A Rose to Change a Life

Chapter 20

The Innocent are Evil Beings

We continued to sit there for a long time, it could have been minutes, it could have been hours, in the end we had only sat there for an hour, not one minute more. Both of us had a warm feeling in our chests – I could not tell for him, but according to the big face-splitting grin he was wearing, I think I was able to safely assume it. By now the sun had risen high above the horizon, forcing us to shield our eyes with our hands. 

I hoped that Keane had found something whilst doing his coffee break, he acted like a little bit of a diva before. Perhaps he needed a snickers because he suffered from low-blood-sugar? I wonder if Elise even had a Snickers, I shall ask her then. Those minutes with Devin helped me forget about everything for a bit, I did not forget all of it, it would not have been wise to anyway, but at least my mind was filled with a few good moments now. Way better than having a soul-sucking black hole.

On our way back Devin suddenly stopped, his eyes fixated somewhere, turning his lips into a smirk.

"I'll be right back," he muttered and left me standing there dumbfounded. Shortly after, he came back, his hands behind his back. "I've got something for you."

A rose came into view, a rose with pedals red as blood and dorns which looked ready to pierce one's skin. It was beautiful. "Your grace leaves a trace," he repeated the phrase from the supermarket. He was cute, even if we were very close to crossing the borders to ‚cheesy couple'. I had to remedy that, which is why I said, "Don't tell me you stole them, Dev?"

"...I might have–" I began to give them back to him, —"BUT is it really stealing when they are growing on a field in the middle of nowhere? It's no stealing of nature either, as nature was made for pleasing other people and I DID please you with this."

Oh boy, he came up with the most idiotic explanations,... though I could not be mad at him, it was not even a reason to BE mad to begin with. "You are an idiot." I playfully told him whilst shoving his chest.

"Idiotic me, always at your service, madam." he bowed. Yup, definitely a humorous. "Come on, let's get back. They are probably waiting for Idiotic-Rosecashier and Miss-OJ."

We made their way up the steps, feeling nostalgic when we remembered the last time they found themselves on these, stopping in front of apartment door six. Everything was silent, sounding normal, almost too normal. Turning the key in the lock, the door popped open immediately – wait, Elise did not lock the door after we left? How odd, she always did....perhaps she simply forgot.

Pushing the door wide open, I yelled, "Elise, I'm home." There was no answer, so I tried again. "Kean, Elise! We are back!" When there was no answer still, I knew something was terribly wrong. Our flat was not big enough for needing to yell thrice, if you did not hear it after the second time there were three options; either you were deaf, you were purposely ignoring it or you simply were not there. I knew that despite Elise's age she most certainly was not deaf, as she heard the coughing of a mite. Neither was she purposely ignoring us, she had no reason to and further, it was not her style. So the third option remained,...

Devin steadied me with his hand to my lower back, guiding us into the apartment. We searched it all, but aside from a half-full coffee pot and a splattered carpet, there was no sign of them. Kean for sure would not leave a pot half-empty,... the stains, yes, that could have been him, but I did not peg him for the type who left freshly brewed coffee in the pot. My friend (boyfriend? Fling? Kiss-and-Rose-giving-guy?) seemed equally disturbed, frantically searching for his brother. His eyes roamed everything until they landed on the most innocent looking object in the whole apartment; the answering machine. Where there was a dead light before, it now blinked red, signaling an unheard message. This couldn't be good, I thought. Mostly it were the innocent looking things who hurt the most. With shaking fingers I pressed the button to replay the message: