Love In Death

5: The Truth

Home. It was really home. The house was painted a sky blue. It's my mother's favourite colour. The shutters were a clean white, because they'd recently been repainted. The past twenty-four waking hours had shown me that I had no dream home but this one. I would gladly be grounded for life. I was pretty shaken by this. I never wanted to be alone, ever again. Things happen to people when there's no one watching.

As I walked nearer the door, I could hear my parents inside. They weren't at work, because they worried about me. Staying home didn't actually do anything. They knew that. But they wanted to be there if I somehow got to them. And here I was. I looked down at my clothes. My mother would be surprised to see my apparel.

"What could they be doing to her? Why did they take her?" Mom demanded, sounding distraught. It broke my heart to hear her like that. She didn't ask them, expecting an answer. She asked them, because that's what everyone wondered.

"Calm down, Julia!" Dad barked. "If it is God's will, she will come back to us. Otherwise, it's simply her time to return to the Father. We'll see her again someday." He's a staunch Christian, and the voice of reason in the household. I'm thankful he made us a Christian family.

"How can I be calm, Ryan? Tell me. My daughter missing. Ariadne is gone," she sobbed.

"There's still hope, Mom," I heard Donny say next. "I'm going to take Annie up now. You guys are scaring her."

There's more than hope, though. I'm here. I'm home.

I raced up the porch steps and put a hand in my pocket to search for my keys. I realised they weren't there. I realised they were in Norman's house. I shook my head. That didn't matter. I knocked on the door. Something so natural.

Only that I couldn't. I couldn't, because my hand went through the door. I took it back like the door was on fire.

It scared me so much. I didn't dare to try it again. I tried shouting for them instead. "Mom! Dad! Donny! Annie!"

Nothing. I shouted again. Still, no one came. No one heard me.

Nobody could hear me. And that's when I broke down. I fell to the ground, and I cried.

I cried because there was nothing else I could do. I didn't understand what was going on- how could I? I ran from Norman. I made it home. And I found out that I could not be heard, and I could pass through solid objects.

I dried my tears. I was never one to give up, and I was hardly one to cry. I closed my eyes, and walked into the door. Most of me wished I'd hit into the door and embarrass myself.

I was home, but something was different. And I intended to find out what was going on. "Can you see me? Mom? Dad? Donny? Annie?"

My parents were in the living room. They were waiting to hear from the police, I guessed. Donny, as he said he would, had taken Annie upstairs. Tears fell from my mother's eyes at a rapid pace. Her body shook with grief and worry. My father sat beside her on the couch. He comforted her, to his best ability. I gave him points for that, because I was sure certain he's breaking too.

"I'm right here," I said. My voice had left me, and it came out a lot softer than I thought it would. It didn't matter. I couldn't be heard. I quickly realised that I couldn't be seen, either. I wanted to touch them, comfort them. I was too afraid. My hand might go through even them.

I climbed up the stairs, where the bedrooms were. I saw Donny in Annie's room. He sat by her, watching her play with her dolls. I guessed that he envied her. He wished he could be oblivious to the pain of losing me. A year ran down my cheek, because I knew I could not hug either of them.

It hurt me to watch his expression, one that showed a deep sadness. I moved on. I went to my room. My real room. My pictures were all around the place. It was messy, just as I'd left it. This was my room. I brushed my fingers against the cupboard, careful to lift my hand up. I wanted to pretend things were normal.

I clenched my fists. It was Norman's fault. It was his fault something had happened to me. It was his fault they were hurting.

I couldn't stand another moment in the house. I didn't know why no one could see me, or hear me. I didn't know why I could go through objects. I had to know why. And staying in the house I'd grown up in, with people that were worrying over my disappearance, was too painful to bear.

When I left my house, I saw a boy. I might not have noticed him in a group of people, but now he was alone, and he was sitting in the middle of the road.

And he was staring at me.

I wouldn't have been particularly shocked a couple days ago, but I'd just come to the understanding that I was invisible.

"Can you see me?" I enquired.

He smirked. "Didn't your mother ever teach you not to talk to strangers?" He had a hint of a British accent. He tried to speak like an American teen, but the way he tried to speak loosely sounded forced.

Well, I might have noticed him in a crowd. He was pretty hot. He had dirty blond hair styled into a short quiff. His eyebrows were thick, but that suited him. Icy blue eyes challenged mine playfully. His nose wasn't big, precisely, but it definitely wasn't small. Dimples. Thin lips. Broad shoulders. A muscular body. His attire was casual, but not shabby.

The most I could say was that this boy looked very balanced. He looked like a model.

That wasn't all. He didn't seem to look... normal. The sun was shining down brightly, and where it hit him, he seemed almost translucent. That made no sense.

"Why can you see me? Why can't anyone else see me? What happened?" I asked him. I wanted to scream at him for answers. And yet, as my mother taught me, I had to leave this guy with a good impression of myself.

"We're the same."

"But I've never seen you before," I protested.

He rolled his eyes. "You're a girl, aren't you? Have you met the entire female population?"

I chewed my lip. "Please get off the road. A car's going to come."

He chuckled. "Already worried about me, are we? Besides, I said I'm like you. Things pass through me."

"You like that?"

"I've accepted it," he said with a shrug.

"What's your name? I'm Ariadne Castings." I walked closer to him, so that I stood in front of him and was looking down. I figured I might as well befriend this guy, since I appeared to be stuck with him.

He stood up. He was at least six feet, towering over my frame of five feet and seven inches. "Nicholas de Vance."

Nicholas de Vance. I'd never heard the name before, but I felt strangely connected to it. I felt connected to the man himself. Nick.

"So, de Vance. Tell me. I'm guessing you know the reason that only you can see me."

He furrowed his brows, like he was trying to dissect a difficult question to give the right answer. "It is an easy answer. But not one to be told simply."

The formality of his tone and language went well with his accent. It came naturally to him. I had the feeling that this was the way he spoke when he was brought up.

"Please. Tell me, and I can go back to normal. I can go back to my family," I pleaded. I was so close, yet so far.

Nick was having an internal argument. I was probably the subject matter. Finally, he sighed.

"Are you sure you want to know right now?"

I nodded.

"And you solemnly promise not to blame me for anything?"

"Pinky promise," I grinned. I lifted my right hand, with a hooked pinky. He shook his own with mine.

"You're dead, Ariadne."