Tearing Paper

Allies?

"You really finished it. You must be so excited about this," Xavier smiled widely as he went through the neatly-typed poem book that Nate handed to him.

"I actually finished it last week but... something popped up," Nate scratched his head, wondering if he should tell Xavier everything about Dianne.

"Is it something important? You look insomniac," Xavier said.

"It's fine. I can deal with it on my own," Nate decided to lie instead. Xavier stared at him and Nate knew he was a bad liar. "So... do you think it can be published?"

"Well there's a data form that the author must fill, but you know, it's always fine to use pen names. And if she wants to remain unknown, you can always leave some of the fields blank. I can work with that," Xavier winked.

"Thank you," Nate received the form and decided to fill it in himself.

He did not know if this was a good move. Dianne was gone-he could not stop wondering where she was, but if this town could really make her dream come true through that published poem book, he somehow believed that she would, one way or another, come back to him.

-

"Do you think she would be that stupid? You are not making this any easier," Lucio mocked Nate as he stepped back into his car.

"Why are you so sure? I thought we're allies." Again, Nate could only wonder whether he could really treat Lucio as a friend. Lucio had acted so secretive about his relationship with Dianne-but right now, they both were looking for her, and he could be the only useful source of help Nate had.

"She ran away with her twin brother," Lucio simply said as he drove.

"What? You're kidding me. We both looked for that twin brother of hers in Namiri. He was nowhere."

"Well that's clearly because he's here in town, idiot!"

"He is?" Nate spoke, almost to himself, and pressed his fingers on his temples. Dianne met Devon when she was running away from him.

It all sounded so-fated.

If Dianne ran away from him for good, would he really go miles to get her back from the brother she had missed so much?