Pieces

21. All The Good In The World

"I don't know." Antonio replied, his voice barely a whisper all of a sudden. A distant look shone across his eyes- it was as if he was looking at me, but far from seeing me. It was as if he'd been drawn out of the present and thrown into a completely different time zone, or at least a completely different location.

"Hey, you okay?" I asked him, suddenly feeling a pang of guilt as I realized I'd been too self centered to take his feelings and his reactions into consideration.

He snapped out of his daze and this time a more hurtful expression darkened his salient features. "I just... I'm so lost." He choked, his tone wavering a bit. He turned away from me, looking around the shed all at once. "I mean, this... this changes everything! It's like I didn't even know the guy... How could I have been so..." He struggled to finish his sentence and turned to look at me "... so lost in my own life? How could I not have known... Jesus Christ!" He was tense. That much was obvious. His hands were trembling, his eyes flying madly across the room. He packed back and forth restlessly, unable to keep his calm. It reminded me of the first time we'd had a confrontation with Draco.

"Could it have been Draco?" I gulped, attempting to distract him from his frustrations.

"What?" He stopped to glare at me.

"Do you think he could have been the person behind the camera?" I said, quietly.

"What the hell does it matter?! I just realized the person I called my best friend- I know nothing about him! It's like he's a stranger to me! How could he have hidden something this... this huge from me? Moreover, why did he want it to be you- the first to find this?" He resumed pacing back and forth across the room in fury, his tone rising in octaves. "God, and how could I have not known? How could I not tell he was hiding something this... this huge? How could I have been so ignorant and so indifferent as to never even ask what he did around here? I guess I just assumed he took a nap here." He stopped midway and turned to face me again. "But why do you get to be the first one to know? What's so special about you?"

I flinch at the tone of his voice, knowing exactly where this was heading.

"What have you done to deserve this whole- this whole set of "pieces"? Why do you get to be the person he thought of every single one of his last days? Why do you get all this? You weren't there when Draco and his gang cornered him! You weren't there when he broke up with Mikaela! You sure as hell weren't there when all he needed was encouragement to convince his parents to let him work at Uncle Joe's!"

I swallowed the lump in my throat, stepping away from him and towards the door. I didn't know what to say because I was as lost as he was. I didn't blame him for feeling the way he felt. He'd already shown enough tolerance, enough affection, enough patience than I could ever put past myself, were I in his situation. But that doesn't mean it didn't sting. That doesn't mean, that with every one of those questions that sounded more like accusations, my heart didn't break a little more.

"I'm gonna go get his dad... He needs to see this." I whispered as I turned away and walked out before he could say another word.

I kept walking in the direction of the cottage, my vision blurring a little more with each step I took. A huge wave of guilt and hurt washed over me and I felt like a huge chunk of my heart had been yanked open. It was a strange feeling. Ever since I'd gotten that letter, I'd been asking myself all the same questions. So why did it hurt so bad when someone else asked them instead?

I shook away all thoughts and rubbed my eyes before knocking at the door of the cottage. I could hear some rustling before the door opened to reveal the same man I'd met mere minutes ago, his eyes half closed as he struggled to manage a single word: "What?"