Possessed

Chapter 21: The Boy Down the Street

A knock on the door startled me. I stopped doing my homework and listened for my mother's hurrying set of footsteps, but none came. A little irked, I put down my homework on the bed and skipped down the stairs. The knocking got increasingly more frantic with each step.

"Wait, wait, I'm coming," I mumbled.

I fumbled with the keys for a moment before placing one of them in and sliding the door open.

"Hello," A handsome young boy, who looked to be in his twenties, stood on our front porch. He had messy dark hair swept to one side of his head. His eyes were a mesmerizing green and his voice was smooth and deep.

I felt a slight jolt in my stomach at the sight of him.

"Hello?" I asked more than replied to his question, "Can I help you?"

"I'm sorry I think I should introduce myself. I'm Clara's son, Ed Perkins," he said.

At once, an image of the unfriendly woman stirred at the back of my memory. Wait a minute, Clara had a son? I didn't even think she was married! She certainly didn't look old enough to have a twenty-something son.

"My mom's not home," I told him, thinking he must be here because of something his mother sent him for.

"No, I.....actually, I wanted to talk to you," his eyes looked at me pleadingly.

"Me?" I blinked. I didn't even know him. At all. Now that he had revealed that he came here for me, the fact that I'd told him I was all alone didn't make me feel the slightest bit better. I mean, he was a total stranger. What if he wasn't actually Clara's son but a murderer? My hands that were still holding the door knob tightened and my knuckles turned white.

"Yes, regarding this," he brought up a newspaper that I hadn't noticed before.

I looked at him questioningly before letting my eyes trail to the paper. Under the insufficient light of my front porch, I could barely scan out the front page headline: REMNANTS OF THE PAST FOUND IN CLOSET. The article was, as I recognized it to be, about the skeleton that I'd found with Odette in the closet of the spare room of our house.

"This was about a month back," I stated, "What about it?"

"It's a long story. Can I come in? It's cold out here," he requested.

I sighed resignedly, "I guess you can."

He stepped inside and I closed the door behind him. I must be crazy, I concluded in my head, to let a stranger in. Even kids knew better than to do that.

I directed Ed towards the living room and after making sure he was seated, got us two cups of steaming coffee. He was my guest now, so I guess I was being a good host.

"Thanks," he said as I handed him his mug.

"Now," I settled myself across him, "what is all this about?"

"This was my house before," he started, gesticulating around him.

"Excuse me?" I was about to take a sip but paused, unsure of what I'd heard.

"I used to live in this house," he repeated, "with my mom and dad."

"Oh," I uttered, still not getting the purpose of his visit.

"We've lived here since I was born about two decades ago," he began, "My parents' marriage was one of those arranged ones; they never really loved each other. Growing up, I got used to it and took it as something natural. While small bickers and arguments were fine, what they had was much more than that. My dad was abusive." He placed his hands around his cup, taking his time to begin next. I looked at him sympathetically. His mom had been through a lot obviously. No wonder she had this cold, outer wall that she had put up to deal with it.

"Our family, no prizes for guessing, was never a happy one, but my dad failed to see that. He always thought he was doing us both some kind of huge favor by letting me study at a school and letting us live with him. At school, it was another story. I constantly got bullied; though, I never brought the complaints home. I had enough problems at home as it was. As school ended each day, I let my problems get locked up with it. My dad was overly pressurizing about everything. A vase was broken meant we were careless. A 'B' in History test meant I was an ungrateful child." He shook his head, enchanted in his own thoughts.

"Then what?" I asked softly, not daring to break the spell of his past that he was under.

"At one point, I wanted to run away. I even told my mother to come with me. But despite my father's irrationality and abusive nature, my mother loved him like he had never loved her. She wouldn't let me fight him. She wouldn't let me utter anything against him! She was so stubborn at times, I felt frustrated. Why would anyone want to protect someone who practically eats her soul alive?" he yelled out angrily on the last part, caught up in his emotions. Tears flowed freely from his eyes. I put a hand on his arm to calm him down.

"It went on for years like that, he became an alcoholic. As you might have guessed, his obnoxious side took a turn for the worst. He began beating my mom, now along with me as well, every week and sometimes, as frequently as every night. I couldn't stop him. My mom wouldn't let me! Then one night three years ago, he charged at us with a gun that he always kept with him. He was tired of us, he told us. He was going to end both of our lives then and there. Only, I couldn't let him do that."

As Ed narrated on, a sense of déjà vu washed over me. This was the scene I had seen before, when I'd collapsed in the tub.