Lies and Fear

Chapter 3: Don't Believe In Happy Endings

Eric

How could Cean do that to my brother? How could he do what he did?

It was my entire fault of course. There’s no way it couldn’t be, no doubt in my mind.

Have you ever lost someone?

Tried to take them back but the damage is done.

I know that I deserve it.

But has Kian really lost all faith?

Please, forgive me. I was lost, or maybe I was just afraid.

Could you please forgive me?

Kian

“Why would that boy do this?” Aqua wrote shaking her head wirily.

I looked at her. How beautiful she was. Just lovely. “You seriously don’t know?”

“Well Duh! If I knew why would I ask, idiot.” Wonder what her voice is like?

“Ok,” My voice, my confidence. It was gone. I didn’t want to tell her. If I tould her about Cean, what if she guessed? What if she found out? “Well, um. You did sorter save me. You just stepped in. He probably hates you now because you helped me.”

“Why should he hate it if I help you?” Her writing was so frantic I could barely read it.

“You shouldn’t have. It was a stupid thing to do. Do you even know what you did? You just condemned yourself to hell. He’ll do everything he does to me to you as well now. He’ll practically kill you!”

“He must hate you with a passion,” She looked scared, “What you do to him anyway?”

“To him?” What the heck could I say? “To him, nothing. But he blames me…”

“Blames you? For what?” I could never let her know. If she found out. If I lost her because of that. I, I just wouldn’t be able to bare it, “For something that happened a long time ago.”

Aqua

He wouldn’t tell me any more. Whatever it was, must pain him greatly. And, I so wished I could tell him. But I knew, I knew what he would say if I tould him. I knew I would loose him. Eventually he would find out, because the truth always came out. But I would delay it as long as possible.

“Aqua honey are you sure you’ll be ok?” My mum was worried. They were going off on a business trip during the long weekend.

I was happy for them; it was after all the first time they had gone away since Sam’s death. It was a very stressful time. Dad had to go on this trip or he’d loose his job, witch in all fairness was reasonable considering how much he’d been neglecting his work the past few months even though he was still getting paid, a lot.

Mum had been the complete opposite. She hadn’t stopped working since the funeral seeming to spend almost more time at the office than at home. So she needed a holiday.

They would be taking a two hour flight to, who knows where, before staying three days and coming home on the forth. Dad would be working only for one day, maybe a bit of the second as well but no matter what he’d promises mum that they’d spend a whole day just relaxing and doing the things she wanted.

The holiday didn’t appeal to me at all, so I vouched to stay at home by myself. There were a lot of objections of cores. In the end though Eric said he’d stay with me. At the time I thought he was just being nice, brotherly, kind. He knew I didn’t like going away.

But, once my parent’s left everything changed.

We sat down to watch a movie that night. At the beginning we were sat at opposite ends of the sofa. After a while it got a bit cold so I pulled out the blanket and moved closer to share it with him. Halfway through he had his arm round me. And slowly, ever so slowly he pulled me into him. By the end I was pretty much laying on him.

When it was done I just sort of lay there. Then he moved. I shut my eyes hoping he’d think I was asleep. At first I thought it had worked. He got up turned off the T.V then picked me up in his arms and carried me. The whole time I stayed as limp as a doll. He laid me in bed but as soon as he’d put me down the thought struck me. This wasn’t my bed.

Kian

In the end we slept in the music room. Not that we had much choice. No one came to let us out until seven the next morning. We had to both talk to the principle about unseemly behaviour at a boarding school as respected as this. But when we were asked to give out own side of the story it was awful.

We had agreed the night before that we wouldn’t say what really happened. The story we stuck to was that I had gone to the music room because sir had asked me to tune the piano and I had forgotten to. Unable to find the lights I didn’t bother turning them on. After I had tuned the piano I had gone into the music closet to put back some music that had been left out. Intrigued I had spent some time reading it only to come out to find the door locked.

Aqua

I had been reading in the music room earlier because it was quiet. It had been a stressful first day and all I wanted was some piece. I had been very tired so had closed my book and my eyes. The next thing I knew it was pitch black and some boy was rattling on the door as if it was locked. He hadn’t noticed me because I had fallen asleep on a bench at the back of the room lying down behind a table. (where I had in fact slept that night).

As you might guess the teachers at first didn’t by it one bit. But gradually we manage to bring them round to our way of thinking. Getting a confirmation that a student had locked the door the night before and the closet door had been open in the room was easy as pie.

Kian

So just like that we were off the hook. Back to class, back to normal. Back to Ceans threats and glaring eyes.

Aqua and me. We were friends. That was official now. That night she had taught me basic sign language. And for the next week we practised every moment we had until I could hold down a pretty good conversation even if there were a few holes. I was still learning.

Eric

I liked to think Kian was smart because of me. That it was my tutoring and my way of getting him to do his homework all those years ago. No. He really was just naturally a smart person. Yet even though he was smart no one could approach him without fear shooting through his body. No one could touch him with out tears welling up in his eyes and almost always flowing down his cheeks. He was a scared child.

“Did I ever tell you the story of Joy?” Sam asked me as we sat in my car waiting for my brother’s school to end. I had only had my driving licence a week but already it was of a lot of use.

“Joy? As in Happiness? No.” How much I loved her stories.

“Ok then, listen up. Joy was an angel. A beautiful angel who was in love with a human prince. But the prince did not love her. He called her a demon and a slave of satin. And so one day when an assassin attacked the prince she flew down to earth and saved his life. Pretending to be a princess of a far away kingdom the prince’s father wanted him to marry the girl who had saved his life. But the prince refused. Instead he married a farmer’s daughter. A common girl of no importance. He married her because he loved her and when the angel killed her he wept and took his own life. The angel was so distraught by this she asked god to give back both the prince and the girl. In exchange she would giver herself to the devil so he may clam no more angels and torment no more people. God christened her Joy for she brought Joy to the world and happiness to the prince and the girl. But forever the angel did love the prince, even though she was now Satins girl. And the prince new what she had done. He and his wife grew old and when eventually his wife died he wept. Then giving her a parting kiss he took his own life asking the devil to take him as his boy to replace Joy. The devil agreed. Because the prince loved the angel he gave himself so she would not suffer any more. Because she had suffered for him even after he had rejected her, even after he had humiliated her and deemed her a demon.”

Kian would do something like that for Aqua. He would trade himself for her so that she would not suffer.