Secrets

Chapter 3

Today; Niall took Zayn to meet our client, Savannah. While I would be sitting in my office; eating junk food and watch movies, thinking the meaning of life and the origins of human being, maybe.

I opened Zayn’s bedroom door and looked for some good books to kill some time. Zayn owns a few shelves and quite a lot of books. He is a clever man without enough education. If you open a random book found on his shelves; you’d see some words are underlined by pencils. He would note those words down in a tiny notebook and check on the dictionary later when he has the time. You would also find some sentences highlighted with a green or pink highlighter. He would copy those sentences on another notebook. The green highlighter is for good sentence structure; the pink one is for good quotes. He has a thick Oxford Dictionary in his drawer. He always says “I don’t care if my kids don’t know about physics or history; but language is important. I didn’t have the chance the learn language properly from my parents; but my kids will.” So when he is improving his language; he is doing it for his future sons and daughters. But for me, personality is the most important. Because without personality; you couldn’t be a person; you could only be a human being.

I scanned his shelves and then I saw it. “Rules of Love”. It says it would teach me how to love and how to be loved. Most importantly how to find love. It says there’re 100 rules to follow when it comes to love. It is quite interesting; but I don’t understand why the author called it the “Rules”. Love is something that naturally grown from the heart isn’t it? If it’s from our hearts; there’s shouldn’t be any “rules” to follow. Whatever, I am not an author and I will never be one.

I went to the kitchen and made myself a cup of tea. And then I headed back to the living room again. I sat on the sofa; adjust myself until I get the most comfortable position. I sipped some tea; rubbed the white book cover genteelly and opened it to the first rule.

After about an hour or two, I have read almost half of it. My mug is completely dried with some brownish tried tea stuck on the bottom of it. I am not a fast reader myself, let alone the fact that I think this book is boring. It’s not the author’s fault, though. I bet a lot of people find it amazing. That’s why it gets to the number 1. However, I am not one of those people. I don’t agree with most of the rules I read so far. It says you have to believe in love to find love. But before you find your love; how can you ever be convinced that someone out there, someone you don’t know and never met is meant to grow old with you? Before you fall in love, how can you really believe in it? It also mentioned that if you want to be loved; you need to love. Sometimes that’s true, but we all know the truth is that in most of the real life love stories; the love you gave does not equal to the love you receive back. So many high school students out there fall in love with their best friends and gave them everything, but they still ended up dating some other heart-breakers.

I suddenly heard the front door opened. But Niall and Zayn shouldn’t be back so early, who’s that? I pulled my shirt a bit and put my shoes on; I assumed it’s a client.

“Hello, what can I hel- Oh! It’s just you.” I went down there and found that it was Harry.

Remember I kinda mentioned Harry Styles, our homicide detective employee?

“What do you mean ‘just you’?” he lifted his eyebrows and asked.

“Nothing, I thought you were a client.”

“Ha! You wish! People like you, better not be making a lot of money.” He laughed and headed upstairs, I followed.

“I’d rather be a real bad guy than a bad guy pretended to be the good guy, detective.” I playfully laughed a bit and said, “What brought you here, anyways? I mean, you seldom come here.” I handed him a bottle of spring water but he refused.

“No, thanks. I would like some orange juice.” I shrugged and opened the refrigerator again to take the juice. “I just, um. I haven’t seen you guys in a long time, you know.” He said. I poured the juice into a glass and handed it to him. He wrapped his big hands around the cool glass and drank almost half glass of the juice at once.

“I know this, Harry.” I sat next to him and said.

“What?” he acted like there’s nothing happened, but I know he’s lying.

“This! You wrap your hands around the glass every time you don’t know how to tell me something! What happened?” Harry is a detective and there’s a risk that he may betray us someday because of his job; but as a friend; I know I can trust him and he knows he can trust me.

“It-it’s Dawn.” He finally let those words escape his mouth.

“What happened to her?” Dawn is his girlfriend. We all know her and we are friends. Of course she doesn’t know we’re contract killers, she thought we are just normal private investigators who work for the police.

“Well, she is pregnant.” Harry looked up and said.

“What?” I yelled out because I was so happy for him. Yes it is a little bit early to become a father in the age of 20 but who cares? It’s a happy thing!

I pulled Harry closer and gave him a really, really big hug. But he quickly pushed me away.

“What is it? Why are you looking so sad, it’s a happy thing!” I said.

“I never said it’s not!” he said, “But as soon as the baby is born, I am not working for this company anymore…”

“I see, you need more time with the baby?” I said, still smiling very big as I feel so happy for him. He and Dawn’s baby will be so attractive and is gonna break a lot of hearts in the future.

“Yeah… and I will probably never come here again.”

“I understand, it’s not like you are here very often anyway, haha!”

“No. I mean after the baby is born, we are gonna become strangers. Like, we ‘never met each other’.”

“Wait.What? Why?” my face just dropped. So he didn’t just want to quit the job, he wanted to pretend that he never knew me. He wanted everyone from this company out of his life.

“You know the reason, Lou.” He sighed and said, “I am a homicide detective. I cooperated with you guys because I wanted the money. But I am getting married because of the baby now; and when I have my own family; I don’t want a bunch of killers to be included in my family history.”

“You don’t want us to pollute your name, do you? Styles?”

“I am so sorry Louis, but yes. Being a contract killer isn’t something to be proud of. And as a cop, even being friends with contract killers isn’t something to be proud of. Why do you think I didn’t tell Dawn about your real identities? Huh?”

“Alright. I got it. You’re right, it’s not something to be proud of. I understand.” I looked at ground and said. I think I just lost a friend.

“I’m sorry Louis. But it is so nice to know you, I am really glad to once have you in my life. And please be careful when you do your jobs, I don’t want to put you in prison someday.” he said and shook hand with me.

I opened the front door for him. I saw him got into the car and just drove away. He’s not even looking back for the very last time. Do I hate this? I do. But do I hate him? No I don’t. I can’t blame him for this. I can only blame myself, for being who I am. It’s hard to lose a friend, but it is even harder to see a friend being so stressed out because of me. So maybe this is the best for both of us. He was right about one thing. He is a homicide detective and he is working and being friends with a bunch of people who commit homicide as a career. He’s literally playing with fire. Whenever you play with fire, it’s only the matter of time that you’d get burnt. Family is what the most important so it is absolutely bright and right to leave us when he still can.