our versions of the story of what happened and then asked them about the knife they took in for testing.
“You two were attacked the other day and you think it’s the same man?” the officer repeated in a questioning tone. “We’ll have to look into that.” He nodded at his partner, who headed to their car.
After a little bit, she came back to us with an expression that screamed that she had found some information that would forward the case.
“We have a match for the fingerprints,” she informed her partner, as well as us. She looked over at Holly and I. “It’s a man who disappeared 25 years ago following the death of his wife.” She wasn’t talking to us, but we were listening. She glanced at us. “But if that’s right, why would he be pursuing these two?”
“Richard Holtz?” I questioned, surprising both of the officers.
“How did you know that?” she questioned before her eyes widened. “Are you his son?”
I nodded. “I am, and we have reason to believe that she is her daughter too,” I informed her.
“Only one child was born that night,” she replied, shaking her head.
“My parents found me abandoned in an old barn, as if someone had left me there to die from exposure,” she explained. “Maybe there’s only one he let the world know about.”
“Alright, well, if that is true,” she posited in an unconvinced tone, “then why would he be pursuing either of you? What’s his motive?”
“We don’t know,” Holly answered in a slightly defeated tone. “Maybe he learned I survived and wants to finish the job?”
“We were thinking of trying to lure him out and capture him or something,” I said without thinking. Both of the officers gasped in shock before quickly getting their composure again.
“We would strongly recommend against trying to lure and trap a dangerous criminal,” the male officer said in a polite but firm tone. “Please leave this to us. Now that we have a rough description, motive, and identity, we have a clear course to capturing him.”
“I know it’s tempting to play the hero, but it’s really not a good idea,” the other officer told us in a tone that was an odd mix of soft and firm. “Please promise me you won’t.”
“We promise,” I said, holding my hand up as if I was making an oath in court. I glanced over at Holly. I could see that she wasn’t onboard with this plan, but she wasn’t going to say anything about it.
We complied with the officers and provided as much information as we had, and once they had finished their report, they left us to deal with the aftermath of the fire.
“Do you have somewhere you two can stay?” I questioned once we were alone.
“I guess I can swing by my parents for a while,” Audrey answered with a sigh. “They like me enough, and they’ll just be happy to hear that I survived the fire.”
“And I can stay with Evette,” Holly informed me. “She has a spare room set up for guests.”
“I’m surprised,” I commented with a chuckle.
“Why? She doesn’t seem hospitable to you?”
“Well, why would she have a spare room?”
“She’s been trying to get me to move in with her for a year,” Holly informed me with a chuckle. “But I told her I wasn’t going to bail on Audrey just like that.”
“Awe, that’s so sweet,” she chimed in. “Well now you’re officially off the hook. I can’t imagine that we’ll have to be splitting the rent any time soon.”
“A girl can dream,” Holly replied with a smile and a wink.
They were surprisingly cheerful for two people who were just made homeless and lost most of their belongings, but it was both a front and sincere. On one hand, they were smiling and laughing to make the pain feel less awful. On the other hand, they were trying to run away from it.
Evette came and picked us up, dropping off Audrey at her parents, and me at my place. I hopped out of the car and waved goodbye, but wondered when or if I’d ever see Holly again. I was filled with doubt about it all, if it was worth it. The guilt was palpable too. Everything stemmed from my one decision to go hunting her down that fateful day in the cafe. Maybe if we had never met, never got to know each other, she wouldn’t be so determined to get the answers from our attacker. We wouldn’t even know if he existed, and maybe he wouldn’t have decided to hunt either of us down.
“What’s on your mind?” Solenne asked as I sat quietly on her couch, my eyes stuck on the world beyond the glass that overflows with an ever-growing life and sense of danger. “Is it the fire?”
She sat down next to me and put a comforting hand on my thigh. I shook my head. “No, I’m just spacing out. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said softly. She hugged me. “You’re safe here.”
I felt like she was babying me. I guess there was good reason for it, but it made me frustrated. The thoughts that raced through my mind wondered why she felt like she had to be so gentle with me now when she had no problem breaking my heart all those months ago.
“You know you still owe me a dance,” she said in a teasing and playful voice as she stood up. She held out a hand.
“There’s not even music,” I answered, uninterested in the idea.
“Then imagine some,” she answered with a playful smirk.
There was a time in my life when I would have dreamt of moments like this, moments when Solenne was so wholly mine that I never had to worry about being alone again. But now that I was in it, the appeal of it was fading quick. We fought more than I liked to admit. When we kissed, there weren’t any fireworks or wedding bells, just lips against lips. I worried that it was all my fault. All that time away from her let my mind imagine something that was never real. I fell in love with the idea of being with her, but not with the reality of it.
“We should probably actually go out dancing at some point,” I said in response, keeping myself firmly rooted on the couch. I didn’t want to just give up on it, so I wrote my feelings away and pretended there was something to be done for a relationship that was already a sunk ship.
“Do you promise to dance with me if we do?” she questioned with a bit of sadness hidden behind her playful tone.
“I do,” I said in a matter of fact way.
“So this Friday, and we won’t forget or cancel this time. We’ll go, and have a blast.”
Friday came faster than I was expecting. I thought it was so far, but the days blended together between working and seeing Solenne. Holly was still as determined as ever, but in order to avoid our communications being monitored as easily, we communicated through Mahli and Evette.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Mahli questioned as I was on my way to Solenne’s for our long awaited dancing date.
“There’s no convincing Holly otherwise,” I answered. “She’s a stubborn one.”
“The more I get to know her, the more she kind of reminds me of you, but different,” he texted after a short pause. “Hard-headed and stubborn, but for different things, in different ways…”
“Well we aren’t the same person, after all,” I reminded him as I got to Solenne’s apartment and let myself in casually.
Solenne was standing in the hallway looking at herself in the mirror. She had a polka-dot dress on that resembled some form of 50’s diner waitress. She turned around, her hair perfectly straightened, red lipstick on, and an excited look in her eyes. That quickly went away when she saw me.
“Awe, you didn’t think to dress up at all?” she questioned as she examined me in disappointment.
I was a little insulted, but I understood. “These are the nicest clothes I have that I can do any sort of dancing in. Just these shoes, some dress pants, and a shirt.”
“I guess you don’t look that bad,” she commented with a wink as she walked over to me. She hugged me and reached for her keys. “Shall we go?”
We drove to our old dancing spot that was just outside of downtown. It was still early in the night, early enough that the beginning of the dance lessons were still going on and we could join in. I had never been that great at swing dancing. I liked the music well enough, the bopping jazz and tempo, but remembering where my feet were supposed to be and how to move my arms to guide someone else around was difficult. It looked so easy for everyone else, and I wanted to enjoy it, but it was hard when I had to consciously try not to hurt them.
We lined up across from each other, the follows and the leads. The instructors guided us through the basic steps and some other basics before having us group up with the person across from us. I jumped to dance with Solenne, but it was short lived. After only a couple seconds (or what it felt like), we were told to shuffle one person to the left. Most of the night ended up like that. When I was tired of dancing, we’d take a break, but some other person would come by and ask Solenne to dance.
The last hour we were there, I just sat at an empty table and watched as she danced with everyone. I wasn’t jealous, but I wasn’t happy either. The way she moved with them was different than it was with me. The way I moved with her was different than how they moved. I was stiff and they were fluid. I was still so nervous around her.
She dropped into the seat next to mine breathing heavily and sweaty. “Why aren’t you dancing?” she asked between heavy breaths.
“I’m tired,” I lied.
“I know how that is,” she replied with a smile. “I’m going to go outside for a second and get some fresh air. You want to come with?”
I shook my head. “I’m good here. Just going to watch everyone dance for a bit. If you’re not back in a bit, I’ll go join you.”
“Alright,” she said. She leaned over to me and kissed me on the forehead before departing. I watched her go and let out a heavy sigh once she was gone. I thought the only thing holding me back from happiness all these months was not being with Solenne, but now that I’m with her, all I’m left with is the realization that there was more to it that I refused to face.
A couple songs went by before Solenne had come back. Bored of sitting around doing nothing, I decided to go check on her. The spring air had become much warmer than it was when we got back together, but it was still crisp enough at night to make you shiver after a few minutes.
“I’ll be right back,” I told the volunteer at the door. She smiled and nodded at me as I went out the church’s basement doors.
“Solenne?” I called out into the parking lot. The night was still and quiet, the only noise coming from the booming swing music inside the church’s basement.
My mind immediately assumed that she had left without me, but I had her car keys in my pocket so she didn’t lose them while spinning around on the dance floor, so that wasn’t possible. “Solenne?” I called out again, jogging around looking for any sign of her.
“There you are, Arthur!” A female voice that was definitely not Solenne’s called out to me from behind. I spun around and saw Holly running to me.
“What are you doing here?” I questioned, my heart suddenly racing, waiting for the inevitable attack that seemed to come every time we were together.
“I’ve been trying to call and text you for an hour!” she explained to me in a distressed and frustrated tone.
“Why? And how did you know I was here?”
“Mahli told me,” she answered. “We have to go.”
“I can’t just leave. I have Solenne’s car keys. Can’t just abandon her.”
She let out a heavy groan. “Look at your god damned phone.” Her tone scared me a bit.
I took my phone out and saw a number of missed texts and calls from Holly and Mahli. And one text from an unknown number, one that was specifically hidden too.
“Arthur Compton,” it read, “there is an abandoned house at 4425 mountain road. Go there with Holly and no one else. Or Solenne might stay there for good.”
How much time had passed since she left the dance floor? How long had I been sitting down there that he managed to kidnap her and everything? I felt like an idiot for not going out with her. It was all my fault. I told her about the fire and the attack, but not about who I thought was behind it, not that Holly and I were being targeted. I brought her out into public only to put her in danger.
“We have to go, now,” I said to Holly in a determined voice.
“You’re damned right we do. Come on, I parked over here.”
We ran over to her little white Prius and hopped in. She silenced her radio and handed me her phone. “I already have the address put in. Guide me, and we’ll sort this all out.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I questioned as we pulled out of the parking lot. “Not calling the police, I mean.”
“I would love to live in the world where calling them won’t end with Solenne getting killed, but I don’t think we have that luxury right now,” she answered in a grim tone.
“Do you really think he’d do that to her? He wants us after all.” I wanted to believe he wouldn’t harm her just to get to me. “Take this exit.”
“I don’t think I’d want to take chances with the boundaries of a clearly homicidal maniac,” she told me with a hard tone.
“So what’s the plan once we get there? Got a pistol or shotgun in your emergency kit back there?” I questioned, half-joking, half-hopeful.
“No, we’re going to have to be smart and careful about this. I have a knife, and that’s about it,” she explained to me. “It’s in the glove compartment.”
I opened it up and saw the knife she was referring to. “Why do you have a knife this big in your glove compartment?” I questioned in shock as I examined it.
“It’s in case there’s a crash. That blade can easily cut through the seat-belt,” she explained.
“And in case we have to deal with murderers, apparently,” I commented as I slid the knife back into its sheathe, a little uncomfortable with having it out while we were in motion.
We drove for about fifteen minutes before we pulled up at the beginning of the driveway leading through the bud-covered trees into a dark abyss beyond.
“This looks like the place,” I said as I tried to peer through the thick blanket of darkness. “But I can’t even tell if there’s a house or a lake in there.”
“Only one way to find out,” Holly said as she turned off her car, grabbed the knife out of my hand, along with her phone, and got out of the car.
“Maybe the balcony door would be better?” I suggested, running back into the apartment to find that the fire had made its way inside. It was still moving in, but it was coming from Holly’s room. I peeked my head into the living room and saw that the balcony door was likewise engulfed in flames.
“No good,” I reported back to the girls, who were by the doors talking with a number of other residents.
“The fire department are on their way,” Holly informed them before her eyes drifted over to me. “If you’ll excuse me.” She pushed past them and met me in the hallway outside of her apartment. “We have to get them out of here. The fire is going to spread,” she told me in a distressed tone.
“Your apartment’s mostly on fire now,” I informed her with a sigh. I shook my head. “Other than dropping down from the second story, I don’t have many ideas.”
“That’s it,” she exclaimed quietly as she looked up at me with bright determined eyes. “Come on, if we can drop down, we might be able to break the doors down from outside. It’ll depressurize the room without someone being in it.”
“That’s risky,” I said in mild protest.
“What other option do we have? Sit and wait for someone to save us? Come on, we have to move.”
We ran up the stairs to a still-open door in the apartment that would be across from Holly’s. We entered. It was a family’s home. Kids toys littered the ground, and the two of us tripped over them a couple times. We headed to the balcony.
“Thank god these balconies are mostly cement,” Holly said as we made our way outside. We could see the light of the fire flashing below us, and onlookers in the parking lot behind the building watching in curious horror. We peered over. It wasn’t a short drop, but it seemed manageable.
“Alright, let’s go,” Holly said as she hopped the railing. She turned around and hung her feet from the balcony. “Ouch, fuck,” she exclaimed before jumping. I followed after her, and realized why she said ouch. Her feet were a little too close to the fire, as were mine.
We landed just barely out of the fire itself and immediately rolled away. Once we were okay, and clearly not on fire, we ran to the parking lot.
“I have an emergency kit in my car,” she yelled at me as we ran.
“Do you have your keys on you?” I questioned.
“No,” she said with a sigh, shaking her head. “Check the dumpster for something to break the window with!”
I jumped into the dumpster and shuffled it around until I came across a broken titanium hockey stick. I wasn’t sure if it would do, but we didn’t have time to look for a perfect solution. I hopped out. “Think this will do?”
“Depends on how hard you can swing it,” she told me. “Aim for the middle of the window, it has the least support. I think.”
“How would you know that?” I questioned as I ran up to the car, weapon in hand.
“Not now!” she screamed.
I swung as hard as I could. The hockey stick hit the window and bounced off. It flew out of my hands, which were sore along with my forearms. That hurt.
“There’s a crack!” she screamed. “Try it again!”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to break down the door with this?” I questioned as I grabbed the broken hockey stick and readied for another blow. Screams cried out from the apartment building, and there were sirens in the air, but they were still distant.
“Just trust me!” she screamed. “Now!”
I swung as hard as I could again, and this time the window shattered. I nearly fell forward as the hockey stick flew into the car. I caught myself, let the hockey stick fly from my arms and jumped back. Without a moment’s hesitation, Holly unlocked the door and climbed in, as if there wasn’t broken glass everywhere. She pulled down her backseat and pulled out the emergency kit she had referred to.
She spun around with a small sledgehammer in her hands.
“Why was that in your emergency kit?” I questioned, surprised with no idea how that could be useful in an automobile emergency.
“Not now!” she replied in a rushed tone as she ran for the front door of her apartment building. “Grab the blanket!” she called back to me.
I snatched the blanket that had been wrapped up with the emergency kit and chased after her. I hadn’t caught up with her yet before she took her first swing through the flames onto the glass door. It shattered immediately. Broken glass fell to the ground. She kept swinging though, breaking down every part of the door until it was just a metal frame. The flames stopped her from moving forward. Her roommate and neighbours stood trapped on the other side.
She snatched the blanket from my hand and tossed it onto the fire in front of her. It didn’t catch immediately. She stepped on it and grabbed the handle of the second door with her hand. She swung it open and held it open with her shoe. “Go, go, go!” she cried out to everyone who was still inside.
Once everyone was out, the fire department came running and pulled her free from the building.
They hosed it down the best they could, but there was no saving some of the apartments affected first, like Holly’s. The three of us sat on the side of the road in silence while the rest of the neighbours talked in worried tones among themselves. Police arrived and set up a perimeter. Once the fire was extinguished, a couple of the firefighters came over to us.
“You two were the ones who broke down the front doors, correct?” a firefighter who had been working on the truck when they arrived asked us.
“Yes, ma'am,” Holly answered as she got back up to her feet. “How is it in there?”
“It’s not good for many,” she answered with a solemn tone. She let out a heavy sigh. “What you did was dangerous, and we don’t recommend ever trying anything like that, but I can’t give you trouble for helping people escape a fire.”
“It’s no problem,” Holly answered.
“Now, what do you know about what started the fire? It looks like it originated around the exterior of the building.”
“I saw a man with a jerrycan walking around right before it started. He looked like he was pouring something out of it,” her roommate answered instead. “He was an older white guy with ragged hair. I couldn’t see his face though.”
“So it’s arson…” the firefighter muttered. “Do you have any idea who this man might be and why he might try to set fire to the building? A former resident, maybe?”
“I don’t think so,” Audrey answered, shaking her head. “I’ve seen everyone move in and out in the past couple years out of sheer boredom during the summer. There’s only been like two old guys and they’ve all been larger than he was. He was skinny and about this guy’s height.” She motioned to me. I got to my feet for comparison.
“I see. Thank you. I’ll send an officer over to get a statement from the three of you. Hopefully they can find whoever did this.” A look of visible frustration crossed her face. “To think that someone would come here and set fire to a low income apartment complex for seemingly no reason at all…”
Once the firefighter walked away, a horrible idea popped into my mind that made my skin crawl. “What if that fire was meant to trap us in it?” I suggested with a shaking tone.
“What do you mean?” Holly’s roommate questioned, but I saw the look of understanding cross Holly’s face.
“I’m not sure if Holly told you, but we were attacked on the street the other day,” I informed her. “By an older man that we assumed was our father for one reason or another.”
“You think he somehow followed you here and set fire to the building to kill you?” she questioned in response.
“I think it’s possible,” Holly answered. A pensive look overtook her face. “I don’t know how he would have known where I lived if he wasn’t monitoring our texts…” she muttered. “Plus we didn’t indicate a time. We left it vague…”
“Maybe the two of you should split up if he keeps showing up every time you’re together,” her roommate suggested with a tone that suggested that she was just looking for something to say.
“It really is starting to be every time,” Holly said, thoughts whizzing about her mind. “Which means it might actually be easier to catch him than we thought.”
“You can’t be serious, Holly,” I replied in a state of shock. “If it was him who set the fire, this just goes to show that he’s escalating his methods. Every time it doesn’t work, he’s trying harder. Next time he could have a gun and we could end up dead.”
“So what are we supposed to do? Just let him kill us next time?” she snapped back at me. “He just destroyed my home, and all my stuff! I have nothing left but my car. I need to know why he’s so damned obsessed with me. And why he didn’t bother to show up until you and I met.”
“She has a point,” her roommate chirped in. “This guy’s fucking around with your lives. Fuck him up.”
A couple police officers came by after I submitted defeat to going on the offensive again. We gave them our versions of the story of what happened and then asked them about the knife they took in for testing.
“You two were attacked the other day and you think it’s the same man?” the officer repeated in a questioning tone. “We’ll have to look into that.” He nodded at his partner, who headed to their car.
After a little bit, she came back to us with an expression that screamed that she had found some information that would forward the case.
“We have a match for the fingerprints,” she informed her partner, as well as us. She looked over at Holly and I. “It’s a man who disappeared 25 years ago following the death of his wife.” She wasn’t talking to us, but we were listening. She glanced at us. “But if that’s right, why would he be pursuing these two?”
“Richard Holtz?” I questioned, surprising both of the officers.
“How did you know that?” she questioned before her eyes widened. “Are you his son?”
I nodded. “I am, and we have reason to believe that she is her daughter too,” I informed her.
“Only one child was born that night,” she replied, shaking her head.
“My parents found me abandoned in an old barn, as if someone had left me there to die from exposure,” she explained. “Maybe there’s only one he let the world know about.”
“Alright, well, if that is true,” she posited in an unconvinced tone, “then why would he be pursuing either of you? What’s his motive?”
“We don’t know,” Holly answered in a slightly defeated tone. “Maybe he learned I survived and wants to finish the job?”
“We were thinking of trying to lure him out and capture him or something,” I said without thinking. Both of the officers gasped in shock before quickly getting their composure again.
“We would strongly recommend against trying to lure and trap a dangerous criminal,” the male officer said in a polite but firm tone. “Please leave this to us. Now that we have a rough description, motive, and identity, we have a clear course to capturing him.”
“I know it’s tempting to play the hero, but it’s really not a good idea,” the other officer told us in a tone that was an odd mix of soft and firm. “Please promise me you won’t.”
“We promise,” I said, holding my hand up as if I was making an oath in court. I glanced over at Holly. I could see that she wasn’t onboard with this plan, but she wasn’t going to say anything about it.
We complied with the officers and provided as much information as we had, and once they had finished their report, they left us to deal with the aftermath of the fire.
“Do you have somewhere you two can stay?” I questioned once we were alone.
“I guess I can swing by my parents for a while,” Audrey answered with a sigh. “They like me enough, and they’ll just be happy to hear that I survived the fire.”
“And I can stay with Evette,” Holly informed me. “She has a spare room set up for guests.”
“I’m surprised,” I commented with a chuckle.
“Why? She doesn’t seem hospitable to you?”
“Well, why would she have a spare room?”
“She’s been trying to get me to move in with her for a year,” Holly informed me with a chuckle. “But I told her I wasn’t going to bail on Audrey just like that.”
“Awe, that’s so sweet,” she chimed in. “Well now you’re officially off the hook. I can’t imagine that we’ll have to be splitting the rent any time soon.”
“A girl can dream,” Holly replied with a smile and a wink.
They were surprisingly cheerful for two people who were just made homeless and lost most of their belongings, but it was both a front and sincere. On one hand, they were smiling and laughing to make the pain feel less awful. On the other hand, they were trying to run away from it.
Evette came and picked us up, dropping off Audrey at her parents, and me at my place. I hopped out of the car and waved goodbye, but wondered when or if I’d ever see Holly again. I was filled with doubt about it all, if it was worth it. The guilt was palpable too. Everything stemmed from my one decision to go hunting her down that fateful day in the cafe. Maybe if we had never met, never got to know each other, she wouldn’t be so determined to get the answers from our attacker. We wouldn’t even know if he existed, and maybe he wouldn’t have decided to hunt either of us down.
“What’s on your mind?” Solenne asked as I sat quietly on her couch, my eyes stuck on the world beyond the glass that overflows with an ever-growing life and sense of danger. “Is it the fire?”
She sat down next to me and put a comforting hand on my thigh. I shook my head. “No, I’m just spacing out. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said softly. She hugged me. “You’re safe here.”
I felt like she was babying me. I guess there was good reason for it, but it made me frustrated. The thoughts that raced through my mind wondered why she felt like she had to be so gentle with me now when she had no problem breaking my heart all those months ago.
“You know you still owe me a dance,” she said in a teasing and playful voice as she stood up. She held out a hand.
“There’s not even music,” I answered, uninterested in the idea.
“Then imagine some,” she answered with a playful smirk.
There was a time in my life when I would have dreamt of moments like this, moments when Solenne was so wholly mine that I never had to worry about being alone again. But now that I was in it, the appeal of it was fading quick. We fought more than I liked to admit. When we kissed, there weren’t any fireworks or wedding bells, just lips against lips. I worried that it was all my fault. All that time away from her let my mind imagine something that was never real. I fell in love with the idea of being with her, but not with the reality of it.
“We should probably actually go out dancing at some point,” I said in response, keeping myself firmly rooted on the couch. I didn’t want to just give up on it, so I wrote my feelings away and pretended there was something to be done for a relationship that was already a sunk ship.
“Do you promise to dance with me if we do?” she questioned with a bit of sadness hidden behind her playful tone.
“I do,” I said in a matter of fact way.
“So this Friday, and we won’t forget or cancel this time. We’ll go, and have a blast.”
Friday came faster than I was expecting. I thought it was so far, but the days blended together between working and seeing Solenne. Holly was still as determined as ever, but in order to avoid our communications being monitored as easily, we communicated through Mahli and Evette.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Mahli questioned as I was on my way to Solenne’s for our long awaited dancing date.
“There’s no convincing Holly otherwise,” I answered. “She’s a stubborn one.”
“The more I get to know her, the more she kind of reminds me of you, but different,” he texted after a short pause. “Hard-headed and stubborn, but for different things, in different ways…”
“Well we aren’t the same person, after all,” I reminded him as I got to Solenne’s apartment and let myself in casually.
Solenne was standing in the hallway looking at herself in the mirror. She had a polka-dot dress on that resembled some form of 50’s diner waitress. She turned around, her hair perfectly straightened, red lipstick on, and an excited look in her eyes. That quickly went away when she saw me.
“Awe, you didn’t think to dress up at all?” she questioned as she examined me in disappointment.
I was a little insulted, but I understood. “These are the nicest clothes I have that I can do any sort of dancing in. Just these shoes, some dress pants, and a shirt.”
“I guess you don’t look that bad,” she commented with a wink as she walked over to me. She hugged me and reached for her keys. “Shall we go?”
We drove to our old dancing spot that was just outside of downtown. It was still early in the night, early enough that the beginning of the dance lessons were still going on and we could join in. I had never been that great at swing dancing. I liked the music well enough, the bopping jazz and tempo, but remembering where my feet were supposed to be and how to move my arms to guide someone else around was difficult. It looked so easy for everyone else, and I wanted to enjoy it, but it was hard when I had to consciously try not to hurt them.
We lined up across from each other, the follows and the leads. The instructors guided us through the basic steps and some other basics before having us group up with the person across from us. I jumped to dance with Solenne, but it was short lived. After only a couple seconds (or what it felt like), we were told to shuffle one person to the left. Most of the night ended up like that. When I was tired of dancing, we’d take a break, but some other person would come by and ask Solenne to dance.
The last hour we were there, I just sat at an empty table and watched as she danced with everyone. I wasn’t jealous, but I wasn’t happy either. The way she moved with them was different than it was with me. The way I moved with her was different than how they moved. I was stiff and they were fluid. I was still so nervous around her.
She dropped into the seat next to mine breathing heavily and sweaty. “Why aren’t you dancing?” she asked between heavy breaths.
“I’m tired,” I lied.
“I know how that is,” she replied with a smile. “I’m going to go outside for a second and get some fresh air. You want to come with?”
I shook my head. “I’m good here. Just going to watch everyone dance for a bit. If you’re not back in a bit, I’ll go join you.”
“Alright,” she said. She leaned over to me and kissed me on the forehead before departing. I watched her go and let out a heavy sigh once she was gone. I thought the only thing holding me back from happiness all these months was not being with Solenne, but now that I’m with her, all I’m left with is the realization that there was more to it that I refused to face.
A couple songs went by before Solenne had come back. Bored of sitting around doing nothing, I decided to go check on her. The spring air had become much warmer than it was when we got back together, but it was still crisp enough at night to make you shiver after a few minutes.
“I’ll be right back,” I told the volunteer at the door. She smiled and nodded at me as I went out the church’s basement doors.
“Solenne?” I called out into the parking lot. The night was still and quiet, the only noise coming from the booming swing music inside the church’s basement.
My mind immediately assumed that she had left without me, but I had her car keys in my pocket so she didn’t lose them while spinning around on the dance floor, so that wasn’t possible. “Solenne?” I called out again, jogging around looking for any sign of her.
“There you are, Arthur!” A female voice that was definitely not Solenne’s called out to me from behind. I spun around and saw Holly running to me.
“What are you doing here?” I questioned, my heart suddenly racing, waiting for the inevitable attack that seemed to come every time we were together.
“I’ve been trying to call and text you for an hour!” she explained to me in a distressed and frustrated tone.
“Why? And how did you know I was here?”
“Mahli told me,” she answered. “We have to go.”
“I can’t just leave. I have Solenne’s car keys. Can’t just abandon her.”
She let out a heavy groan. “Look at your god damned phone.” Her tone scared me a bit.
I took my phone out and saw a number of missed texts and calls from Holly and Mahli. And one text from an unknown number, one that was specifically hidden too.
“Arthur Compton,” it read, “there is an abandoned house at 4425 mountain road. Go there with Holly and no one else. Or Solenne might stay there for good.”
How much time had passed since she left the dance floor? How long had I been sitting down there that he managed to kidnap her and everything? I felt like an idiot for not going out with her. It was all my fault. I told her about the fire and the attack, but not about who I thought was behind it, not that Holly and I were being targeted. I brought her out into public only to put her in danger.
“We have to go, now,” I said to Holly in a determined voice.
“You’re damned right we do. Come on, I parked over here.”
We ran over to her little white Prius and hopped in. She silenced her radio and handed me her phone. “I already have the address put in. Guide me, and we’ll sort this all out.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I questioned as we pulled out of the parking lot. “Not calling the police, I mean.”
“I would love to live in the world where calling them won’t end with Solenne getting killed, but I don’t think we have that luxury right now,” she answered in a grim tone.
“Do you really think he’d do that to her? He wants us after all.” I wanted to believe he wouldn’t harm her just to get to me. “Take this exit.”
“I don’t think I’d want to take chances with the boundaries of a clearly homicidal maniac,” she told me with a hard tone.
“So what’s the plan once we get there? Got a pistol or shotgun in your emergency kit back there?” I questioned, half-joking, half-hopeful.
“No, we’re going to have to be smart and careful about this. I have a knife, and that’s about it,” she explained to me. “It’s in the glove compartment.”
I opened it up and saw the knife she was referring to. “Why do you have a knife this big in your glove compartment?” I questioned in shock as I examined it.
“It’s in case there’s a crash. That blade can easily cut through the seat-belt,” she explained.
“And in case we have to deal with murderers, apparently,” I commented as I slid the knife back into its sheathe, a little uncomfortable with having it out while we were in motion.
We drove for about fifteen minutes before we pulled up at the beginning of the driveway leading through the bud-covered trees into a dark abyss beyond.
“This looks like the place,” I said as I tried to peer through the thick blanket of darkness. “But I can’t even tell if there’s a house or a lake in there.”
“Only one way to find out,” Holly said as she turned off her car, grabbed the knife out of my hand, along with her phone, and got out of the car.
Part 8: The House Haunted by Regret
I
got out and pulled out my phone, but Holly put her hand on the lit up
screen. “No flashlight,” she told me in a hushed tone. “We go in with no
light. Following the path as best as we can.”
“How are we going to see anything?” I questioned in a doubtful but quiet tone.
“Our
eyes will adjust enough,” she informed me. “If we have a light out,
we’ll be easy to spot by good old dad. He’ll know exactly where we are.
He’ll have the upper hand without needing to turn on a single light.”
“Alright,” I muttered as I turned to face the tunnel of darkness ahead of us. “What do you think made him choose this place?”
“Probably cause it’s out in the middle of nowhere,” she replied. “You sent the address to Mahli and Evette, right?”
“Yeah, and told them not to come unless they don’t hear from us in a couple hours. Or rather, to call the police then.”
“Good.”
She was so determined, seemingly so ready to just run into danger that I
felt inferior. Here, for the first time in my life, I was presented
with some real stakes. In the story of my life, this would be the peak,
the climax, the point when the situation demanded that I became someone
better, yet I found myself feeling like I was being carried through it
by Holly. I was a sidekick, not the hero.
“Alright, let’s go,” I said, resolving to be more of an active participant in my own life for once.
We
silently made our way into the all-consuming darkness. It was a kind of
darkness I had never seen before. The city only really got so dark. At
night during the winter, the street lights reflected off of the snow,
and during the summer, it was darker but there were lights everywhere
anyways. For the first time in my memory, I was walking in a darkness
that had no nearby light to drown it out. It was a cloudy night,
blocking the moon and the stars. Holly and I were alone as we walked
down the old beaten driveway of an abandoned house.
Our
eyes adjusted slightly as we approached the house, but not enough to
have us be able to see anything clearly. I could vaguely make out some
shape of the house through the contrast between the house and the sky
above, but all I could tell was that it was a two story house that
towered above us. All around us was darkness, filled in with what I
assumed were trees. The woods were silent though. The whole place was
silent. I had my doubts that Solenne was even being held here, but why
would he send us to the wrong place if he wanted to lure us out?
I
wanted to ask Holly these questions, but as soon as I opened my mouth, I
realized how dumb that would be so I shut it and tried not to lose her
in the darkness. She stopped suddenly and held out her arm to stop me
from moving any farther. We stood there in silence for a little while as
Holly searched the surroundings to the best of her ability.
But
there was nothing. The silence was so complete that I had started to
think that it was the wrong place, that somehow we ended up at the wrong
abandoned house. Or, that it was a ruse to get us out here for some
reason.
“What now?” I whispered as quietly as I could as closely to her face as I could do without making impact.
She
shook her head, something I could only tell because I felt the air
moving around her. I knew that we had to go inside of the house, but
without a light, it was too dangerous to try. We didn’t know how long
the place had stood abandoned, or what happened to it in that time. A
house that had only been abandoned five years prior could have holes in
the floor. It was a big risk to take.
I took out my phone and turned on the flashlight. “What are you doing?” Holly hissed at me.
“We can’t just stand here in the dark,” I whispered in response, flashing the light on the house in front of us.
If
it wasn’t for the fact that we were told it was abandoned, I wouldn’t
have known looking at the house. It was in a surprisingly good
condition. It looked worn, sure, but none of the windows on the front
end of the house had been broken. The front door hung slightly ajar, but
besides that, it looked almost habitable.
“That’s odd…” Holly commented.
Honestly,
the house looked almost homey. If it had some warm lights inside and
wasn’t surrounded by a haunted forest full of probable nightmares, it
would have made a wonderful home. The lawn was vastly overgrown, with
bushes making their way towards the house in a slow creep and the grass
that did remain standing at six feet tall like some sort of over-sized
blanket.
“I
wonder why this place was abandoned…” I muttered as I wandered
carefully towards the ajar front door. “It doesn’t look like it was
abandoned because it was falling apart…”
“No, or because it was a historical building…” she added. “The design looks newish, like something out of the nineties…”
“Maybe
the previous owners died and left it to an uncaring relative who just
left it to rot,” I suggested as I pushed the door open and revealed the
interior of the house.
The
first thing I noticed was the smell of the place. It didn’t smell like
stagnant air and mold. It smelled like burned out candles mixed with
firewood. The front door opened up into an open concept living room on
the left, with a hallway leading down into the darkness just ahead of
us, a rough looking staircase leading upstairs on the right, looking
like it had been built right into the wall. There were pictures on the
wall, but most of them were so covered in dust that it was hard to see
what was hidden in the frames. A little shoe-rack sat next to the door
on the right, sticking out of an open closet with a couple coats in it.
“This
place almost looks inhabited,” I muttered to Holly as she silently
stepped into the house and started looking at the photos on the wall.
“Do you think he’s been living here?” she asked in a low, slightly horrified whisper.
“Maybe…” I muttered. “But why would he send us here instead of to where he currently is?”
“Maybe he is here,” she answered. “And just waiting for the opportune moment to strike. We should stick together.”
“I think that goes without saying.”
She
took out her phone, flicked on the flashlight, and we headed into the
adjacent living room. The whole house was silent, only occasionally
creaking. Somehow the complete silence made the place all the more
eerie. Someone had been here, but now they weren’t, or were hiding.
The
living room had a fireplace that looked like it had been used recently,
with a gentle residual heat still radiating from in. In front of it on
the floor lay a collection of wild papers, just like the ones that Holly
had thrown together in her attempt to plan out an encounter with the
man who lured us here. Upon seeing the papers, Holly immediately dropped
and started looking at them.
“Anything?”
I asked as I flashed my light around the room, illuminating a big
grandfather clock, a bookshelf, and an armchair positioned next to what
looked like a gas lamp.
“It’s
a lot of math,” she answered with a sigh. “I can barely make any sense
of it. It looks like he was trying to solve a problem of some sort…” She
shuffled through the papers some more as I searched the room for more
clues. “Oh, look at this! Looks like a blueprint of some sort. Calls it a
quantum flux detector…”
“What
could that be for?” I questioned as I headed back over to her. I peered
down at the design. It was like some sort of sensor or tracker. It had a
screen of sorts built into it that seemed to display readings of
quantum fluxes or whatever that meant.
Holly
put it back down and got to her feet. “Let’s keep searching the house.
We’re here for your girlfriend, not to try to learn quantum mechanics.”
“Right.”
The
dining room was adjacent to the living room. In the center of the room
was a big old wooden table with four chairs around it, two of which had
their backs broken off. This table was likewise covered in papers with
another gas lamp on top of it, along with some candles here and there.
“Looks like more math and stuff,” Holly commented after glancing at the papers for a moment.
The
kitchen was next, and had clear signs of habitation. There were dishes
in the sink, which I didn’t think would have running water, but I
guessed the sink was a good enough to leave dirty dishes anyways. The
rest of the first floor consisted of another living room like area that
was absolutely covered in dust, another staircase leading up, and a
bathroom neither of us decided to go into.
“Shall
we go upstairs?” Holly suggested, pointing at the spiral staircase we
had found on this side of the house. It looked like it was in better
condition than the other staircase, so I nodded in agreement.
The
second story had two unused looking bedrooms immediately on the right
of the staircase. We checked both of them. One of them was painted blue,
and the other pink, and both had broken cribs piled into the corner.
“Do you think these were supposed to be our rooms?” Holly suggested in a
solemn tone.
I
didn’t want to answer, but I found something to say. “We still don’t
know if this is just some house he’s taken over over the years,” I
reminded her. “It could be something else entirely.”
She
nodded in a half-convinced way. There was no way to stop someone else’s
thoughts from going where they felt they needed to go. It's impossible
to convince someone if they've already decided on the truth.
We
left the empty baby rooms behind, passed by another washroom, and went
into the first door on the left. A great big window occupied a good
portion of the far wall. Below it sat a desk covered in even more
papers, but there was a black notebook sitting on top of all of them.
The room itself had bookshelves lining the walls, and a couple lamps and
reading crannies. I picked up the notebook and opened it, flipping
through it in search of something notable.
“Holly
doesn’t seem to think that the experiment is as dangerous as she
thinks,” I found on one of the later pages. “Personally, I think it’s
madness to use her as a subject for a device we haven’t been able to
test… but she wants to see if we can get twins out of it instead of just
a son. She wants to see if we can bend reality to our will.”
“What’s that?” Holly asked, peering over my shoulder. I hastily closed the notebook.
“A notebook,” I answered unhelpfully.
“I can see that. Who does it belong to?”
“Our
dad, I think…” I told her hesitantly. “At least the thing I was reading
referred to a Holly and a dangerous experiment, along with a
pregnancy.”
“Give
me that,” she said as she snatched it out of my hands. She started
flipping through it, reading as fast as she could, though the penmanship
was hard to read at times.
“Why do you think he would have led us here?” I questioned as she read. “Why would he give us his notebook like this?”
“Maybe
there’s something he wants us to know,” she answered as she flipped to
the back of the notebook. “Oh, here!” she exclaimed with enough volume
to fill the house.
We
froze. The house stood still and quiet. Holly returned to the notebook.
“It reads,” she continued in a whisper, “tonight we are undertaking the
experiment of a lifetime. If we succeed, we will have broken the laws
of physics and quantum mechanics, and created something out of nothing -
in our universe at least. Holly’s water has broken. She’s downstairs
preparing for the birth. I am set to join her in a bit, but I’m so
uneasy about the whole thing. If something goes wrong, I don’t know what
I’d do…”
“So
you were right,” I commented as I stared out of the window in a sort of
daze. “It was an experiment gone wrong. Our mother died in the process,
but it worked. The two of us are here…”
She
closed the notebook. “There’s nothing in here after that point,” she
said, her mind somewhere else already. “It doesn’t tell us what happened
after. Why is he out to get us?” she questioned.
“To
set things right,” a low growl emerged from the doorway. I spun around
and flashed my light on him, revealing the man who had attacked us in
the street. His ragged clothes and appearance, but most of all, his
shadowed and broken eyes. He lunged at Holly with a knife in hand.
“Holly!” I cried out as I lunged at her with all the speed I could muster.
I
collided with her, and the two of us fell to the ground. Everything
went dark as our flashlights were obscured by our bodies. I immediately
rolled off of her and said, “are you okay?”
“I
think so,” she muttered, as she pulled her phone up and illuminated the
room. It was just in time for us to see our bloodthirsty father
scrambling to pick up the knife he had dropped in the darkness.
I
didn’t think. I lunged at him and grappled him with all the strength I
could muster. “Let go of me!” he growled. “You don’t know what you’re
doing!”
“Then tell us!” Holly screamed at him. “Why do you want to kill me so much? Why me?”
“To
set things right! You were never supposed to exist!” he screamed in
response, still struggling against my grasp. “You know about the
experiment! How much simpler can I make it for you? If it weren’t for
you, then your mother would still be alive!”
He
broke free and fell forward. I tried to grab him, but he slipped out of
reach. He hit the ground, spun around, and flashed the knife at me. I
jumped back to avoid getting cut. He got to his feet, and Holly and I
could only watch as he held the knife up at the two of us. His eyes
darted from her to me.
He
came flying at me. I jumped back, dropping my phone in the process.
Holly jumped back at the same time. For a moment, it looked like there
were two of him, but the next moment there was just one again, and
standing in front of Holly.
“Do you see it now?” he questioned in a desperate tone. “Reality isn’t stable when the two of you are close together!”
We
didn’t have time to think about what he was saying because he lunged at
us one more time. A loud creak filled the room. Suddenly, he was gone,
replaced with nothing but a painful crash and screaming from below.
Holly flashed her light where he had been. The floor had collapsed
underneath him. We could see him for a moment, but all of a sudden, the
floor was back.
“He was being literal,” Holly said in a grim tone. “Grab your phone, we’re going downstairs.”
I
did as she said, and we carefully ran back downstairs to where he had
fallen to, the living room. But there was no sign of him down there.
“He’s gone…” Holly muttered. “What is going on?”
A
door slammed shut behind us. We spun around and saw a door we didn’t
notice when we were first going through the house. “Where do you think
that leads?” I questioned with a deep sense of uncertainty in my chest.
“The basement,” she answered as if she had some memory of this place. “Come on.”
She
cautiously walked over, opened the door, and flashed her light inside.
There was nothing but stairs and the wall. She looked back at me. I
nodded, and followed her down into the abyss.
We
could only see the stairs directly in front of us. The basement seemed a
mile underneath the surface, a place where no person should have ever
gone, the precipice of the void. I don’t know what Holly was thinking or
feeling, but my guesses were that she was determined, scared, and
angry, but hurt, most of all. All of our outlandish suspicions had
proved correct. We were the consequence of some ridiculous experiment
undertaken by two scientists who were trying to play god. The man who
had attacked us and tried to burn us alive really was our own father,
one of the two people who created this mess to begin with.
The
whole situation was simply unfair. We did not choose to exist. We did
not choose the parents who decided to experiment with themselves. Yet,
as we descended into the basement where we were born, the only solution
to the problem they created seemed to be our elimination, the
consolidation of Holly and I into one.
The
more my mind comprehended what was going on, what was to come, my heart
raced faster and faster. The staircase felt like it was going on
forever, but I knew it was a normal length. Time slowed as my mind moved
faster and faster. I hated everything about this. I just wanted to know
why we were so similar, but I never wanted this. If I had known this
was the truth… maybe I would have left it buried. Maybe there’s a
version of reality where that is how things turned out. Or maybe we were
always bound to end up at this single point, the universe demanding
that a balance be made. Nothing can come from nothing.
Once
we hit the bottom of the stairs, Holly searched the area for any sign
of him. A light flashed on in a room on the other side of the
cement-walled basement. She shot a cautious look at me and then marched
towards the light. She reached for the doorknob, but I lunged for it.
“Step
back,” I whispered to her, unsure of what might be waiting for us on
the other side. She nodded and took a couple steps back.
I
opened the door. The light blinded me for a moment. When my eyes
adjusted, I found myself staring at a whole new mystery. A collection of
machines and computers filled the room, all of them buzzing and on
somehow. Our father, Richard Holtz, sat in a lab chair in the far corner
of the room, his blood trail now clear from the door all around the
room to the spot he was in.
He coughed. Blood came flying out. “I’m dying,” he told me in a tired and defeated tone. “You win.”
“Why did you come here then?” I questioned as I stared him down. I didn’t trust him. How could I?
“I
wanted to show you…” he paused to catch his breath. “The place where
you were born. The machine that made you and your sister exist at the
same time…” he let out a heavy sigh. “Maybe if I had told you the truth,
you would have come here of your own free will.”
My mind suddenly shot to Solenne. “Where is Solenne?”
“Your
girlfriend?” he questioned before nearly coughing up a lung of blood.
“Out back in the shed. Unconscious, but safe. Invite your sister in,
would you?”
“He’s unarmed,” I called out to Holly without moving my head away from him.
She
slipped into the room. I couldn’t see her, but I could feel her eyes
burning across the space between us and boring into him. “Why me?” she
immediately questioned, her tone made of fire and brimstone. “Why did
you try to kill me and not him?”
“We
were only supposed to have a boy,” he answered in a solemn tone. “When
Holly passed, and I was left holding the two of you, looking into your
eyes, identical to hers, I realized what we had done, and how to fix
it…”
“But
you couldn’t go through with it,” she continued for him. “So you left
me in a barn and hoped I’d simply die there. But my parents found me and
saved me.” She paused. I thought for a moment, she was going to lunge
at him and rip out his throat or something like that. A single tear fell
to the ground. “Why did it take you twenty-five years to try to correct
that mistake again?”
He
slowly pulled out a little device that resembled the one we found a
blueprint to, though it looked worn and poorly constructed. “I thought
things were fine,” he confessed with a sigh. “This can detect
abnormalities in the quantum flux of reality, the very thing that your
existence creates.” He paused. “But it was quiet for years. Then the
readings started happening. Sporadic at first, but then suddenly all too
much. So I thought I had to correct it… But do you want to know
something?” His voice dropped to a whisper. We drew a little closer to
hear him better, getting close to the strange machine that had been
promised to distort reality.
“What?” she questioned.
“I
think I can still fix it,” he said before flicking a switch on the
machine next to him. He slammed his hand on a button and the quantum
machine roared to life. The house seemed to shake as it came to life.
“Holly!”
I screamed, realizing what he was trying to do. I grabbed her by the
arm and flung her out of the room with all the force I could muster.
Caught off guard, she flew into the doorway and let out a howl of pain.
A
light emanated from the quantum machine that blinded me temporarily. A
clanging sound echoed through the room, through the blinding light. Then
it disappeared. The lights turned off, and there was a moment of
silence. A pause to see what had happened. I pulled out my phone,
flashed it around, and saw that he was still sitting in the chair, and
Holly was standing in the doorway, holding her face with her hands.
The lights flashed back on.
“What did you do?” I nearly yelled at him.
“It
didn’t work…” he muttered, completely ignoring me. He coughed up some
blood. He looked at me with a pathetic look in his eyes. “I tried to
send her back…”
I
rushed over to him. I grabbed him by the collar and held him up. I
punched him in the gut, overcome with such an anger, such a rage. I kept
wailing on him until Holly called out to me, bringing me back to my
body.
“Arthur! You’re going to kill him!”
I
threw him back down on the chair and backed up. I stepped out of the
room and looked back at Holly. “I’m sorry… It’s just… he just doesn’t
care about us in the slightest. He’s an idiot. A selfish idiot.”
“That
doesn’t mean you should punch him to death,” she reminded me with a
stern tone. “Go find Solenne. I’ll stay here with him.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I questioned.
“Just go.”
Her
tone told me not to question her again, so I took out my phone and
navigated through the house that would have been my childhood home if
something horrible hadn’t happened in that basement, if my parents knew
anything about being responsible. I went out the back door by the second
staircase upstairs and found the shed among a bunch of bushes and grass
that had just about buried it entirely. I followed a small path through
the grass to the shed door. I pulled it open. I flashed my light
inside.
Solenne
sat bound and gagged to a wooden chair like something right out of a
movie. When she saw that someone had come, she stopped squirming around
as if to pretend that she hadn’t been trying to escape. I had never seen
Solenne so dirty and misshapen before. Her long blond hair was a mess,
tangled up in itself, and her dress was covered in dirt, probably from
being forcefully dragged here. It was an unsettling way to see her.
“It’s me,” I told her in a comforting tone as I ran to her side and immediately pulled the gag off of her.
“What’s going on? Where are we?” her questions flew out of her mouth faster than I could answer them.
“My
biological parents’ old place,” I answered as I fiddled with the rope
around her wrists. “My bio-father was the one who kidnapped you to get
Holly and I here.”
“Why
did you have to get me involved?” she asked with a sharp but still
scared tone as her hands were freed and she got to untying her own feet.
“Shine a light, would you?”
Once
she had finished untying herself, she looked at me with a stern look on
her face. “Can we get the hell out of here already?”
“Holly’s downstairs with him. We can’t leave without her.”
“I am not going into that house,” she informed me.
“Can you make your way to the car out at the end of the driveway then? We’ll be there shortly.”
“Alright.
Just don’t take too long,” she said before flicking the light on on her
own phone and storming out of the shed. She was gone before I had the
chance to say anything else.
A
part of me felt that she was being rude, but I really couldn’t blame
her for being in a bad mood. She was just kidnapped and used as bait for
me. That’s downright shitty.
I
ran back into the house, down the stairs, and found Holly leaning
against the wall by the door to the quantum room. The door was shut, and
no light crept out from the bottom of the door.
“Everything okay?” I asked her in a quiet and solemn tone.
“Yeah…
I guess…” she muttered. She pulled the quantum flux detector out from
behind her and held it up. “He was right. It does go off when we’re
together…”
“Is he?” I questioned, unwilling to finish the sentence.
She nodded. There was a sadness to it. “We got our answers.”
“Yeah,” I responded as I slid down the wall next to her. “Definitely not what I was expecting.”
“At least there was a reason,” she said, sighing. “Not just random violence…”
A
long silence passed between us as we sat in the dark basement of what
could have been our childhood home. My mind wandered to Solenne, who was
waiting for us, but I couldn’t bear to force Holly to move.
“What should we do with him?” she questioned. “Leave him there?”
“We should call the police, I think,” I answered. “We were defending ourselves, and I think they’ll be able to handle it.”
“I guess you’re right…” she muttered before she got to her feet. “We should get going. How was Solenne?”
“Scared and upset, but generally unharmed. Hopefully she recovers from this experience alright.”
“Hopefully at least one of us does,” Holly replied with a somewhat grim tone.
“Yeah…”
I mumbled in response as we made our way out of the house that could
have been home. That idea kept popping into my head. What would that
reality have been like?
What
would it have been like if our mother didn’t die during the experiment?
What if our family would have stayed together in this house and lived a
somewhat normal life? How long would it have been until they would have
tried to kill us in order to correct the horrible thing they decided to
do?
We found Solenne sitting against the hood of her car with her arms crossed and eyes on the cloudy sky above.
“Hi,” I said to her as we approached. She glanced over at us and let out a heavy sigh.
“Sorry about earlier… This is a lot.”
I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. You were just kidnapped. It’s okay to feel angry and scared.”
We hugged nice and tight. It was so sincere, so warm, it suddenly made me feel like I hadn’t hugged her in years. When we pulled away, she looked over at Holly.
We hugged nice and tight. It was so sincere, so warm, it suddenly made me feel like I hadn’t hugged her in years. When we pulled away, she looked over at Holly.
“This must be your sister,” she said, holding out a hand. “Nice to finally meet you.”
“Sorry about the conditions,” Holly said as she shook her hand politely. “Shall we get back to the city?”
“We
should probably wait for the police,” Solenne answered. “I called them,
by the way. Told them we were at some abandoned house that once
belonged to a scientist or something. They knew which one I was talking
about.”
“That’s
good…” Holly muttered. She opened up the driver’s seat door and got in
anyways. She closed the door behind her, leaving me alone with Solenne
outside.
“How are you doing?” I asked, putting a soft hand on her arm.
“I’m alright,” she answered quietly.
“That’s
good…” I mumbled. I slid next to her on the hood of the car, and we
leaned there for some while with our eyes on the sky above us. There was
a chill in the night air, but with everything that happened, it seemed
so inconsequential.
The police arrived a few minutes later, or at least that’s how much time felt like had passed.
We
told them what had happened. They called in for an ambulance and waited
for backup to arrive before sending some people in. It was a long night
of explaining to them. The stretcher carrying his body wheeled past us,
catching our eyes with that sort of grim solace that only death could
bring. They lifted it up into the ambulance, closed the door, and drove
off.
“Would
you be alright with escorting me to the police station so we can do
some preliminary data collection on the case?” the officer asked us once
the ambulance was long gone and he had our attention again.
“For
sure,” Holly said in a daze. He nodded, got back into his cruiser. We
hopped into the car, and Holly followed the lonely car along the country
roads until we arrived at the little police station that looked like it
was in the middle of nowhere. It looked worn down and old.
They
assured us that everything they did was standard. They collected our
statements officially, as well as had us thoroughly describe the event
separately. They took fingerprints. We were there until four in the
morning. We were exhausted and just wanted to go home. The adrenaline of
the event had worn off, leaving us in a daze as we floated through
their questions and answers.
“Are you sure you’re okay to drive home?” the officer asked us as he escorted us back to the lobby of the building.
“I can manage,” Holly said with confidence and certainty.
“I can manage,” Holly said with confidence and certainty.
“Alright,
if you’re sure,” he replied, opening the door leading outside for us.
We smiled and nodded at him as we left the building.
Once
we were on the road again, Holly let out a big yawn just as the city
started breaking over the horizon. “It’s almost dawn,” she said in a
tone of distress and tiredness.
“Yeah,
the sun will be up soon,” I responded. “A new day, the first day of the
rest of our lives.” I hoped to be hopeful and optimistic in this
scenario. The truth was that we had come out of it with our lives, but
the experience would always scar us, and healing would be a whole other
journey.
I
glanced over the seat back at Solenne, only to see her asleep in the
back, head against the door, hair covering her face. The first strands
of light were shining through the back window and illuminating her
blonde hair. It almost looked like a halo.
I
returned my attention to the road ahead, lit up by the city’s lights,
the windows of a thousand buildings reflecting the morning light, making
the whole city look engulfed in flames.
“Do you think he was right?” Holly asked in a hushed tone, as if she wasn’t even sure she wanted to hear the question herself.
“About what? No way,” I answered.
“He
wasn’t wrong abut weird stuff happening around us…” she muttered in
protest. “What if that was what that loud noise was when I dropped you
off at home for the first time? Maybe that’s why the barn collapsed in
on top of us. Us being near each other breaks down reality in random
ways…”
“You’ve thought a lot about this.”
She nodded. “I’ve had lots of time in the hours since he told us…”
“Look,
Holly, we’re exhausted and just went through one hell of a traumatic
experience. We shouldn’t be trusting our brains this early in the
morning,” I reminded her but I knew my words were lost on deaf ears.
“I guess you’re right,” she admitted in a whisper of disbelief.
The rest of the trip was silent. I directed her to Solenne’s apartment building. We pulled up in front of it.
“Solenne?” I said softly back at her. “We’re home.”
“Solenne?” I said softly back at her. “We’re home.”
She
didn’t stir. I shook her a little to wake her up. She jolted up and
looked at me with panicked eyes. After a quick moment, she calmed down.
“What?”
“We’re home,” I told her. “Do you want me to spend the night with you tonight? Or the day, more like?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s okay. I’ll be fine.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s okay. I’ll be fine.”
I
watched her get out of the car and sheepishly make her way to the door.
I didn’t know the source of her idea to be alone, but I couldn’t do
anything about it. I wanted to ask Holly for her opinion on the matter,
but once Solenne was safely inside of her building, Holly immediately
took off without saying a word. We arrived at my apartment a little bit
later and I opened up the door.
“You want to stay the night?” I offered. “I can sleep on the couch, and you can have the bed.”
She shook her head. “I want to go home. I’ll be okay.”
“Alright, sleep well. I’ll see you soon.”
Part 9: A Way Forward
The
sun had already set by the time I woke up. I was hungry and still
exhausted. I wasn’t a teenager anymore, those all-nighters weren’t as
easy as they used to be. I made myself some lazy pasta, devoured it, and
slid right back into my bed. It was then that my mind finally woke up.
Concerns about Solenne and Holly popped in and refused to let me sleep. I
grabbed my phone. It was dead. I sighed and plugged it in.
I
don’t know when I fell asleep among all those intrusive thoughts, but I
did. I only realized when I woke up at the break of dawn, its first
lights waking me up for the first time in years. I rubbed my eyes and
rolled over. I grabbed my phone and booted it up. I waited a bit after
to see if any texts would come in, and some did. A number came in from
my parents who had heard about a sudden resolution to a case from 25
years ago involving a scientist and the death of his wife.
“Are
you okay? What happened? Do you have any idea what happened with your
biological father?” the questions were all like that, and got more and
more concerned as time went on without a response. I let out a sigh and
thought about calling. Then the time on my phone reminded me that would
be dumb and sent them a text instead.
“Sorry,
my phone must have died. I’m okay. Went out dancing last night with
Solenne, only for her to get kidnapped to lure Holly and I out to where
he was hiding. By some stroke of luck, we managed to get out of it
unharmed. Just tired, is all. Love you guys.”
Once
that was out of the way, I noticed that Mahli had also texted me a
bunch. A lot of similar messages to what my parents sent, but just with
more information about the situation. One of them made me laugh though,
“Called the police to tell them. They said they had already gotten a
call and responded to it on that very situation. Glad you’re okay,
buddy. Sorry I couldn’t be much help.”
“Hey,
how are you feeling?” I sent that to both Holly and Solenne. I wanted
to hear from them and check in on them, but I imagined they were just as
tired as I was.
Unable
to sleep any longer, I slid my way out of bed and into the familiar
burning heat of the shower. The last time I had taken a shower this hot,
I was still crying over losing Solenne. It was just before everything
started to happen, right before I saw Holly for the first time. I never
thought I’d find myself thinking this, but the breakup seemed like such a
small worry after what had happened. It was just someone choosing to
move on with their lives, and maybe things would have been okay if our
biological father had done the same.
“Coffee later?” I asked Mahli after I got out of the shower.
“Why are you awake?” he questioned. I looked at the time again.
“Why are you awake?” I replied.
“You know I’m an early bird.”
“Yeah, but this early? Jesus Christ, how do you not fall asleep by 4pm?”
“I
don’t need to sleep 10 hours a night anymore,” he informed me. “The
cafe only opens at 8 though, so we might have to wait a bit.”
“Guess we’ll go for opening.”
“Do you think Farah will be working?” I was surprised he was asking.
“I feel like she usually starts around noon. Why?”
“Just figured that she’d want to see you after what happened. You did tell her about it, right?”
“Well, not recently,” I answered.
“It’s
all over the news,” he told me. “They aren’t giving out your names, but
the whole thing about you two being long lost siblings and so on is
really taking off.”
“I guess it’s not every day something like this happens… Alright, well I’ll see you at what, 8 at the cafe?”
“It’s
a date.” The joking flirtiness of the text was reassuring. It made me
feel like things could finally go back to normal, though a part of me
questioned whether I really wanted that.
That
question bounced around my mind as I bused to the cafe. It’s not that I
hated the life I led before meeting Holly, but in hindsight, it felt so
empty. All I had was someone who didn’t want me. Solenne was right when
she dumped me. I had made her my answer for everything. I was half a
person as a result.
I
sat outside of the coffee shop, having arrived before whoever was
inside managed to unlock the door for customers. The air felt like
summer, like we had finally made our way through the cold dampness of
spring, but I knew better than that. Every time we think that it’s over,
it always finds its way back. Maybe there was something prophetic about
the cold breeze that blew just as the door opened to the cafe.
“Arthur?”
Farah’s familiar voice called out to me from behind. I turned around
and saw her leaning out of the door with a look of confusion on her
face. “It is you. What are you doing here so early? Shouldn’t you be
sleeping?”
“I’ve slept enough,” I answered with a smile. “Mahli said you probably heard about what happened.”
“Yeah, I thought that might have had something to do with you,” she said as casually as she could.
“Well,
I’ve been asleep basically ever since. Got up this morning and I’m just
not tired. Meeting Mahli here in a bit for early morning coffee.”
“When was the last time the two of you did something like that?”
“Probably in high school when we both had to be at school by 8.”
“Well, come on in, I’ll put some coffee on.”
I
followed her into the cafe that I had spent so many hours of my life
in. My mind drifted to memories and thoughts of the past, only to find
myself realizing that I was oddly reflective. It was like I was planning
on leaving my old life behind and had to say goodbye one last time.
I
took my favorite seat by the front window with the best view of the
street outside. There weren’t many people walking around, but it was
downtown so there was always at least one person. A golden retriever
took their owner for a walk around the block before sleeping until the
afternoon. Joggers passed by too, all decked out in gear as if they were
training for a marathon.
“It’ll
be a little bit,” Farah told me as she sat down across from me. “I just
want to get the brew right for the morning. Lots of people depend on
it.”
“I don’t mind waiting. Mahli’s not here yet, which is weird.”
“It’s not quite 8 yet,” she informed me. “I just saw you through the window and thought I’d invite you in.”
“Oh, well, maybe that’s why.”
I
was uneasy about the idea of Mahli being late. With everything that had
happened lately, I couldn’t help but to think that something had
happened to him, like Solenne when she went out to grab a breath of
fresh air when she was supposed to be dancing.
“So…
I don’t want to pester, but are you doing okay? From what I read in the
news, it sounded like an insane situation to deal with.”
I
absentmindedly nodded. “Yeah, I’m alright…” I mumbled before turning my
attention to her instead of the world outside. “Just a little shaken up
about it, I think. I don’t know what the news said, but he was trying
to correct the experiment that he had done when I was being born. Holly
and I are two sides of the same coin. We were never meant to coexist in
this reality.”
“That’s… um… yeah, nothing quite that intense in the news…”
“He
even tried to turn on his machine and use that to send one of us into
oblivion or something like that, but it didn’t work. Seemed like the
thing crashed mid-execution.”
She
put a comforting hand on my hand. “I’m so sorry that you had to go
through that. If there’s anything I can do to help you get through this,
just let me know.” A ding from behind the counter caught her attention.
She pulled her hands away. “Sorry, that’s the coffee. I’ll be right
back.”
I
watched as she rushed away behind the counter. From where I was
sitting, I couldn’t see anything but her head bobbing around as she
prepared everything for the morning rush. My eyes drifted back to the
window, only to see Mahli sprinting towards the cafe, a look of panic on
his face. The door opened and he burst through it, breathing heavier
than I’ve ever seen.
“Are you okay?” I questioned him.
“Sorry,
we’re not-” Farah had instinctively started saying before seeing who it
was. “Oh Mahli, why are you breathing so heavily?”
He looked at me with a look of dread in his eyes. Oh god, what happened?
“I am so sorry about being late. There was a surprising amount of traffic and then I had a bit of trouble finding parking.”
I
burst out laughing. “It’s okay, Mahli. It’s not even 8 yet. I was just
chatting with Farah. Don’t worry about it.” My heart hadn’t come back
out of the protective casing of my stomach yet, but I liked to think
that he was only panicking over being late. My imagination got a little
out of hand though.
“Oh
thank god,” he breathed in relief before flopping himself into the
chair across from me, his bag falling to the ground next to him. Good
thing I stayed.
I let him catch his breath. He rested his head on the table, eyes facing the window.
“Is he okay?” Farah asked as she placed a coffee down in front of me, holding one for herself.
“He’ll be fine. Just panicked a bit about being late,” I said with a chuckle. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“No problem,” she said with a smile before taking a sip of her cup. “Fuck! Hot!”
“Every
time,” I said before bursting into laughter. The front door opened, the
bell on top of it ringing and reminding Farah that she was at work.
“Guess you should go handle that.”
“Yeah,” she said before walking away with her tongue sticking out to cool down a bit in the cafe air.
I returned my attention to Mahli, who had somewhat recovered. “What do you want to drink?” I asked him. “Something cold maybe? Or a side of water?”
I returned my attention to Mahli, who had somewhat recovered. “What do you want to drink?” I asked him. “Something cold maybe? Or a side of water?”
“That’d be nice. And maybe a latte, if that’s okay,” he answered without lifting his head from the table.
“I’ve got a ten in my wallet I can grab for you.”
“No, it’s okay, this one’s on me.”
“That’s
a first,” he said in a surprised tone, lifting his head from the table
to get a good look at me. “Are you sure you’re the real Arthur?”
“Buying
my best friend a coffee isn’t going to bankrupt me,” I told him with a
chuckle. “Now rest while I go order you something.”
“Back
already?” Farah said as she prepared the man’s coffee, glancing over
her shoulder at me. She handed it to him with a smile.
“Yeah, Mahli’s gotta get something too,” I told her.
“It’s sweet of you to get it for him,” she said. “His usual of a latte?” I nodded.
“Plus a glass of water if that’s not too much trouble.”
“Of course!”
“Besides, I’ve gotta pay for my coffee anyways too,” I told her.
“Actually,” she said with a grin as she handed me the glass of water, “you don’t. It’s on me.”
“That’s not necessary,” I protested, never totally comfortable with handouts.
“Obviously
not,” she answered, her grin growing in defiance, “but that doesn’t
mean I don’t want to do it. You’ve gone through a lot. It’s the least I
can do. I insist. Besides, you’re paying for Mahli’s drink so it
balances out.”
“Alright, if you say so.”
“I’ll bring it over once it’s ready. It’ll take a bit longer than the water did.”
I laughed lightly. “Alright, see you in a bit.”
I
headed back to the table, where Mahli had set up his books on his side
already. “Glad to see you’ve managed to get your head off of the table,”
I joked as I sat down across from him.
“I am too,” he answered with a smirk. “So have you heard from Solenne or Holly?”
I
shook my head. “We went our separate ways once we got back to the city,
and I haven’t heard from them since, but I’m not surprised.”
“Why not?”
“I
spent god knows how long sleeping. Can’t imagine they’re any different.
Plus, it was a lot.” I paused. “Not really something we’d want to
revisit so soon.”
“Oh sorry, I didn’t mean-”
“It’s
okay. I expected as much. To be honest, I don’t feel the same as I used
to,” I confessed to him. “Like the way I look at the world is different
somehow. More in context.”
“Is that a good thing? Sounds like a good thing,” he posited.
“Yeah,
I think so. I finally understand what you meant when you said I should
move on from Solenne, and why you were so opposed to me getting back
together with her,” I explained to him.
“Is something wrong between you?” he asked. “I thought everything was going well.”
“It
was, well enough anyways, but it’s not about the relationship. It’s
about me… I’ve been in a rut for longer than I can remember, living an
empty life of routine and Solenne was the one thing that made it feel
like it had meaning… But that’s kind of ridiculous.”
“I wouldn’t say ridiculous,” he protested to try and make me feel better.
“You
wouldn’t say it, but you’d probably write it,” I said with a knowing
smirk. “I know I sound sad or whatever right now, but trust me, this is a
good thing.”
“Well that’s a relief,” he said with a sigh.
After
a bit of that, we let the conversation move onto topics that didn’t
originate with me as the focus. I listened as he went on about Evette,
and how the poetry she recommended shook up everything he knew about
poetry. There was so much excitement in his tone that he sometimes
thought to try to hide it, but I encouraged it. It was so pure, so good,
and I was no longer so bitter and miserable to refuse it.
Life
is rarely simple though. One problem solved often means another comes
to light. As much as I loved to live in the dark, to push all thoughts
out of my mind as much as possible, I couldn’t do the same to Holly.
After a few days of quiet silence, she called me.
“Hey, Arthur?” she sounded unsure of herself, and distressed.
“Yeah, what’s up?” I questioned, anxiety building.
“Can you meet me at the cafe in a couple hours? I want to talk to you about something.”
I
had my suspicions about what she wanted to talk about. I had felt it
too, thought about it late at night when I was unable to stop the
thoughts from coming. Our father created a machine that measured quantum
flux changes or whatever, something that went off whenever we were
close to each other. Since we had met, we were forced to face the
reality that it posed.
“Sure thing.”
Farah
wasn’t there when I arrived. Someone else was working. Holly showed up
briefly after I did with a mostly empty bag on her back. She sat down
across from me and said, “nice to see you again.” It was solemn.
“You too.” I faked joy, trying to drown out the anxiety of what could be coming next.
“I
wanted to show you something,” she said as she opened her back and
pulled out the quantum flux detector. “I took this from the house before
we left to go to the police station. I know I should have given it to
them, but I was curious…”
“I’m
not sure either of us are able to figure out what it really does,” I
reminded her. “And I knew you had it. I saw it in the car before you
drove off. What about it though?”
“I
found myself wondering if he was right in some capacity, that the two
of us coexisting might have awful consequences…” she mumbled with her
eyes locked on the odd machine on the table, its readings going through
the roof.
“What are we going to do about that? Fight to the death to see who gets to live?” I questioned with a sharp tongue.
She shook her head. “Maybe it’s a sign we need to go our separate ways. I’m thinking of moving away.”
I
nodded solemnly. “That would probably be for the best…” I muttered. I
hated the idea of it. We had gone through so much together. We were
family, siblings who never got to share a childhood. All we got was
attacked by our father while hanging out in the few months we had before
he died. I liked Holly. She was smart, funny, and driven. I didn’t like
to admit it to myself, but she became someone I wished I was more like,
ironically.
I took a sip of my coffee. As the hot bean juice burned its way down my throat, I realized I hadn’t ordered a coffee.
“Did
you get this for me?” I asked Holly. She gave me a confused look and
shook her head. I looked around for Farah, but she was nowhere to be
seen.
“That was there when I got here,” she told me. “Maybe it’s someone else’s and you didn’t notice it when you sat down.”
“Weird, it’s still fresh,” I commented as I placed it back down on the table. “So how much do you know about how it works?”
“Not much… It seems like there’s always some reading going on. It just climbs the closer I am to you,” she informed me.
“Guess
you’ll have to go pretty far to avoid any accidental bump-ins,” I said
with a sigh. She looked me right in my sad pathetic eyes and nodded.
“I think this should be our last meeting,” she told me with a solemn sad tone.
“Yeah, I figured as much,” I said with a sigh. There was something about it that was sadder than when Solenne broke up with me here almost a year ago. No one expects to say this to a sibling.
We
both got up from our seats. “I’m going to head out,” I told her. “So
take care of yourself, okay? It was an honor to meet you, and I can see
you’ve got a great future ahead of you.”
“Thanks, Arthur,” she said softly. “You take care of yourself too. Good luck with Solenne, and tell Mahli I say goodbye.”
“Will do.” I stepped around the table on my way out, but Holly stopped me.
“Hug for the road?” she asked with her arms outstretched.
“Sure,”
I breathed. We wrapped our arms around each other for the first time. I
hate goodbye hugs. They’re always so intimate, so filled with sadness
because they’re a moment of closeness built right before a long
farewell. It’s like an alcoholic’s last drink before getting sober. It
might be for the best, but it doesn’t make it any easier.
Out
of the corner of my eye, I noticed a car flying at us from the street.
There was barely anytime to react. I pulled back as fast as I could,
still clutching to Holly. There was a loud crash. Broken glass flew
everywhere. I shut my eyes and waited for impact. But when I opened my
eyes again, there was no car. The wall was busted open, the table we had
been sitting at mostly crushed with the quantum flux detector on the
ground by our feet.
“What was what?” Holly cried out as she pulled away from me and stared at the sudden hole in the wall.
“A car came flying at us,” I told her with bated breath. I looked out of the hole in the wall at the little bit of grass leading up to the window. “There are even tire tracks…” I muttered as I stepped back and away from Holly.
Everyone
in the area seemed to run and come see what had happened. The employee
working ran over to us with coffee spilled all over his apron. “What
happened?” He must have seen the confused looks on our faces because he
stepped towards the hole in the wall and took a look at it. “How the
hell?”
I
glanced down at my feet to avoid any eye contact with him, feeling an
odd sense of guilt resting in my stomach. Curious, I picked up the
quantum flux detector and looked at the display. The glass was broken
but the image still showed. There was a large spike on the far left hand
side of the screen which slowly disappeared from sight.
I
understood what happened. It was just like what happened in the house,
only worse. Two versions of reality suddenly overlapped and affected
each other. Two possibilities coexisted when only one should have. I
glanced over at Holly. Our eyes met, and I backed out of the cafe. Once
outside, I stared at the tire tracks on the grass, wondering why that
car would have been driving in to begin with. I wondered what that other
world was like.
Holly
joined me after a little while. “The police are on their way,” she told
me. “They’re going to try to figure out what happened. The worker
thinks maybe the building was unstable, or a bomb maybe?”
“It was us hugging,” I told her in a grim tone. I looked over my shoulder at her. “I’m going to go, Holly. Take care, and goodbye.”
“It was us hugging,” I told her in a grim tone. I looked over my shoulder at her. “I’m going to go, Holly. Take care, and goodbye.”
I
walked away, but I didn’t go home. I put some distance between us, took
out my phone, and called Mahli. After a couple rings, he picked up.
“Since when do you call me?” he asked in a surprised tone.
“Can you come pick me up downtown? There’s something I need to do and it’s going to require a car.”
“Oh god, what is it?” There was worry and dread in his voice. He knew me so well.
“I need to go back to that house,” I informed him.
“The one you were lured into going? Why? Isn’t that a crime scene right now?”
“I can explain on the way, but it’s pretty urgent. Just trust me, okay?”
“Okay, I’ll be by in about 20 minutes. I was in the middle of writing a poem, but it can wait.”
“Thanks a ton, buddy, see you soon.”
“Ugh, leave the poetic responses to Mahli. They don’t suit you.”
“So when are you going to tell Solenne?” Mahli asked as we got to my apartment. I put my bag down by the living room and flopped down on my couch. He took a seat in my computer chair.
Part 10: The Finale
I found a bench to sit on and texted him the general location.
It was a nice day. Peaceful, barring what had happened in the cafe. The
birds were chirping and cooing as they flew about the busy city. People
were out jogging and walking their dogs. The sunlight was an old friend
that I wasn’t sure I ever really appreciated before.
As
I sat there on the bench in the late spring sunlight, I realized how
lost I had been all this time. I had been wandering through life with a
blindfold on, just following whims and convenience around. It’s simpler
to cling to what’s been lost than go through the effort of moving on and
finding something better. I didn’t know what to do with myself, but I
had a feeling I might be able to figure that out in my biological
family’s house. I looked up at the clouds gently brushing over the
city’s skyscrapers.
“Arthur?
What are you doing here?” Farah called out to me from down the street.
She waved and ran over. “Never seen you sit on a bench before. Did you
hear about what happened at the cafe? Apparently some explosion or
something happened?”
“I was there
when it happened,” I told her as she sat down next to me. “It’s going
to sound crazy, but it was a car that popped in and out of existence.”
“What?”
“Holly
and I were never meant to coexist,” I explained to her in a melancholy
tone, looking instead at the sky above and the ever-changing clouds.
“Our parents were experimenting with trying to make two realities exist
at the same time, a boy and a girl. They succeeded, but when Holly and I
are close to each other, reality bends. The car was a part of that.”
I
looked over at her to see a stunned and confused face looking back at
me. I could tell she wanted to believe me, but couldn’t manage to. She
probably couldn’t even figure out if I was joking or not.
Mahli’s
car pulled up after a moment of stunned silence. “That’s my ride,” I
told her. “It was nice seeing you. Maybe we’ll see each other again
soon.”
“Yeah, I’d like that!”
she said in a friendly way as I got up from my seat. I waved goodbye and
got into the passenger seat. “Hey,” I greeted my best friend.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he questioned me in a quiet but serious tone.
“I’ve felt different ever since we went there,” I told him. “I’m not trying to get back to where I was, but… yeah, I’m sure.”
Mahli
didn’t ask anymore questions after that. He understood that I had to
go, for one reason or another. It was a long silent drive, but it was
still somehow nice. Silence doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Sometimes
everything can be said without the use of a single word.
The
area around the house looked different in the daytime. There was police
tape draped from one end of the driveway to the other, tied to trees on
either side, but otherwise the place seemed quiet and untouched. The
buds on the trees had found a way to break open and were slowly
spreading out their leaves. The house at the end of the driveway was
almost welcoming. It had a basic white siding and black shingle roof. It
was dirty but still in good condition.
“Do you want me to come in with you?” Mahli asked as he put his car in park.
I shook my head. “No, it’s okay. I’ll go in alone.”
“Alright, if you say so. Text if you need anything.”
“You got it, and thanks again for the drive.”
I
got out and walked towards the house. A spring breeze blew, gently
rustling the forest as I walked. Birds sang and flew around. The odd
squirrel chipped here and there and crossed the driveway by jumping from
branch to branch. I passed underneath the police tape and headed for
the front door of the house. The lawn was still mostly uncut, but a path
had been cut out to the front door. I followed it in and stood in the
entryway of the house that would have been my childhood home in another
version of reality. Natural light filled the house through the windows
that never got boarded up. The smell of burnt candles was gone, replaced
with a hint of the fresh spring air seeping in somewhere.
I
wandered through the house, looking at it in a new light. It was
relieving to be able to explore without worrying about being attacked
from the shadows or Solenne’s well-being. The place was mostly
furnished, except for the child rooms with the broken cribs in the
corner. As much as he had been living here before we found him, the
place still managed to feel abandoned. It was like I had survived the
apocalypse and was exploring the childhood home I had before it all fell
apart. Everything seemed to be an echo, a reminder, of a life that
could have been.
I found my way
to the master bedroom on the second story. It was just past the office
where we had been attacked, where the end had started in force. The door
creaked open as my doubt and hesitation kept it from being flown open.
It was the most occupied room in the house. Dirty clothes were strung
about the floor, and knick-knacks of all sorts covered the dressers and
bedside tables. There was a curtain pulled over the window. I carefully
walked over and pulled it open, filling the room with the welcoming
spring light. When I looked again, the room had changed.
On
the opposite side of the room sat the dresser with a large mirror on it
against the wall. I saw myself reflected in it, but thought it was my
biological father for a moment before shaking the idea out of my head. I
wandered towards it, my footsteps muffled by the clothes on the floor. A
photograph was stuck into the mirror’s frame, showing a familiar couple
smiling and happy. I pulled it free and stared at it, falling back onto
the bed.
It was the first
picture of my parents together that I had seen. It was unsettling to see
Holly there with the younger version of the man who attacked us, but it
was a Holly I never got to meet.
After
a short while of staring at the photograph, staring right into the
past, I placed it down on the dirty and messy dresser. I wandered out of
the room and back into the office. I looked at the floor that had once
opened up to swallow Richard Holtz mid-attack. I stepped over the spot
and ruffled around the desk. Most of the notes I found varied from
musings about the nature of reality and how to “fix” what he had done to
letters to his late wife.
I
skimmed through a couple of the letters, but they were all the same.
They all had the same amount of regret, guilt, and obsession in them. As
I flipped through his belongings, all I could think was how pathetic he
was. He was so fixated on what happened that he never moved on, never
found a way forward. Instead of facing what had happened, he ran away
and then returned and secretly planned to “set things right”, but he
couldn’t turn back time.
Sometimes
when we’re looking at a reflection of ourselves, we don’t fully realize
it at first. Like a baby seeing themselves for the first time, we gaze
at ourselves in shock and curiosity until it finally dawns on us: this
person is me.
I put down the
papers and looked out of the window at the forest just beyond the
overgrown lawn. Squirrels and birds lived their lives, bouncing and
flying around the trees for reasons I didn’t quite understand. The
budding leaves on the trees seemed to invite me out. This place has
stood here for years, abandoned or inhabited by a madman, but the rest
of the world went on without him, without it.
I left the room, went down the stairs, and headed out the back door. I circled around the house to the driveway and followed it back to Mahli’s car. I didn’t look back. There was nothing left to look at.
I left the room, went down the stairs, and headed out the back door. I circled around the house to the driveway and followed it back to Mahli’s car. I didn’t look back. There was nothing left to look at.
“You okay?” he asked me as I approached as he leaned on the hood of his car with a pen and notebook in hand.
I nodded. “I think… I think it’s time that I move,” I told him.
“What? You can’t mean to here,” he responded in surprise.
“No,”
I said, chuckling. “I’ve had the same apartment for years now with
almost the same exact things. Worked the same shitty job in the same
city that I’ve never really bothered to leave. I think it’s time for
some change.”
“Okay, but why? And where?” he questioned.
“Holly
and I can no longer be near each other. It messes with reality. She
said she was going to move, but I don’t think she’s the one who should
leave,” I explained to him. I sighed. “I know it’s going to suck living
in a different city from each other, but this is something I need to
do.”
“Alright,” he said softly. “If this is something you need to do, I’ll help you move.”
“Thanks, buddy.”
There
were a number of conversations I needed to have before I could move,
and one of them I dreaded more than anything, the one with Solenne. I
knew she wouldn’t be moving with me, and I didn’t think I wanted her to
anyways. What’s the point of moving if I bring my past with me?
“I’m going to move,” I texted Holly as we drove back to the city. “So don’t pack.”
“What?
Why? I said I was going to,” she replied a couple minutes later,
accompanied by, “and by the way, thanks for leaving me at the cafe to
try to explain what happened.”
“Sorry about that, I just needed to do something.”
“It’s okay, so why are you moving instead now?”
“It’s time I see the world,” I answered.
“You’re going to travel?”
“Well,
no. I don’t want to end up like Richard. He spent the past 25 years
fixated on what happened, clinging desperately to a past that was
already gone, trying to somehow fix what had happened…” I explained.
“Well,
best of luck then, brother,” she replied after about ten minutes.
“Evette will be glad to hear that I won’t be going anywhere anyways.
How’s Mahli dealing with the information?”
I
glanced over at him. He spotted me looking out of the corner of his eye
and smiled at me briefly before returning his attention to the road.
“Well enough, I think. That or he’ll have a whole book of poetry out of
this experience. Either way, he wins.”
“Haha, glad you’re optimistic about it.”
“Life goes on, as they say.”
“Ugh, leave the poetic responses to Mahli. They don’t suit you.”
“So when are you going to tell Solenne?” Mahli asked as we got to my apartment. I put my bag down by the living room and flopped down on my couch. He took a seat in my computer chair.
“I don’t know, honestly,” I said as I buried my head in my hands. “Never thought I’d be having this talk with her.”
“Do you think she’ll want to do long distance?” he questioned, but he wasn’t prepared for the real answer.
“I don’t think I do…” I mumbled in vague disbelief.
“Are you sure you’re okay? You’re not exactly acting like yourself,” he inquired with a worried tone.
I nodded. “I’m sure. I don’t know how I’ll do it though. How I’ll tell her.”
I nodded. “I’m sure. I don’t know how I’ll do it though. How I’ll tell her.”
“The
same way she told you almost a year ago,” he said with a smirk. “Go out
for coffee and tell her the truth.” He paused. “But why don’t you want
to be with her?”
I took a deep
breath. “It’s kind of weird to explain, but it feels like trying to hold
onto a handful of water. No matter how hard I try, it always slips
through my fingers.” I looked him straight in the eyes. “It’s just
chasing after something that was barely real to begin with.”
“Wow,” he exclaimed quietly. “You really have had some sort of epiphany, haven’t you?”
“Turns
out having your biological father try to murder you will make you
reconsider your life sometimes,” I answered with a nod. “Wanna play some
Mario Kart?”
We played for a
couple hours, only swearing half the time about how the game was rigged,
before he noticed the time and got going for a meeting with Evette. I
saw him off, and watched him drive off with the idea it was one of the
last times I would. Something that once seemed endless now had an end in
sight. It was strange.
I spent
the night alone, planning out how I was going to talk to Solenne about
it. I must have spent at least four hours trying to plan out a script,
with papers crumpled up and tossed over the floor. I wanted it to be
perfect, to be airtight, but I couldn’t find a way to make that work, to
make a plan that accounted for every possibility. I guess that was not a
terrible surprise, but I really would have liked it.
It
was midnight when I decided to ask her out for coffee the next day. We
hadn’t spoken since the kidnapping. A part of me felt wrong for wanting
to leave after what happened, but it was something that I had to do. It
would be a couple months before I would be able to move anyways, so it
wasn’t like we had to stop seeing each other immediately.
I
think I passed out in bed around 3 am, having stayed up waiting for her
response that didn’t come before my body gave up waiting. My heart had
been rushing the blood through my body, but found a way to let my brain
drift off into dreams of madness and random floods and new dawns, new
faces blurred by the blinding light. The blinding light grew and grew
until my eyes opened again and I was lying in my room with the morning
sun shining in through my bedroom window.
I
rolled out of bed and stretched. For a moment, I had forgotten what I
had been doing before I fell asleep, but that blissful moment did not
last long. I rushed to check my phone, discovering no text from Solenne
and the fact that it was only 7 in the morning. I didn’t feel exhausted.
I didn’t feel tired. I was suspicious that it would creep up on me
later.
Mostly awake, I was
unsure what else to do with myself besides wake up. I left my phone on
my bedside table and headed for the bathroom. I let the water warm up as
examined myself in the mirror. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it
was the first time I had really looked in the mirror like that in a long
long time. I wasn’t looking to find some answers in my eyes, or sorrow
hidden behind them. I was just looking to see if I needed to shave or
not. After deciding against it, I slipped into the warm shower,
welcoming its embrace like an old friend.
Time
collapsed in on itself while the water ran onto me and into the drain. A
thousand thoughts ran through my mind, but none of them bothered me too
much. I was calm, but knew that the anxiety of seeing Solenne was bound
to come eventually. All that was important in that moment was that it
wasn’t there. A moment of peace in a life of chaos.
After
my shower, as I was getting dressed, my phone went off. I checked it
with my shirt only half on, saw Solenne’s name, and quickly finished
what I was doing.
“I think
coffee is a good idea too,” she had texted in response. The lack of any
emojis or punctuation made me wonder if she was thinking the same thing I
was. I hoped that it was true, but I couldn’t believe it in
seriousness. She had tried so hard to make it work, after all, and only
got kidnapped for her efforts.
Surprisingly
enough, the cafe that I usually found myself up was open that day, even
though a car had plowed a hole through the front of the building the
day before. It was covered in a thick plastic that made it hard to see
inside, but I could see some planks of wood through it. I headed inside
and saw that Farah was working. She was looking at the plastic covering
when the bell caught her attention.
“Arthur!” she exclaimed. “It’s nice to see you!”
“I’m surprised you’re still open,” I commented, motioning towards the taped off area of the cafe.
“I
am too,” she confessed to me in a hushed tone as I got to the counter.
She looked over at it again. “Apparently building engineers came by
yesterday to see if the building was still stable, and it was. With the
weather being warmer, management thought they could stay open while the
repairs took place.” She looked back at me and sighed. “If you asked me,
I think this is a bad idea, but I’m not going to turn down a shift.”
She glanced at the time. “A bit early for you, isn’t it?”
“Surprised you’re even here,” I told her. “I’m meeting Solenne here.”
“Oh.” She paused. “Well, there should be some free seats further in. Unfortunately your favorite table was destroyed.”
“That’s
okay. It was just a table. There’ll be more,” I said in a joking tone.
“I’m going to go grab a seat and I’ll be right back.”
“Sure thing!”
The
cafe was almost entirely empty, save for one young woman of maybe 21
sitting by the window in the far room, a window that looked out into
what would have been the building’s backyard if they didn’t use it for
deliveries. I set down my stuff and headed back to the counter. Farah
had taken out her school books while I was gone and was reading when I
approached the counter.
“Whatcha studying?” I asked in a friendly tone.
“Psychology,” she answered as she dragged her eyes up from the page back to me. “Same coffee as always?”
I shook my head. “Nah, I think I’ll try that latte that Mahli’s always getting. He likes it enough.”
“Wow, look at you,” she joked, “expanding your horizons. Never thought I’d see the day.”
“Oh,
speaking of which, I wanted to tell you something,” I said right before
the bell rung behind me. I turned around and saw Solenne standing by
the door. Our eyes met. There was pain in her eyes, that much I could
tell.
“Hey, Solenne,” I muttered as she slowly walked over. “What would you like to have?”
“Nothing for me, thanks,” she said matter of factly. “Where are you seated?”
“In the back, just look for my stuff,” I told her, motioning in that vague direction. “I’ll be right there.”
“I can bring you your latte,” Farah piped up behind me. “Go sit down with your girlfriend. It’ll only be a bit.”
“Alright,” I agreed hesitantly. “If you say so.”
Farah
didn’t know what was about to happen. She didn’t know she was about to
witness our second breakup in this very cafe, something I had sort of
wanted to push off, but now I didn’t have any excuse not to.
Solenne
and I sat across from each other. The room was quiet. The other patron
had her earbuds in and was staring out of the window, only occasionally
taking a sip of her tea. There was silence between us for a decent
while. When Farah came by with my latte, we hadn’t exchanged a word,
just let our eyes wander around the room avoiding eye contact.
“Here you go,” she said to me. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“Thanks, Farah, will do!”
Once she was gone, our silence was broken. “I think you know why I wanted to meet you,” I began.
Fear flashed behind her eyes as she nodded. “I’ve been thinking it too…” She paused and stared me right in the eyes. “But before we do this, I want to be honest with you. I had been seeing someone else in the months we weren’t together. When he ghosted me out of nowhere, I rebounded onto you. I wanted to show him that I didn’t need him, but I shouldn’t have used you like that. I’m sorry…”
Fear flashed behind her eyes as she nodded. “I’ve been thinking it too…” She paused and stared me right in the eyes. “But before we do this, I want to be honest with you. I had been seeing someone else in the months we weren’t together. When he ghosted me out of nowhere, I rebounded onto you. I wanted to show him that I didn’t need him, but I shouldn’t have used you like that. I’m sorry…”
I was speechless.
“And
it wasn’t like that the whole time. I remember how much I liked you,
and wanted to get back to what we were, I really did, but everything
felt off. Like all of a sudden, the connection we had no longer existed…
Isn’t that why we’re here now?”
I
nodded slowly. A lot of emotions ran through me in that moment, relief
being one of them, but also frustration. I felt used, but knew deep down
that I had been using her too, just not as consciously.
I
took a deep breath and focused on the task at hand. There would be all
the time to think through her words and feel every way that my mind
wanted to feel, but this time was for telling her goodbye.
“I’m
moving away,” I told her bluntly. A look of surprise crossed her face.
“This whole thing has made me realize that I’ve been trying to hold onto
something that was already gone. I’ve been living the same life for so
long, content with nothing changing because I was so scared of it.” I
shook my head. “It’s time for me to finally move on. A part of me has
been waiting for this for years, even before we broke up. That’s why you
broke up with me to begin with, wasn’t it? I was a shadow of a man, an
echo of who I could be, defining myself based on you.”
She
was stunned. She slowly nodded and reached a comforting hand across the
table. “I do care about you, Arthur,” she said softly, “but I
understand how you feel, and you’re not wrong…” she looked away at the
window for a moment. “I can’t believe we’re having this talk.” She
sighed and looked at me again. “I never thought you’d feel this way…”
She got up. “I’m going to go… Give me a hug.”
I
didn’t say anything. I just got up and wrapped my arms around her for
what very well could be the last time. The idea was painful yet somehow
freeing. When we pulled away, she looked me right in the eyes and said,
“goodbye, Arthur. Take care.”
“Goodbye, Solenne,” I said softly as she brushed by me and left the cafe.
I
stood there paralyzed for a minute, only to notice that the woman who
was sitting by the window was looking at me with an expression of
concern on her face. I shot a casual smile at her and sat back down. I
let out a heavy breath and leaned back in the chair, staring at the
blank ceiling above me.
Farah’s
face filled my vision as she leaned over me, her black hair falling down
and blotting out the world. “You okay?” she asked with a careful tone.
“I saw your girlfriend leaving and she didn’t look happy.”
“We just decided to end it,” I told her as I sat back up. She sat down across from me.
“Are you okay?” she paused. “Maybe you two should stop meeting here at all. Something always seems to happen when you do.”
“This is for good,” I told her in a solemn tone. I took a deep breath. “Oh, there was something I wanted to tell you too.”
“What’s that? The latte is your new favorite drink?”
I
hadn’t taken a sip of it yet. I shook my head. “I’m moving, couple
hours away probably, so you won’t be seeing me here anymore. Except
maybe when I’m visiting Mahli or my parents.”
“What? Why are you moving?” she questioned, a frown forming on her face.
“The
whole thing with Holly, honestly.” I explained it to her with as much
detail as I felt I could spare. I really wanted Farah to understand,
more than Solenne.
“I’m going to miss you,” she said sadly. “You’re my favorite customer, and a good friend.”
“Well
maybe I’ll visit from time to time,” I said with a hopeful tone. I took
out my phone, unlocked it, and handed it to her. “Add your number. That
way we can still chat even when we’re not here.” I chuckled nervously
as she took it. “Honestly, feel like we should have done this a long
time ago.”
She handed it back to me and shyly said, “would it be okay if I visited from time to time too?”
I was reminded of what Solenne had once said about Farah. I smiled and nodded. “Of course. You’ll always be welcome to visit.”
“I’ll bring some coffee with me and show you how to make a decent cup at home,” she offered with an excited smile.
“Or we could just hang out,” I suggested instead.
“That works too!” The front door opened with a ring. “Oh, I have to go! Come see me before you leave!”
She
ran off to greet the new customer, and I was left feeling rather
content with myself. Things were changing, but not necessarily for the
worst. I was excited to see what the future would bring for the first
time in years. In the weeks following my talk with Farah, I found an
apartment I could afford, planned my move with Mahli and my parents’
help, and even found a new job in the city I was moving to.
The
first time I entered the city, I was overwhelmed with the size of it.
It was nothing like where I grew up, yet was so close to it. It was
older, and taller, surrounded by water on most sides, and easily had
more than twice the population of my home town. I found myself
questioning whether my home city was really a city after all.
Once
I was all moved in (but not unpacked), I messaged Holly to tell her
that I was out of the city. We started talking again, recognizing that
just because we couldn’t be near each other didn’t mean we couldn’t use
technology to communicate.
The
summer heat was bearing down on me most days, reminiscent of the summer
that had marked the end of my relationship with Solenne, the summer that
had broken me. But now, a year later, I was melting away in an
apartment above of a corner store sitting by the window watching people
pass by on the street below. The trees planted into the sidewalk
stretched out their branches as far as they could, their leaves soaking
up every little bit of sunlight they could get. I felt like one of them,
technically sort of an alien to the city, but finding a way to live in
it regardless.
To be honest,
when this whole thing started and we discovered that our biological
parents had messed with quantum mechanics to allow both Holly and I to
exist at the same time, once we found out our father was trying to kill
one of us, I thought it could only end with one of us dying, or being
snapped out of existence. But life isn’t like a computer program,
there’s no undo button. Sometimes we make mistakes, and all we can do is
learn from them and find a way to move on. The past is gone as fast as
it happens, and time marches on with no care for our whispers of lives.
THE END
THE END
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