Perfume

Chapter Eleven - Loved

~     bella     ~

I asked Linden again if he wanted to come over once again after school that same day. We were standing by his building, just a feet or two away from the door of the lobby.

     He pressed his lips to my chin. I shivered involuntarily. "I'm sorry," he said. He almost tilted his lips up so that they met mine, but he pulled back instead. "I'll see you later, Bella. I'm sorry." He kissed my chin again and went inside. 

     I walked another block and then hailed a cab. I gave him Nate's address and it drove off. 

     I still couldn't get Linden's panic attack out of my mind. He's said it was caused by the stress of finals, and he had lied. I wasn't an expert in panic attacks - far from it - but I did know a test wouldn't cause a person to have an attack. Unless that person was super dedicated to school to the extreme. And I knew Linden wasn't like that.

     So there was something he wasn't telling me. 

     I could not blame him, really, for keeping something away from me. Perhaps he had finally learned that I wasn't a good person. Perhaps he was going to try to slowly get rid off me. Once again, I couldn't blame him at all. He was probably doing the right thing. The thing a normal person would do. It didn't feel pleasant. It hurt. But it was the best for him.

     I arrived at Nate's building ten minutes later. It was tall and sleek and made of steel. A doorman opened the door for me. He was tall and dark-haired. He seemed new. Usually an old man with white hair would be opening the door instead of this one. 

     Three minutes later, the elevator opened in the tenth floor, all of which the Venenoso owned. I walked through the foyer of their home and into the living room. Nate sat there, watching some football game. His hands were folded behind his head. He was so involved in the game - eyes wide, muttering directions to the T.V. - that he didn't see me enter.

     "Hello to you too," I said as I took a seat next to him.

     "Hey, Han," he said, turning toward me for a second to pat my wrist and then went back to his game.

     I smiled.

     No, Nate and I's relationship had never been one like Linden and I's. We hadn't ever really kissed. But we were friends. Once again, it had never been part of my plan, to become friends with Nate. To care for someone I would have to hurt. Because I would have to hurt Nate. I would have to kill his dad, and I was using him to get closer. 

     At first, I hadn't cared much for Nate. I just saw him as dumb blond, an easy way to get to his dad, to all the information on his little association with all the other men that killed plants. And I had found out some information. James H. Kelly hadn't been officially part of the group. He was a secret member, because he didn't want people knowing he was taking part in this deforestation. I, however, found out thanks to Nate. I was at his house one day, and he was watching T.V. I went to get some drinks and snoke into Venenoso's office on the way. And in a stack of documents on his desk, I found a portfolio that contained all the information on Venenoso's army. I photocopied it right there and slipped the copies into my backpack. And that's how I obtained all the information I would need to track them down.

     Despite my initial thoughts about Nate, he had proved to be more than that. He had proved to be a close friend. He was one of the few people who knew about my parents' death. He didn't know all the details, of course, but I had told him the basics: that they had died in a fire at a green house. If he was smart enough he would have put two and two together. 

     Nate clapped his hands as he stood up and began to bark out even more orders to the T.V. I laughed as my eyes went to the space above the flatscreen, where the portrait was located at.