Dark Secrets

Face to Face

     The silence that engulfed the apartment was offset by the blazing sun coming in through the window, the light hot and wide. Dahlia groaned and turned over to hide her face, and her hand hit something solid, fleshy. She gasped and pushed up, coming eye to eye with Mercury, who was sitting against the headboard at a perfect ninety degree angle, her hands in her lap. Neither of them moved for a handful of seconds.

     "Wha- it's morning?" Dahlia blubbered, eyesight still a tad blurry.

     "Yes," agreed Mercury.

     "I missed work!"

      "Yes," agreed Mercury again.

     Dahlia scrambled out of bed, felt ridiculous, and licked at her sleep tasting teeth. "Why didn't you wake me?"

     Mercury slid to the edge of the bed and dangled her legs. "It wasn't my business."

     Of course. Of course. "Where are my shoes? My jacket?"

     Mercury pointed to the bedside table. Dahlia's jacket was folded atop it and her shoes were sitting on the floor before it.

     "You took them off me?"

     "You asked me to."

     Dahlia didn't remember that. She recalled getting hot in the middle of the night, then being not so hot. "Well... thanks."

     Unresponsive, Mercury hopped off the bed and pulled her towel off the door. "I'm leaving."

     "Where?" Dahlia followed Mercury to the bathroom. "Why?"

     "Family lunch."

     Dahlia's heart stopped. "Are you going to tell your mom about me?" Then, already knowing the answer, said bleakly, "If you're asked."

     "Yes." Mercury stripped, piled her clothes, then stepped into the shower. Staring at that damned flowered shower curtain, Dahlia bit her lip. Would Lilith come for her as soon as Mercury spoke? Would Mercury bother to be the hero again? Was all of this inevitable? And what in the world possessed Mercury to buy that stupid shower curtain?

     "Does your mom abuse you?" asked Dahlia without thinking.

     In pure Mercury fashion, the response that came over the noise of running water was, "No." Plain and simple. Truth.

     "Why doesn't she want me around you?"

     "She thinks you're a threat to me."

     "Why?"

     "I don't know."

     As the shower shut off and Mercury begun to dry herself, Dahlia frowned. "When she came to kill me it seemed like you knew why."

     Mercury dabbed at her face. "I know why," she said, slipping by to get to the bedroom. "But I don't know why she thinks it's you."

     "Why what's me?"

     "The person who will bring me out."

     Dahlia remained in the doorway of the bedroom so Mercury could move around and get dressed in peace. "Bring you out? What does that mean?"

     "It's none of your business."

     Flustered by such an answer but unwilling to let it drop, Dahlia cocked a hip. "Well, what about me is going to bring you out?"

     "I don't know."

     "You don't know. Really."

     Mercury was finished now and sitting on the edge of the bed to tie her shoes. "Really."