Secrets, Deals and Lies

Chapter 22 - Trouble again

‘… yes, I think she’s fine… okay I’ll show you later… no… yep… alright, bye.’ I wake up with someone talking on a phone their voice loud but distant and I realised I was on my bed.

‘Hey, you alright?’ I open my eyes and find Daniel standing next to my bed. I moan and rub my face.

‘H-how did I get here?’ I ask rolling over and finding Jack right next to me, I flinched at his cold touch under the blanket and ignored the tingling warmth in my arm. ‘I brought you both up here,’ he smiles warmly, ‘found you on the floor near the kitchen.’

I sigh and sit up, looking at the door remembering that I was meant to be angry at him.

‘Look, I’m sorry about what happened last night-’

‘It’s fine,’ I cut him off looking back at him. ‘Just, don’t worry about it okay?’

He looks down for a second then looks back at me, ‘you’re right…’ he trails off as Jack starts to moan, we both look at him for a moment and get lost in our own thought. ‘I think I should go,’ Daniel says walking toward the door; I get off the bed and walk to him.

‘I’m guessing you heard about me and Billy?’ I start. He turns around and looks at me stopping right at the door, ‘yeah.’ He looks down in embarrassment and grief, then looks back up and catches me smiling at him.

‘What?’ he starts to smile even if he didn’t know why. ‘Nothing,’ I look down trying to wipe the smile off and making my mouth a straight line, he chuckles.

I lean on the frame of the door and look back up at Daniel realising he’s gotten taller.

‘Aw, Daniel’s  growing!’ I tease starting to giggle. ‘I know right!’ he exclaims laughing with me, then he stops, looking at me serious, up and down. ‘… and Remy’s, well…  Remy!’ he winks at me and starts laughing again. ‘Grommet,’ I hear him say under his breath my mouth opens in mock-horror before I swat him softly on the arm and start giggling again like a little kid.

When we start to calm down I see Daniel looking at Jack behind me, and he goes quiet. ‘Well, it’s good that we’re all okay now. But, uh, I have to go do something,’ he smiles then walks off to the stairs.

I stop him half way as I stood at the top of the stairs, ‘Daniel...’

He turns around and looks at me, ‘uh, thanks,’ I smile, ‘it was… nice, of you. Especially for bringing Jack.’

He smiles and nods and then he was off.

When I walk into the bedroom Jack was gone, and I started to panic.

‘Jack, where are you?’ I whisper not wanting anyone to know I lost him, ‘Jack,’ I hiss, walking around my bedroom. No answer. I walk downstairs slowly and quietly, looking around for anyone that might see me. ‘Jack,’ I whisper once more. He couldn’t have just left without me knowing, he’d have made some noise with the state that he’s in and all.

I walk to the front door and look out the window, but I couldn’t really see anything.

Nice and slowly, I said to myself.

I open the door and walk out of the porch looking for Jack, ‘Jack,’ I said a bit louder. I could barely see anything in the forest because the sun was already setting behind the house.

So I decided to walk around the forest for a bit. ‘Jack!’ I called, ‘where are you?!...’

I walked around until stars were shinning in the dark blue sky.

Even if I’ve only been walking around for an hour or so I got pretty tired so I decided to walk back to the house remembering the deal, unfortunately.