Like All Things, It Too Shall Pass

Chapter 19

"A rumor is a social cancer: it is difficult to contain and it rots the brains of the masses. However, the real danger is that so many people find rumors enjoyable. That part causes the infection. And in such cases when a rumor is only partially made of truth, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where the information may have gone wrong. It is passed on and on until some brave soul questions its validity; that brave soul refuses to bite the apple and let the apple eat him. Forced to start from scratch for the sake of purity and truth, that brave soul, figuratively speaking, fully amputates the information in order to protect his personal judgment. In other words, his ignorance is to be valued more than the lie believed to be true."

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Vanessa

"Now remember, you have to get him to talk about it, but don't make it seem as if you're up to something. Get him to tell you how he feels about it, and after he leaves, call me." Ms. Ezekiel told him before leaving. For the past few days since I've learned that she knows stuff, we have been doing a lot of snooping around in her husband's stuff. We found a lot of information including all of the papers concerning how his brother and Amy's dad were in the army and everything else. We also found a lot of pictures of Amy's father. He must have gotten someone to get them for him, but it looked as if he'd been keeping tabs on Amy's father before he died. But none of that surprised us. The problem was that there was no way we could go to the police with what we had, so she came up with the plan where I had to act all nice and pretend to care about him in order to get him to admit that he hated Amy's family. As soon as she left, I went up and took a shower and got myself ready waiting for Mr. Ezekiel to come home from the "church". That's where he said he has been going a lot to pray but according to the guy we paid to follow him, he only went to the church on Sunday mornings. As soon as I heard his car outside, I got up from the living room, walked in the kitchen, and sat in front of the textbooks making it looked as if I had been studying.

"Hey Vanessa." He said going up to his room. I looked at him and smiled. I went back to actually reading a passage in the book when he came back down wearing nothing but an undershirt and shorts. His muscles looked as if they were about to pop out of the shirt. I looked at him from head to toe and quickly averted my eyes from him when I noticed that he had seen me looking. He looked at me and smiled as he shook his head.

"So, when do you have time to work out, since you're always busy with the church and all that?" I asked him not hiding the fact that I was looking at him.

"Well you know, I do a little something at night when everyone is sleeping." He said taking the orange juice out of the fridge.

I smiled and went back to reading.

"What you studying for?" He asked me.

"History." I told him.

"Really? Sucks for you. I can't stand history." He said.

"You seem relaxed today, not in a rush like usual." I told him thinking of a way to bring up his brother in the conversation.

"Yea, well, I have been rushing a lot ever since what happened." He said.

"You mean with Jeremiah?" I asked fully knowing what he was talking about.

"Well, that and the death of my little brother." I smiled to myself, enjoying the fact that he was stupid enough to mention his brother before I had the chance to do so.

"You want to talk about it? I mean were you guys that close?" I asked him with a soft look on my face and by looking at his face I knew that I had him right where I wanted him.