THE BOY WHO NEVER SPOKE | Complete

Chapter Ten

"Hey." Alissa says as she opens the door to her apartment. It's very obvious that she is hungover and not completely over what happened last night. "I got some wine," I say as I raise the wine bottle up. "But from the way you look I guess I'll just throw it out." I smile, and get nothing in return. Nothing but a blank face.

I quickly realized that I was overdressed for whatever this night is. I assumed dinner would mean a date night, but I guess I was wrong. I had a white button up shirt on, basic black jeans, and I also trimmed my moustache.

We sit on the couch for a good moment before Alissa finally makes eye contact with me, "I don't know what to say," She says, tears immediately start filling her eyes and I jump to comfort her. "Who would want to hurt me?" She cries. "What have I ever done to make someone want to hurt me?" She adds.

I say nothing in return. I get the feeling that any sort of words at this moment may ruin her train of thought, and I wanted her to unleash the pain she's been holding on to these two nights. "I don't know love," I finally say, "Do you know anyone who might have something against you?" I ask, "Someone who knew about your dad's phrase?" I add.

Alissa shakes her head, "No," she says, but then quickly adds, "No one but Ash I guess but he isn't the one who did it." I look at her, waiting for her to put two and two together, "Or maybe he is." She finally says, jumping to her feet and stomping to her phone.

She dials his number before I grab the phone from her hand. I don't neccesarily know why I did it. Maybe because a small part of me believes him, a part of me thinks that Alissa might not exactly be the person I thought her to be, but then again I look at her and I see no darkness.

"Hey," She snaps, "give it back Ezekiel." Her voice grew louder. Eyes as tense as ever as she stares me in the soul, and her hand out waiting for me to give it to her. "No," I say, "if it was Ash, I'll be the first one in that bookstore-"

"What bookstore?" Alissa interrupts, "You do know he works in a publishing firm right?" She says, but her words are making no sense to me because I know he works in a bookstore. I literally bought stuff from there yesterday. "The bookstore around the block," I say, trying to prove my point. "Crampton Books."

Alissa looks at me weirdly, "Crampton Books is where he goes to read," She says, "Not work."

"Well then, where does he work?" I ask.

"He works in a publishing firm close to here, I think it was called-" Alissa wonders about the name, but I knew exactly what she was going to say, and I couldn't believe the words that were about to leave my mouth. "Brandon's Publishing," I interrupt as I stare at the floor. "the place I work at." I add.

How couldn't I have noticed before, could he be a ranked higher than me and works in a different floor, a different office, but even then how couldn't my boss realize that she knew him rather than telling me that some guy named Ash is in your office last time. So many questions were rushing through my head and I had no answer to any of them.

"What do you mean the place you work at?" Alissa asks, "You mean you guys work together?" She adds.

"No love, I didn't even know before today." I say.

I give Alissa her phone back, but she puts it down and sits next to me. "You know what," She says, "I don't want to focus on any of that tonight." She adds, slightly giggling, "Especially my ex-boyfriend."

"But what about the letter," I ask as I take my head out of the palm of my hands, "What about yesterday?"

"Do you know the story of the alcoholic?" Alissa says, "The brothers with an alcoholic father."

"No," I say, baffled, "what does that have to do with anything?"

"Well the story is about an alcoholic father who had two sons, one of them turned to become an alcoholic because his father was one, and the other one was healthy and stayed as far away as he could from alcohol because his father was one." She answers, but by the look on my face she could tell I still didn't know what this was about.

Alissa takes my hand and puts it in hers, "Yesterday after I saw the letter all I could think about was you," she smiles, "I was worried about turning to become like my mom and forget all about my life if I ever lost you. I don't care if it was Ash, Melissa, or Allison who sent that letter. All I care about is not forgetting I have you in my life."

She give me a small kiss on the lips, "Tomorrow you can go to work and beat the shit out of my ex-boyfriend for all I care, but for now let's just have dinner and enjoy the dinner that I promised you." Alissa shoots herself a look down and realizes that she's in her pijamas, "I should probably get up and get dressed."

Alissa got up but I quickly jumped and grabbed her back down and kissed her, "You don't need to. You look as beautiful as ever." I smile, in disbelief that someone like her exists. Maybe I'll keep wondering about what Ash meant, and maybe it'll never make sense to me because I'm a natural overthinker, but right now all I know is that this Alissa is exactly the person she says she is.

"I love you Alissa," I say, "I told you that before right?" I tease.

Alissa giggles and comes closer to me, "Once or twice, but I love you too."

***

I make it to the 15th floor of the building the next day. I left Alissa's pretty early with the excuse that I have too much work to submit, but I wanted to dig deeper into her theory about Ash. I saw the tag on the wall, it read Jackson Ravenborn, Editor-in-Chief, I scraped my eyes before I read it again.

"So you're telling me you're in charge of everything in here Mr. Douche?" I say as I burst into his office, he was wearing a gray suit and a white button shirt under it. Dare I say this is the first time I see him dressed up in a decent way ever since we met.

"Yes I am," He says without looking up from his laptop, "and it's Mr. Ravenborn please." he adds. "We both know I'd rather get fired than call you Mr. Ravenborn." I say, trying to win whatever argument we are having right now, but he is careless. He prints something off his laptop and hands it to me.

"Then you're fired," he says with a smirk, "since it's what you rather do." I admit that I lost this now. As much as I hate him I can't lose my job, "Fine, Mr. Ravenborn," I say swallowing up my ego, "how come you didn't change your last name?" I ask, trying to change the topic.

"My name is Jackson Ravenborn," he says as he finally looks me in the eyes, "Ash is my dead brother."

"What?" I ask, with so many questions in my head. Could it be?

Ash bursts into laughter, "God Ez, you're still as stupid as ever," he says, "Stop letting people manipulate you so easily."

My eyebrows tense, hinting I'm getting mad, "Don't you ever call me Ez again you twat." I yell, but Ash didn't stop giggling, "Fine, cool off dimwit." he says, "What is it you wanted anyways?" he sighs.

"I want to know about the letter," I say, loud and clear, "the letter you sent Alissa."

Ash's eyes widen up, he disappeared into a world of thought and he starts pacing through the office until he finally stops and starts writing into a small sticky note he got from his desk. "Meet me there," He says as he hands me the note, "Tonight." and he took off, I don't know where he went, and to be quite frank I didn't care that much.

I opened the note and found a place written on it. It was a place I was familiar with, but it wasn't a place I wanted to go to with Ash - Especially Ash.